[GTALUG] Toshiba Satellite L500 rejects Linux

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Mon, May 22, 2023 at 08:34:34AM -0400, Giles Orr via talk 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.

Debian can definitely be installed in EFI mode, but you must boot the
installer in EFI mode to do it, not legacy mode.  Usually on UEFI systems
the boot meny gives you a choice of booting in legacy or UEFI mode.

Of course if the system is set to legacy mode instead and you install
in UEFI mode, then when it goes to boot later you will get a boot error
(I think something like BBS HD error (BBS being Bios Boot Specification
apparently)).

It does appear those machines are a disaster and hence the unofficial
BIOS versions out there trying to fix the complete disaster toshiba sold.

-- 
Len Sorensen