Proven USB stick won't boot on HP PC

birchy · July 10, 2016 at 11:08 PM

Hi all, first post cos I'm having a bit of trouble. I'm by no means a Linux newbie but am just setting up my first HTPC, which is a HP DC7600. Specs are a P4 CPU, 4GB RAM, Radeon 1GB graphics for Hdmi output.

I'm currently running Kodibuntu on it but want to try LibreElec. I've created an installation USB stick using the dd command. The stick boots fine on my desktop pc but not on the DC7600. I also have another identical stick with Debian 8.5 iso on it (also created using the dd command) and that boots fine.

Any suggestions on what is different with this USB and/or PC?

**Iridium** · July 11, 2016 at 6:51 PM Official Post

Which image are you trying to install?

I've a feeling you're trying to use LibreELEC-Generic.x86_64-7.0.2

and the P4, as far as I know is 32bit (I could be wrong)

If I'm correct (and that is never a good thing to say on a forum) is that you're trying to run a 64bit program on a 32bit machine.

There maybe a 32bit version of LE somewhere but I'm unaware of it.

birchy · July 11, 2016 at 7:54 PM

Hi, thanks for replying. Here are the outputs from a SSH session in KodiBuntu...

Code

birchy@kodi:~$ lscpu
Architecture:          x86_64
CPU op-mode(s):        32-bit, 64-bit
Byte Order:            Little Endian
CPU(s):                2
On-line CPU(s) list:   0,1
Thread(s) per core:    2
Core(s) per socket:    1
Socket(s):             1
NUMA node(s):          1
Vendor ID:             GenuineIntel
CPU family:            15
Model:                 4
Stepping:              9
CPU MHz:               2990.486
BogoMIPS:              5980.97
L1d cache:             16K
L2 cache:              1024K
NUMA node0 CPU(s):     0,1

Display More

Code

birchy@kodi:~$ getconf LONG_BIT
64

...so I'm positive the DC7600 is 64-bit capable. The image I am using is:

LibreELEC-Generic.x86_64-7.0.2.img

I believe this should be compatible with my hardware?? I've disabled "Quickboot" in BIOS settings but still no joy. The Debian installer boots within seconds from an identical USB stick, so I'm at a loss to why the LE stick won't boot. Gparted (on my desktop PC) does complain about the LE stick having GPT tables, but I click "ignore" when prompted to fix them. The Debian stick does not do this. Also worth mentioning is that the LE stick has the first partiton as 512MB FAT16 with the "legacy_boot" flag, however the Debian stick has "unknown" filesystem (1.22GB) and "boot,hidden" flags.

I'm going to try changing the flags on the LE stick to see if that helps. I'm thinking it may be BIOS related as the LE stick boots fine on my AMD64 machine.

If that fails, what's the next step?

**Iridium** · July 11, 2016 at 8:07 PM Official Post

I'm convinced it's related to the 32/64 bit issue

"LE stick boots fine on my AMD64 machine".

I'm an ARM (Raspberry/Cubox) user, so not "au fait" with X86 stuff.

In Arm stuff a lot is done in /boot/config.txt

Apart from that, I'm at a loss - machine independent - for any additional information

birchy · July 11, 2016 at 9:50 PM

Quote from Iridium

I'm convinced it's related to the 32/64 bit issue

Thanks for replying, but I'm not convinced....

Code

birchy@kodi:~$ uname -a
Linux kodi 3.13.0-91-generic #138-Ubuntu SMP Fri Jun 24 17:00:34 UTC 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

It's running x86_64 KodiBuntu, so I can't see any logical reason why it would not run LE (or any other) 64-Bit O.S. Besides that, I know from past experience (with Debian) that a 64-bit image will normally boot on a 32-bit but complain about the architecture being incorrect at the beginning of the installation.

Personally, I think it's purely a boot issue. Possibly related to EFI or the GPT format that LE writes to the USB stick, however I don't know enough about either of those to be able to create a solution. I am wodering if a BIOS update might help but am reluctant to try at this early stage.

birchy · July 14, 2016 at 12:09 AM

Still no joy. This is frustrating. I've upgraded the BIOS to the latest (2009 release date) version and there are no new options available. There is no option for UEFI, so this is just a plain old BIOS. Can LE be installed on this machine, or does the installer only work with EFI boot?

donbrew · July 14, 2016 at 1:49 AM

The key here is HP PC. You have to do something different to get it to boot from USB. I had to do it a week or so ago.
from: 1272919
Plug the USB Pen into any USB port on your PC (even the front port works)Reboot
Press <ESC> during bootup to gain the 'Boot Menu' (or F12 etc depending on your PC)
The USB Pen is now listed (SanDisk in my case)Select it
Hit Enter
Linux boots fine

Either that or you forgot to make the key bootable, in Windows I would use Rufus to write the image to the key. Been a long time since I used DD.

**nickr** · July 14, 2016 at 6:44 AM Official Post

Yes he knows how to boot from usb on the hp, he can boot other oses on it from usb.

Try putting the le image on the other (debian) usb stick.

birchy · July 14, 2016 at 1:05 PM

Quote from nickr

Yes he knows how to boot from usb on the hp, he can boot other oses on it from usb.

Try putting the le image on the other (debian) usb stick.

Thanks for replying. Do you mean dd to the Debian stick (i.e. overwrite it) or just copy the LE files onto it, leaving the Debian boot on the device?

All I did to boot from USB was reset BIOS defaults and change the boot order. Interestingly, the Debian 8.5 stick boots ok but I tried to run live desktop last night and it seems to go into a hardware loading loop about halfway in. Maybe I have a hardware issue? Kodibuntu runs fine but does lockup on reboot and then won't boot at all unless I power off for a few minutes....

birchy · July 16, 2016 at 5:11 PM

I've tried using the "good" Debian usb stick and got the same result.

After a lot of googling, it seems that the older HP machines can't boot from sticks with GPT format. So the question is....is it possible to create a bootable LE installation usb stick with an MBR instead of GPT?

donbrew · July 18, 2016 at 2:11 PM

Like I said. Just try it, or don't. It worked for me. Linux live USB booted, Windows live USB won't without the boot menu. The machine does not care about the BIOS boot order when it comes to USB some USBs show as disk drives some don't.

birchy · July 18, 2016 at 2:26 PM

Quote from donbrew

Like I said. Just try it, or don't. It worked for me. Linux live USB booted, Windows live USB won't without the boot menu. The machine does not care about the BIOS boot order when it comes to USB some USBs show as disk drives some don't.

I have tried all of the suggestions so far. Loading the boot menu (F9) key and selecting USB did not work on this PC. The BIOS can see the stick but is not seeing a bootable partition on it. The boot flags are set but this PC doesn't like the GPT partitioning system. It requires an MBR to boot.

**chewitt** · July 19, 2016 at 6:03 AM Official Post

Boot from the debian USB, create an MBR partition scheme on the HDD with two partitions labelled BOOT (512MB) and STORAGE (the remainder of the space). Format both as ext4 and install syslinux bootloader to BOOT. Copy the SYSTEM, KERNEL and extlinux.conf files to BOOT; edit extlinux.conf to use BOOT=LABEL=BOOT and DISK=LABEL=STORAGE .. and then reboot. Installing LE manually takes ~10 mins.

birchy · July 20, 2016 at 10:11 PM

Quote from chewitt

Boot from the debian USB, create an MBR partition scheme on the HDD with two partitions labelled BOOT (512MB) and STORAGE (the remainder of the space). Format both as ext4 and install syslinux bootloader to BOOT. Copy the SYSTEM, KERNEL and extlinux.conf files to BOOT; edit extlinux.conf to use BOOT=LABEL=BOOT and DISK=LABEL=STORAGE .. and then reboot. Installing LE manually takes ~10 mins.

I've created a Ubuntu bootable USB and created the BOOT and STORAGE partitions using gParted but am now stuck on "install syslinux bootloader to BOOT". I have attempted to follow the syslinux manual installation here...
Manual Installation - OpenELEC
...BUT when I run:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install extlinux

I get a response saying that "package extlinux is not available" and is referred to by another package.

So HOW do I install syslinux to sda1 (BOOT)?

birchy · July 21, 2016 at 12:43 PM

To answer my own question, I believe I need to :

1. Establish an internet connection in ubuntu live
2. sudo add-apt-repository universe
3. sudo apt-get update
4. sudo apt-get install extlinux

Hopefully that'll work. Will let you know when I try it later.

birchy · July 22, 2016 at 5:13 PM

Update for future reference :

Manual install went OK once I did the above. My original attempt failed as I hadn't setup the internet connection which caused apt-get update to fail after enabling the Universe repo. Thanks for your help.

Mima · November 4, 2016 at 7:52 PM

Quote from birchy

Update for future reference :

Manual install went OK once I did the above. My original attempt failed as I hadn't setup the internet connection which caused apt-get update to fail after enabling the Universe repo. Thanks for your help.

Hi,

can you post step by step guide... I have same problems. Cant boot with bootable USB

birchy · November 4, 2016 at 9:47 PM

Quote from Mima

Hi,

can you post step by step guide... I have same problems. Cant boot with bootable USB

See post #14 and #15 of this thread.

FYI, I've since bought a Rpi3 and am now using that. Installation is so much easier and the pi is more than adequate for running LE.