I'm not sure that it's a portable-media issue. My first instinct is to try a distro that specializes in older HW such as Puppy. That should be installable to and bootable from a USB stick.
If that works it could easily be a wonky Secure Boot implementation. If your preferred target is Debian, perhaps the "Shim" <https://wiki.debian.org/SecureBoot#Shim>tool might help? - Evan On Mon, May 22, 2023 at 9:13 AM Giles Orr via talk <[email protected]> wrote: > 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 >
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