Arch Linux

mFixman

Member

Registered: 2011-09-12

Posts: 22

My old computer can detect my USB when booting, but can't boot Parted

I have an USB with the Parted Magic Linux environment on it made with Unetbootin, which I tried to boot from other computers and works perfectly.

However, I have an old computer that can detect the USB in the boot menu (not only in the setup, also in the "Boot from here" menu), but can't boot from it (it just fails as if there wasn't anything bootable in the USB).

Unfortunately I don't have many more details right now, but does anyone know what is happening?

Gusar

Member

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 3,606

Re: My old computer can detect my USB when booting, but can't boot Parted

Try a different usb stick. Such incompatibilities on old computers aren't uncommon.

Runaway1956

Member

Registered: 2009-03-13

Posts: 9

Re: My old computer can detect my USB when booting, but can't boot Parted

Sounds like a hardware issue.

I just fought with an old "server" box, with two Xeon iii chips in it.  I KNEW that I had good CD's, and I was pretty certain that everything worked, but simply could not get Arch to boot up.

Finally booted to a diagnostics CD (don't ask which one - it's sorta illegal) and figured out that the CD drive was half-dead, with a lot of IO errors.  Swapped the CD drive, and booted straight into Arch, got it all installed, and on the web.

Like Gusar says, try a different USB stick, then try a different USB port, or even swap out which USB plug you're using inside the box.  Old machines do some strange things when some odd bit of hardware starts going flaky.

Last edited by Runaway1956 (2011-12-19 19:10:21)

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