laptop won't boot from USB

[open cape]

Hi people of Mint, I hope yall know what to do with my dumb lenovo, it doesn't want to boot from USB. I have a Lenovo Flex 14 81SQ000MUS purchased from Staples in 2019, originally Windows 10, but is now 11. It has 250ish GB nvme storage.

I want to replace storage with 1TB inland TN450, clone from 260GB, to the 1TB its existing Windows 11 installation and its Windows 10 system restore information.

Then, I also want another partition to install Linux Mint (which I've been using on my desktop and like) and dual boot it with Windows.

But I am having issues booting the laptop from USB into Clonezilla. I have had issues with Lenovo bioses before and am worried I will not be able to get it to boot from USB at all.

• I have secure boot disabled
• boot from USB enabled
• UEFI boot mode

but the bios boot menu only shows Windows bootloader.
If I use system recovery to boot from USB, I get the error: "System doesn't have any USB boot option."

How can I enable boot from USB on my Lenovo Flex 14? Alternatively, what is a next most efficient way to clone the storage and install Linux dual-booted with Windows on the new 1TB storage?

I have a USB-C nvme enclosure and an other computer to work with.

[rain heron]

In you second picture, you have to go to the EFI section, where it shows Windows Boot Mgr. and try to add an alternate UEFI device, (UEFI USB)

there has to be a way to add or edit. the lower part of picture is cut off so I cant spot it

check in configuration tab. Disable CSM/ legacy

• Also this is critical for either cloning and dual-booting alongside Windows: Follow link - #1193345280733622272 message

Then watch the second video at the top of that thread for more tips on DB

[open cape]

i tried to crop for space but i'm pretty sure the bottom is empty, give me a sec to take another look

[open cape]

indeed there's nothing below on that menu

[open cape]

looking for CSM now

[rain heron]

there must be some tips on what arrows or keys to press to do stuff

[open cape]

taking photo of the whole screen

[rain heron]

yeah n the Configuration screen too

[open cape]

i can't seem to do anything with the EFI except select my one option for windows boot manager (which i have done, and why the text is white)

i can't find fastboot either lol

lenovo bioses kinda suck

[rain heron]

oh that's in Windows. the link shows how

I think I know what's happening

[open cape]

ah, thank you.

[rain heron]

the way you configured your live clonezilla isn't right/compatible at the moment

[open cape]

it does boot into clonezilla on my desktop

[rain heron]

can u go into Windows right now?

[open cape]

yes

[rain heron]

alright dont save anything in the BIOS

[open cape]

i'll go ahead and turn off fast boot while i'm here

[rain heron]

with an Nvme it should go fast

[open cape]

yeah i'm in

[rain heron]

that's exactly right

u can follow method 1

just to check its state n then (it's likely ON) toggle it OFF

if method one leads nowhere, then go Method 2

[open cape]

i turned it off. heading to the boot menu

[rain heron]

hang on

the usb thing must be addressed first

can u open Disk Management

[open cape]

lol it is taking a second longer to boot 😂 going to disk management

[rain heron]

have your clonezilla usb drive in

send a shot of the Disk mg't window

@open cape

[open cape]

it's the ~30gb disk 1

[rain heron]

hover on the graphic, but on the left side, right over the words Disk 1, and right click

then do properties, then pick the Volumes tab

what's the partition type?

[open cape]

partition style, MBR

[rain heron]

repeat the same for the Disk 0 and check

[open cape]

GUID partition table

[rain heron]

aight. so the USB should be remade as GPT

i take it there are some files (the iso ) on the first ~400MB of that flash disk?

what program did u use to flash the stick for the live image?

[open cape]

interesting, it's telling me to format it

[rain heron]

UEFI bootups look for this

[open cape]

i used the context menu in linux mint, it booted fine on my desktop 😂

[rain heron]

context menu?

what u ought to do, right here from Windows is get a simple loader/flasher app called Ventoy

it has provisions for gpt n mbr

and a host of other great uses

[open cape]

yeah if you right click an iso in mint it's like "make bootable" very handy but maybe didn't work right on my laptop

[rain heron]

see Ventoy.net

have a quick read of its opening paragraph

then get it from the Downloads section.. the .zip for Windows

[open cape]

cool, thank you... looks like i'll be easiest to grab clonezilla again, as well

[rain heron]

u dont have to

[open cape]

interesting

[rain heron]

if u have it on the other pc.. setup ventoy, then take the stick over to the other and simply copy it to

[open cape]

ventoy looks really cool

i guess there is a linux download. i'm not so hot at installing tarballs or without apt-get

[rain heron]

do u already have the Clonezilla iso on the other machine?

u do?

[open cape]

yes i do it's on my desktop running mint

[rain heron]

ya they're just .gz files like any zip

anyway get Ventoy for windows, save it to ur nvme

[open cape]

interesting it's a meta-bootable

[rain heron]

then unzip it

[open cape]

damn it's a slower download on my laptop 🤣

[rain heron]

1. once unzipped, go in the ventoy folder, check ur USB's drive letter in windows' file manager to be SURE of it

[open cape]

https://tenor.com/view/download-gif-18955759

[rain heron]

2. go into the Ventoy folder u just unzipped.. find the ventoy2disk.exe file

3. have your usb to be worked on plugged in

and double-click the ventoy2disk program and enter it

4. go to the options menu in the installer

5. partition style - make to GPT

6. double check the install-to-device matches the drive letter of the USB

if so, click Install.

[open cape]

i'm so impatient watching this download. 40kbs 🥺 a bit more than halfway done

[rain heron]

once u reached step 6, u could just take the stick over to the other computer.. and copy the clonezilla iso to it

didnt need to re-download

[open cape]

that's good cuz my laptop is being quite a bit slower with the downloads apparently

[rain heron]

and also copy the mint iso to the stick, (if u got it)

[open cape]

it's done yaaaay

[open cape]

i do ✨

[rain heron]

k follow steps 1) to 6)

[open cape]

alright it's chewing on this now 😁

[rain heron]

step 6 completes in seconds

[open cape]

yeah it's done 😄 i'm going to copy the isos now. just into the root of the usb?

[rain heron]

show a pic of the result

yes u can copy to the root

[open cape]

oops i meant to send this

[rain heron]

the key thing is it shows GPT on the device

perfect.

[open cape]

this tool looks really convienient thanks

[rain heron]

copy the iso and then deal with the BIOS

im hoping it'll show an option now

[open cape]

looks like there's two partitions on the usb drive, ventoy and vtoyefi

does it go into efi?

[rain heron]

im hoping

so do a test reboot..

hit the BIOS set up key to see what devices show up as booteable

[rain heron]

what are u asking, sorry?

[open cape]

i was asking what partition but, looks like the doc is saying the exfat partition, so the one labeled ventoy and not ventoyefi

[rain heron]

correct. the exfat is where u put files, and bootable images

[open cape]

omggg there's a usb boot option 😭

[rain heron]

good

[rain heron]

i would put the mint iso on the stick too.. just to SEE if mint works fine in live-environment on this pc

if linux works fine, then do ur clone n all dat

[open cape]

so i copied mint and clonezilla i thought, might want to double check, but i only got mint on my ventoy menu. i'll go ahead and test that first

yeah i think mint is missing some pieces too. invalid magic number

i'll try the copy again

[rain heron]

https://ventoy.net/en/isolist.html this lists clonezilla as compatible/ tested

i gotta step off a bit. ttyl

[open cape]

thanks so much for your help~! i feel optimistic about my chances of making it from here, but i'll let you know. have a good one

[rain heron]

dont forget, there's many distros to check out.. see the compat list

[open cape]

when you get back...can't run any lives...!
debian and mint return same error about magic numbers. I thought it might be a hardware compatibility issue, so my next distros I tried are on linux-hardware.org as ones which come with their hardware probe pre-installed.
arco, "press any key to continue" and returns to its menu.
openmandriva was the only one that had much to say, although i don't know what it means.
i also tested my USB drive i had been using, as I had some trouble copying to it. it had no bad blocks. but i'm now using a different USB (also no bad blocks)
i believe clonezilla is technically a live linux distribution. i didn't actually try to use it, but it appeared to boot normally. i might try to clone the drive tonight and see if it's able to do its thing successfully & clone the windows installation and its restore partition

[open cape]

clonezilla doesn't see the drive i need to source, returns a lot of stuff but caught two errors that seemed related.
/dev/sda unrecognized disk label
excluding busy hard disk
(it does show 2 storage, the new 1tb in the USB-C enclosure and the 16 USB with ventoy & the isos)

[gilded stirrup]

What are you even doing with Clonezilla? All you need is some free space on a drive, at least ~45GB to be somewhat comfortable, and let the installer use it.

[rain heron]

the second picture showed this curious bit.. probably why clonezilla cant access.

check ur bios, under Configuration: Storage.

[open cape]

i'd like to be able to dual boot windows and linux on my laptop, but my current nvme is like 250gb, not big enough for me to run both (i tried to dump my data lol) so I have a new 1TB nvme to replace it with. i wanna get my windows install & its recovery from my existing 250GB onto my 1TB with clonezilla

[open cape]

do you think this might be why the live distros don't load, either? they shouldn't need acces to storage to run in RAM though?

I do not want to proceed 😱 maybe I should take out the 250gb, put it in the enclosure, clone it to image, clone the image onto the 1tb?

I just don't know if the Linux lives will still need their magic numbers if I do the cloning, change the controller mode, and then try to install onto the next partition of my 1TB

[rain heron]

was just a speculation about the RAID vs AHCI thing.. It might be related to the live-iso's not wanting to load.. idk

don't reset anything

@open cape

[open cape]

definitely not, or at least not before i can clone it somewhere

[rain heron]

yeah u can prob use a Windows-based cloning solution while still running winodws

[open cape]

that's true, i've always used livecds so i'm not running the same OS i'm cloning, but i know cloning what i'm running is supposed to be doable

[rain heron]

if u have two bridges, then hook both the 1 TB via usb bridge to the OTHER pc. AND hook ur current nvme via bridge also to the other pc via usb.. then install clonezilla as an application in Mint there and bang bang

then again, ur nvme might not get recognized

[open cape]

unfortunately only have one nvme enclosure

[rain heron]

is there a at least 250 free Gigs on the other pc's internal storage?

or whatever u have consumed (say it's 150 GB currently consumed on ur nvme)

that's all u'd need to make a clone iso

plus the hidden partitions windows uses

[open cape]

pretty close to correct actually, after archiving my downloads trying to fit linux on this thing

[rain heron]

so u'd clone the source > send the output as an ISO, and use the other computer's storage as a holding ground

then switch drives/enclosures, and restore that ISO back to the new 1 TB

[open cape]

yeah i think i'd rather not clone windows from the same windows its cloning and put the nvme in the enclosure and clone it onto iso with my desktop

time to bust open my laptop 😊

[rain heron]

careful with static

[open cape]

this is also the first laptop i've opened without an externally detachable battery 🫠

[rain heron]

ie - discharge on grounded - metal case / pipe

[open cape]

ho boy... its got weird screws

[rain heron]

the star shaped ones?

or hexagonal

either way the right-width flat driver should work

[open cape]

at worst tomorrow i can get my star-shaped screw bits back from my partner who is borrowing my kit, hehe. i might have a right shaped flat one around still

hm it's really tiny

lenovo why you do this to me

[rain heron]

that new 1 TB drive, is it an SSD too?

also nvme?

[open cape]

i don't think the laptop takes any other kind of storage

internally

[rain heron]

oh

yeah I read about RST a bit, seems that it doesn't make much a difference if running RST

[open cape]

imma have to get my kit, i don't have small enough flatheads for this

tiny ass torx 😮‍💨

[rain heron]

u may need to do a clean windows reinstall to the 1TB, then clone-back most of your programs n files with ur backup iso

have a look at this:

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=340343

the comment by Reddog1

[open cape]

thank you, that's good to know, but also holy fuck. why did they do this to me. what is RST even good for. bastards

AAAaaahh rapid storage technology

if you are using only an SSD, the benefits of RST may be limited
🫠 so good for nothing then. great. thanks for that intel

[open cape]