Boot to external drive on MBA

[Lufbrarunner]

I recently obtained a 13" early 2014 MacBook Air, 4gb RAM, 256gb SSD. It is working well. However when I tried to boot to a super duper clone on an SSD via usb using the Option key at startup, there was no display of bootable drives it just booted straight from the internal SSD.
All other boot options that use the Option key work. I later tried with a wired keyboard and that worked perfectly.
I am just wondering if this is a quirk, a feature or a fault.
It is not a real problem as I do not need to boot from USB very often and the option key works in all other scenarios.
As ever any input is much appreciated.

 

[Applescrumpy]

I recently obtained a 13" early 2014 MacBook Air, 4gb RAM, 256gb SSD. It is working well. However when I tried to boot to a super duper clone on an SSD via usb using the Option key at startup, there was no display of bootable drives it just booted straight from the internal SSD.
All other boot options that use the Option key work. I later tried with a wired keyboard and that worked perfectly.
I am just wondering if this is a quirk, a feature or a fault.
It is not a real problem as I do not need to boot from USB very often and the option key works in all other scenarios.
As ever any input is much appreciated.

Probably a daft question to ask but I take it the clone was of the system running on the newly acquired MacBook Air?

 

[Lufbrarunner]

Yes it was.

 

[Lufbrarunner]

I also tried booting to a USB installer, that too did not appear at boot up with option key.

 

[Applescrumpy]

Have you tried the usual remedies, e.g. Reset NVRAM, PRAM, and SMC if applicable?

 

[Lufbrarunner]

Have you tried the usual remedies, e.g. Reset NVRAM, PRAM, and SMC if applicable?

That was my first port of call.