Does your thumb drive have a light on it? Can you tell if it is booting from it.
I just booted with the 3rd option/bottom thumb drive and it took a long time I mean a minute or so before it said recovery started. On a normal boot it shows loading OS after about 30 seconds. I am not sure I ever see startup initializing.
I am kinda in the middle of something right now and do not want to wipe and reload this box So i really don’t want to boot with the middle/recreate my storage today to see what the LCD says.
I know you said the thumb booted in your laptop, but could you try a totally different brand of thumb just to see. The absolute cheapest will do. It only has to be 512k
If it still hangs I think we have to go with it is broke. As a last ditch effort you may try taking the cover off and removing the cmos battery for a couple of minutes just to see.
