Hi Don. Probably a good suggestion, but I don't think it will work for me: the Toshiba in question does have an optical drive, but even if I can find a CD burner, I'm not sure I have media I can burn to anymore (I have a stack of blank CDs ... but they're 15+ years old).
On Mon, 22 May 2023 at 08:38, Don Tai <[email protected]> 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 <[email protected]> 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/ [email protected] --- Post to this mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
