I am trying to install mint xfce onto a USB drive so i can use it to boot into an old computer with no functional boot drive at the moment, for simple data recovery. i have ran this installer and reformatted the drive to try again 3 times now. the drive shows up as bootable in my bios. it appears to have all the correct files when i check it from my main OS, in gparted it has the boot flags. but no matter what i do it will not boot into that installation of mint. i feel like i am losing my mind. it always just boots into my main OS, even though i have explicitly put every USB boot option above my main harddrive. i can disable my main harddrive in the boot options but then it just boots back into the bios, completely ignoring the mint install on this USB drive.
#mint unable to boot from usb drive
fervent atlas
limpid summit
What tool did you use to prepare the drive? I can tell you now that I did the same thing a while ago and it worked just fine. I used Rufus to make mine.
fervent atlas
i used BalenaEtcher to flash the install ISO onto one USB drive (which works btw) i booted into that usb no problem, then used that to install it onto a different USB, which does not work
limpid summit
It is hard not to think that's a problem with the USB drive, don't you think?
fervent atlas
maybe?? idk what it could be though
like the USB drive itself seems to work fine, i have no idea why it wouldnt be bootable when its supposed to be
limpid summit
I don't know at all, but that's the one difference between what works and what doesn't, right?
fervent atlas
that its a different drive? XD
i mean they are different models of USB drive but thats just baffling if this one just cannot be a boot drive for some unknown reason... i definitely considered that as a possibility but i feel like i should rule that out as illogical unless i can find a real reason that might be the case 😭
limpid summit
You did the same thing with BalenaEtcher on both drives, the same options?
fervent atlas
i did not touch the second one with balena etcher, i used the linux mint installer to install it onto that drive
and balena etcher really doesnt have many settings on it
this is all u get
i reformatted the second drive with gparted so that i could make new partitions with the mint installer like u are supposed to do
limpid summit
I'm not 100% clear on how "making it bootable" works but honestly I wonder if Balena etcher is doing some step you missed out.
fervent atlas
that doesnt make any sense.... the mint installer is supposed to install mint and make it bootable 😭
the most frustrating part is that there is a tutorial of someone doing essentially the exact same thing as me and it works for them with no issues
limpid summit
IDK whether this makes any difference to you, but when I did this it was horrifyingly slow. Apparently you can get faster USB drives, but I have one that is not good.
fervent atlas
it was pretty slow of an install yes. but im literally just trying to do very basic file operations on an old system
pulsar lake
Do you have secure boot enabled on the problem pc?
fervent atlas
i dont think so...? but i guess i can check
pulsar lake
Make sure it's disabled and the keys are cleared
pulsar lake
Teke a photo of your bios - secureboot section. Every bios is a bit different
pulsar lake
for example
limpid summit
Keys: they are basically a pass that says "This OS is secure", I think it has to be signed by Microsoft.
pulsar lake
I just clear them so that it doesn't get in the way
limpid summit
Is there actually any disadvantage to always having secure boot off?
pulsar lake
Some anti-cheat systems require it, but they won't work on linux anyway
fervent atlas
so i did not find anything mentioning secureboot but i did find the problem
i had to also set something called the boot bbs which was 1 menu deeper than the normal boot options
thank u both for helping me out 😭
limpid summit
Some anti-cheat systems require it, but they won't work on linux anyway
See, one time I read something about... you remember the question during Mint install about multimedia codecs? Doesn't that require it to be on? Or have I got mixed up.
pulsar lake
No, codecs do not require secure boot
limpid summit
i had to also set something called the boot bbs which was 1 menu deeper than the...
I'm glad you found it. Sorry my conjectures were too far out in left field. 😅
The missing variable that I didn't understand was that UEFI settings are too complicated.
limpid summit
No, codecs do not require secure boot
Hmm. I must've misunderstood what I read. It didn't make much sense when reading it, but I thought it might be some weird thing.
pulsar lake
You're both welcome
fervent atlas
No, codecs do not require secure boot
you seem like u have the same bios as me. wtf is that bbs thing
pulsar lake
you seem like u have the same bios as me. wtf is that bbs thing
I got that random pic off google. bbs means boot order, as in try HDD or SSD first, but which one
fervent atlas
im so confused
why would there be 2 boot order menus. the other one is what i actually used when setting up my OS. never had to touch this other menu till now
at least it works now 😮💨
limpid summit
It would just be so nice if UEFI menus were standardized. Maybe there could be one tab to put manufacturer-specific settings, and everything else would be according to the book.
fervent atlas
so, as i went to use this USB drive for its intended purpose, it did not work. but the install drive does work. im so confused why this is supposed to work for other ppl but doesnt work for me