unable to boot from USB stick - mmx64.efi not found

[fguy]

Greetings

I have a new Dell Inspiron 15 5000 laptop that came preloaded with Windows 10. It does not have a CD/DVD drive so I created a bootable USB stick from the Debian 10.1 netinst iso file.

When I try to boot from the USB, I immediately get a message in text mode that starts out - Failed to open \EFI\BOOT\mmx64.efi - Not Found. I checked the \efi\boot directory on the stick, there was only bootx64.efi and grubx64.ef1.

I tried disabling secure boot in the BIOS setup, but that made no difference.

I tried renaming the grubx64.efi file to mmx64.efi according to a similar situation for Ubuntu that I found. At least that got me to the start screen for the installer, But then I got a message:
error: /install.amd/vmlinuz has an invalid signature
error: you need to load the kernel first


So I am out of ideas. Any suggestions?

Thanks.

[neuraleskimo]

I don’t have any special knowledge here, but just to cover the basics... Did you verify the checksum on the ISO after downloading?

[fguy]

I don’t have any special knowledge here, but just to cover the basics... Did you verify the checksum on the ISO after downloading?

No I didn't. So I downloaded another netinst file and verified the checksum using sha256sum, and it checked out. I then re-burned the image onto the USB stick and tried again to boot from it. Same problem.

[Dai_trying]

I haven't come across this error before but I would try the Live-Cd version to see if that boots on your machine, I have an Inspiron 15-3552 which has no problem booting any image I write to usb sticks so it might be a change in the UEFI firmware that has caused this. I also have a Latitude E5470 that boots without issue from usb.

I always run a Live version before any installation (where available) as it usually gives me an indication as to whether the machine is ok to run the OS. Also, if the Live version works ok you can usually install from the same session.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

I created a bootable USB stick from the Debian 10.1 netinst iso file

How, exactly? There are *many* methods and some of them don't work with Debian ISO images.

[fguy]

I created a bootable USB stick from the Debian 10.1 netinst iso file

How, exactly? There are *many* methods and some of them don't work with Debian ISO images.

I used Startup Disk Creator on a Ubuntu machine. There's only two settings, Source image and destination device, so there's not much chance to go wrong.

[fguy]

Update

I should mention that at one point I was able to boot from the USB, but I had to abort the install due to other problems. This leads me to believe that something happened on my SSD drive. I can tell you that it has no EFI\boot directory or partition.

I also had an identical experience trying to install Ubuntu.

[neuraleskimo]

Update

I should mention that at one point I was able to boot from the USB, but I had to abort the install due to other problems. This leads me to believe that something happened on my SSD drive. I can tell you that it has no EFI\boot directory or partition.

I also had an identical experience trying to install Ubuntu.

In that case, are you certain that you are actually booting from USB? (I am not trying to be insulting. I have made similar mistakes myself.) On my Dell workstations (at work so I can't look and check right now), I recall that I must enter the UEFI config and promote the USB ahead of the SSD every time I want to boot off of a USB drive.

BTW, HOAS beat me to the question of how to make a bootable USB drive. The Ubuntu thingy should work, but I like to:

Code: Select all

sudo cp image.iso /dev/sdx && sudo sync

where sdx is the device for your USB drive. This will also work for Ubuntu ISOs.

[fguy]

In that case, are you certain that you are actually booting from USB? ...

I'm certain. When I remove the USB stick it boots into a perfectly good installation of Windows 10, Windows, so I must be booting from USB when I get the error.

As I mentioned, I had the same problem with Ubuntu. I started a thread at Ubuntu Forums trying to solve the problem in Ubuntu

https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2429543

[p.H]

This leads me to believe that something happened on my SSD drive. I can tell you that it has no EFI\boot directory or partition.

When I remove the USB stick it boots into a perfectly good installation of Windows 10

Windows boots without an EFI partition, huh ?

[fguy]

I was mistaken about there being no EFI partition

Anyways, this problem is now resolved.

[Dai_trying]

Could you let us know how you resolved this issue as it might be useful to other users with the same problem.

[fguy]

I'm not exactly sure what happened. I managed to solve the problem in Ubuntu, and suddenly things started to work in Debian. Here is my thread in the Ubuntu forums. Post number 13 is important. I imagine a similar solution would work in Debian.

https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2429543

[Dai_trying]

It looks like you were trying to boot using ubuntu, and not your usb drive as Debian has no mmx64.efi in its images (as far as I have seen) so the solution is probably to make sure you are actually booting from the correct device, but so long as it's working for you now all is good. And thanks for following up with the information, I'm sure it will be useful to others as well as me