[GTALUG] Toshiba Satellite L500 rejects Linux

[Karen Lewellen]

Just wandering through pre-coffee with perhaps? a side resource  idea?
I imagine that you do not, like me, keep external USB hardware, floppies 
drives, cd /dvd burners?
  I ask because if the unit is legacy, but still has USB ports, it may boot 
from something other than  a USB stick, that still uses the port.
Is there a way, yes this may be a silly question too,   that you are 
confirming that USB is a part of the boot sequence?
Is it possible that the stick is formatted in a fashion different from the 
drive in terms of file system, so the install may not  actually be working 
as you wish?
Freedos has some Linux related tools  including USB stick ones that might 
help diagnose the issue.
Wandering away for coffee now,
Karen



On Mon, 22 May 2023, Don Tai via talk wrote:

> 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
>>
>