Toshiba Satellite L500 rejects Linux
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/ gilesorr@gmail.com
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 <talk@gtalug.org> 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/ gilesorr@gmail.com --- Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
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 <dontai.canada@gmail.com> 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 <talk@gtalug.org> 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/ gilesorr@gmail.com
I still keep a stack of 32 bit Linux install CDs (many flavours) just for this purpose. Most of my past Linux installs have been underpowered and old PCs. On Mon, 22 May 2023 at 09:12, Giles Orr <gilesorr@gmail.com> 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 <dontai.canada@gmail.com> 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 <talk@gtalug.org>
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/ gilesorr@gmail.com
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 <talk@gtalug.org> 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 <dontai.canada@gmail.com> 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 <talk@gtalug.org>
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/ gilesorr@gmail.com --- Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
I have Puppy on an install CD... It always seems to work for me. Puppy is the last man standing Linux install... On Mon, 22 May 2023 at 16:05, Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> wrote:
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 <talk@gtalug.org> 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 <dontai.canada@gmail.com> 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 <talk@gtalug.org>
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/ gilesorr@gmail.com --- Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
Just wandering through pre-coffee with perhaps? a side resource idea? I imagine that you do not, like me, keep external USB hardware, floppies drives, cd /dvd burners? I ask because if the unit is legacy, but still has USB ports, it may boot from something other than a USB stick, that still uses the port. Is there a way, yes this may be a silly question too, that you are confirming that USB is a part of the boot sequence? Is it possible that the stick is formatted in a fashion different from the drive in terms of file system, so the install may not actually be working as you wish? Freedos has some Linux related tools including USB stick ones that might help diagnose the issue. Wandering away for coffee now, Karen On Mon, 22 May 2023, Don Tai via talk 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 <talk@gtalug.org> 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/ gilesorr@gmail.com --- Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
| From: Giles Orr via talk <talk@gtalug.org> Please don't be insulted by my explaining things you surely know. I'm trying to make this understandable to others. | I've recently acquired (through a friend who stopped using it) a | Toshiba Satellite L500 - Core i3 (3rd gen?), 4G RAM. If it is third gen, I would expect that booting from USB had been sorted by the time this computer was issued. Maybe Secure Boot wasn't sorted (I don't remember). Left field question: could the CMOS battery (coin cell) be flat? That can cause firmware settings to be wonky. | I'm determined | to get Linux onto it (preferably Debian). Fight the good fight! We share a folly. | 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." Naively, I'd take that as an HDD error. Google surely knows better. | 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. Tiano was a model UEFI implementation from Intel. It is open source. Who knows what version was incorporated by Toshiba in their firmware. | 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(?). Perhaps it is doing something dodgy to allow it to juggle multiple images. | 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). Toshiba still exists, I guess. But it has had a horrible accounting scandal and a horrible excursion into nuclear power. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/081315/toshibas-accounting-s... It sold its PC business to Sharp in 2018 (the computers are now called Dynabook's, same as Alan Kay's dream design from the 1960s. Sharp itself looked pretty wonky. I think that it is mostly owned by Foxconn now. So I would not know where to look for downloads :-) Your machine might have become orphaned. | 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. Surely that is just the default behaviour. Debian's installer must be able to do this or it could not install to a blank disk. | 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. The normal Fedora installation image is also a live Fedora. Once you boot this thing, you get to choose live (with a chance to install later in the session) or to go straight to the installation. Very handy if you need to prepare the ground (or fix it, or examine it). The Fedora installation .iso file that you download just get dd'd to a DVD (too large for a CD) or USB stick. There is no magic at this point selecting between MBR booting and UEFI booting. (MBR booting is really easy from the BIOS side of things: load the first sector of the disk (the Master Boot Record) into RAM and jump to it (in i8086 mode!) The disk partitioning etc. is not the business of the BIOS) (UEFI booting is more complex. UEFI looks for the ESP (uEfi System Partition). The firmware has a path to a .efi file in that ESP; it runs that program in 64-bit mode (except for very odd systems) in an environment with a bunch of amenities.) (Terminology note: MBR is sometimes used as the name of the old partitioning scheme (as opposed to GPT). I'm using it as the name of a booting process. MBR-booting can work with either partitioning scheme.) The Fedora image itself is capable of being booted either MBR or UEFI. The Fedora installer will install on the system in the way it was booted. Typically, you can control which way the system boots a USB stick (BIOS can only boot MBR; UEFI firmware can usually boot either way, but some can only boot UEFI). The controls can be disguised in the firmware setup page. The clear technical terms are deemed too confusing for users. As you say: CSM disabled means MBR booting cannot be done. (CSM is a module for UEFI that lets it emulate the BIOS calls that a typical MBR-booted system needs to use.) Secure Boot is a UEFI thing so if SB is enabled, anything to do with MBR booting (including CSM) might not be displayed by the helpful setup screen. | Would this be because I burned it on a "Legacy" system? Not in the case of Fedora. Creating a debian installation used to be different from Fedora but they might have caught up. | Is there a | fix for that? Except ... I'm about 99% sure the Debian Installer USB | stick was created on the same machine. If you've got an MBR installation, burn it down. We're in a UEFI world now. | 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.
On Mon, May 22, 2023 at 08:34:34AM -0400, Giles Orr via talk 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.
Debian can definitely be installed in EFI mode, but you must boot the installer in EFI mode to do it, not legacy mode. Usually on UEFI systems the boot meny gives you a choice of booting in legacy or UEFI mode. Of course if the system is set to legacy mode instead and you install in UEFI mode, then when it goes to boot later you will get a boot error (I think something like BBS HD error (BBS being Bios Boot Specification apparently)). It does appear those machines are a disaster and hence the unofficial BIOS versions out there trying to fix the complete disaster toshiba sold. -- Len Sorensen
On Mon, 22 May 2023 at 21:48, Lennart Sorensen <lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
On Mon, May 22, 2023 at 08:34:34AM -0400, Giles Orr via talk 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.
Debian can definitely be installed in EFI mode, but you must boot the installer in EFI mode to do it, not legacy mode. Usually on UEFI systems the boot meny gives you a choice of booting in legacy or UEFI mode.
Of course if the system is set to legacy mode instead and you install in UEFI mode, then when it goes to boot later you will get a boot error (I think something like BBS HD error (BBS being Bios Boot Specification apparently)).
It does appear those machines are a disaster and hence the unofficial BIOS versions out there trying to fix the complete disaster toshiba sold.
The problem is solved. I think it's worth reporting here in the manner of Hugh's "War Stories" because it was so weird. Although it's probably an edge case that others are unlikely to encounter. As far as I can determine, this system will only boot from a USB stick if the USB stick is willing to boot in "Legacy" mode - and even then maybe only if that stick has an EFI folder. I'm not kidding: it wouldn't boot from a Fedora 38 installer stick, it wouldn't boot from my old multiboot stick (pure legacy, mostly used for Knoppix), and it would only boot from the Debian 11 installer stick if the BIOS was set for "Legacy" even though the Debian stick should work fine in either EFI or Legacy mode. But because the Debian installer booted in Legacy mode, my initial install (see above) wouldn't boot because it installed Legacy ... and this is an EFI-only system (sort of). Yesterday I booted from the Debian 11 installer and used the "Advanced" install (which I hate - so very many steps, with the added bonus of multiple opportunities for foot-gun). I strayed from the beaten path three times: once to say "yes, I'd like 'https://' in /etc/apt/sources.list", once to create an encrypted VG, and the final time - the reason I used "Advanced" - to say "force EFI install." That option didn't show up at the point I expected it to. I thought it would be with the HD formatting steps, but instead it comes much later, around the GRUB installation. (In hindsight this makes sense, but it wasn't what I expected.) The install process then failed on further package installation - I think I know why, we'll get to that. But everything else went okay, and I had a bootable (if minimal and text-only) Debian system. What I immediately discovered was that I couldn't 'apt update' because the certificates on the remotes listed in /etc/apt/sources.list weren't "recognized." I removed the "s" in "https://" throughout sources.list and everything's been fine since. I assume this is why package installation during the install process was busted. That's right: I had to boot in Legacy mode because it was the only way this UEFI-only system would boot from a USB stick, and then force it to install EFI even though it had booted in Legacy mode. So ... the UEFI setup dictates that external media MUST be legacy, and the internal HD MUST be EFI? Well that's horrible and confusing. And for all my trouble I now have a third gen Core i3 system with 4G of RAM ... but I have to admit to myself (and tell you, to help you understand why I did this) that I just like solving puzzles - particularly Linux-based ones. -- Giles https://www.gilesorr.com/ gilesorr@gmail.com
Giles Orr via talk wrote on 2023-06-16 05:53:
The problem is solved. I think it's worth reporting here in the manner of Hugh's "War Stories" because it was so weird.
These "War Stories" posts are always worth a read. Nice job on trouble-shooting. Having all this in the back of my mind may help someday, so thanks for posting. rb
participants (7)
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BCLUG -
D. Hugh Redelmeier -
Don Tai -
Evan Leibovitch -
Giles Orr -
Karen Lewellen -
Lennart Sorensen