[GTALUG] Toshiba Satellite L500 rejects Linux

[Don Tai]

When I find an old computer that won't boot USB I go back to a 32 bit CD
install, then upgrade. Some old PCs simply won't reliably boot with USB.

On Mon, 22 May 2023 at 08:34, Giles Orr via talk <talk at gtalug.org> wrote:

> I've recently acquired (through a friend who stopped using it) a
> Toshiba Satellite L500 - Core i3 (3rd gen?), 4G RAM.  I'm determined
> to get Linux onto it (preferably Debian).  I thought I had succeeded:
> I booted from a Debian USB stick, installed to the HD.  All appeared
> to go well, but the system won't boot.  It returns to the Boot Menu
> and says "HDXXXX has failed."  What the search engines are telling me
> is that with this generation of Toshibas, the problem is generally
> Secure Boot / CSM etc.  Which makes sense, but ... there is absolutely
> zero mention in the BIOS/UEFI ("Phoenix SecureCore Tiano Setup") of
> "Secure Boot," "CSM," "Legacy," or "UEFI."  Acccording to notes I
> found online, "SecureCore Tiano" has "full support" for legacy
> booting.
>
> Another issue with this machine is my mixed success booting from USB
> sticks: I have an old-ish USB stick I built myself that has GRUB and a
> large menu of ISOs: works great on most systems, won't boot on this
> thing - probably because it's an old-style BIOS-boot only(?).
>
> One of my ideas was to upgrade the BIOS: it appears there's a newer
> version available, but it's NOT available from Toshiba, which is the
> only place I'd want to download it from.  The rest look like dubious
> secondary download sites (if you know one you consider reliable, let
> me know).
>
> What I read online said that Fedora's installer puts an EFI partition
> on the HD as part of the install, while Debian doesn't.  And that
> may(?) be why I can't boot from my Debian install?  So ... I
> downloaded the Fedora installer, put it on a USB stick ... and no joy:
> the Toshiba doesn't recognize the Fedora USB stick as a bootable item.
> Would this be because I burned it on a "Legacy" system?  Is there a
> fix for that?  Except ... I'm about 99% sure the Debian Installer USB
> stick was created on the same machine.
>
> Worst case, I can stick the HD from the Toshiba into another machine,
> install Fedora on it, repartition to make room for Debian, put the HD
> back into the Toshiba ... but that's getting damn complicated and
> annoying.
>
> As always - any suggestions welcomed.
>
> --
> Giles
> https://www.gilesorr.com/
> gilesorr at gmail.com
> ---
> Post to this mailing list talk at gtalug.org
> Unsubscribe from this mailing list
> https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://gtalug.org/pipermail/talk/attachments/20230522/5d7f8648/attachment.html>