Scheduled Maintenance: We are aware of an issue with Google, AOL, and Yahoo services as email providers which are blocking new registrations. We are trying to fix the issue and we have several internal and external support tickets in process to resolve the issue. Please see: viewtopic.php?t=158230

 

 

 

[Solved] Anyone solved issues booting 8.7.1 from USB?

Ask for help with issues regarding the Installations of the Debian O/S.
Post Reply
Message
Author
rovernut
Posts: 108
Joined: 2013-11-20 10:50
Been thanked: 1 time

[Solved] Anyone solved issues booting 8.7.1 from USB?

#1 Post by rovernut »

I did something really stupid last week and installed Win7 on my Jessie SSD drive in my Thinkpad T430.
I have to identical Kingston 400GB SSD's and took out my Debian drive and put it back in, rather than my other one. :roll:

Anyway, I put Win7 on the correct drive decided to install 8.7.1. I use full encryption and make a thumb drive my boot device.
I got a new SanDisk 8gb Cruzer Fit and all appears to go well until time to boot up the system. Just comes up to a white cursor and goes no further.
I've put the drive in another computer and it looks fine, including being marked bootable.
I've tried reinstalling 3 times with the same result.

It's not the thumdrive as I just imaged the same drive with Kali and it boots fine.
With previous 8.x versions of Jessie I've been able to boot with a Sandisk Ultra Fit, 8, 16 and 32GB.
Also previous versions booted fine with a no-name 8gb thumb drive I found really cheap on clearance at the drug store.

I thought I'd check to see if this is a known issue (I doubt it) before going back to the last version I installed. I still have the DVD's.
(this is the AMD64 build)
Last edited by rovernut on 2017-04-03 21:26, edited 1 time in total.
Tom Rowe

Four wheel drive allows you to get stuck
in places even more inaccessible.

User avatar
bw123
Posts: 4015
Joined: 2011-05-09 06:02
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 28 times

Re: Anyone solved issues booting 8.7.1 from USB?

#2 Post by bw123 »

Kind of hard to follow the post, did you use a usb to install to another usb? or are you having trouble booting the installer? And can you describe the method the install media was 'imaged' ?
resigned by AI ChatGPT

rovernut
Posts: 108
Joined: 2013-11-20 10:50
Been thanked: 1 time

Re: Anyone solved issues booting 8.7.1 from USB?

#3 Post by rovernut »

bw123 wrote:Kind of hard to follow the post, did you use a usb to install to another usb? or are you having trouble booting the installer? And can you describe the method the install media was 'imaged' ?
Sorry.
Used torrent to download the DVD images
Used k3b to burn the DVD's
Booted disk one on the internal DVD drive
Deleted all HD partitions on the internal Kingston 400GB SSDNOW E hard drive and created 3 new encrypted Ext4 and one non-encrypted (tried both Ext4 & Ext2
  • /
  • swap
  • home
  • /boot - on the USB SanDisk Cruzer Fit 8gb drive
Did the install
Rebooted and got the cursor.

The previous USB's I've used for /boot were formated Ext4 so I know it's not the file system choice.
Exact same process I've used with 8.1 DVD's.

Image
Tom Rowe

Four wheel drive allows you to get stuck
in places even more inaccessible.

User avatar
bw123
Posts: 4015
Joined: 2011-05-09 06:02
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 28 times

Re: Anyone solved issues booting 8.7.1 from USB?

#4 Post by bw123 »

all appears to go well until time to boot up the system. Just comes up to a white cursor and goes no further.
You see no messages, no grub, nothing at all for the first boot after install? The extra info made things a lot clearer, but not sure why the /boot partition on the usb should be the only possible cause, have you tried one of the other usb drives you mentioned are known to work?

or have you tried putting /boot on the hd?
put the drive in another computer and it looks fine, including being marked bootable
The usb contains /boot only, not sure why it would need to be bootable? Where's grub? I don't even have a partition marked bootable, the bios is set to boot from the right device?
resigned by AI ChatGPT

Dai_trying
Posts: 1100
Joined: 2016-01-07 12:25
Has thanked: 5 times
Been thanked: 16 times

Re: Anyone solved issues booting 8.7.1 from USB?

#5 Post by Dai_trying »

After reading this thread I was curious so attempted an install to USB and started by creating a usb boot device with amd64 netinst iso, I burnt it using rufus (version 12.1xxx) in iso mode (not dd mode) and then booted my system and went through the install routine manually creating a 27 Gb partition for system (/) and 4Gb for swap (both on a second USB device). I chose the xfce desktop and left it to install. I am now posting from my thumb drive on this machine.
I am using a USB3 Device connected to a USB3 port on this laptop although I don't know if it will make any difference, and I am booting in UEFI mode.
Just posting in case any information helps.

User avatar
Thorny
Posts: 542
Joined: 2011-02-27 13:40

Re: Anyone solved issues booting 8.7.1 from USB?

#6 Post by Thorny »

rovernut wrote:I did something really stupid last week and installed Win7 on my Jessie SSD drive in my Thinkpad T430.
I have to identical Kingston 400GB SSD's and took out my Debian drive and put it back in, rather than my other one. :roll:
Oops, I imagine you were really sorry and disappointed you weren't more careful.

Since you didn't mention UEFI I assume your install was legacy BIOS. Your system will try to boot from sda, however, if I understood what you wrote correctly, you have installed /boot and GRUB to the mbr of sdb (thumb drive) and that's not where the system will look for it. The system doesn't look for the bootable flag. I may have misunderstood you as I also found your post kind of hard to follow, you didn't actually mention which mbr you installed GRUB to.

The system will try to boot from sda. Does your system act differently if you set the BIOS to boot from the thumb drive?

rovernut
Posts: 108
Joined: 2013-11-20 10:50
Been thanked: 1 time

Re: [Solved] Anyone solved issues booting 8.7.1 from USB?

#7 Post by rovernut »

I was screwing up installing grub.
When prompted I should have selected to install grub to the HD then selected the thumb drive. Instead I selected "No" and then selected the thumb drive.
It was throwing me because when I looked at the contents of the thumb drive it looked right. But I was just going from memory.
Tom Rowe

Four wheel drive allows you to get stuck
in places even more inaccessible.

Post Reply