my work computer (Alienware m14x) has Windows installed, which drives me nuts, but I can’t change that, so I wanted to do a persistent install of linux on a USB stick for personal use. Thought I would give Netrunner a go, so I installed Netrunner 13.06 64 bit on an 8 GB pendrive from an Ubuntu laptop using Startup Disk Creator. Playing around with the BIOS settings I was able to get m14x to recognize the USB bootable device and it gives me several options to boot (Start Netrunner, compatibility mode, check integrity of medium or test memory) but then I start the boot and after a few seconds it just hangs on a black screen (startx does nothing, can only hard reset). Then the next time I try to boot (with or without the USB stick) it just says “Checking media [fail] no bootable media found”
Then it gives me the GRUB boot window again with the same four options. If I do “Check the integrity of the medium” it hangs and does nothing, if I do “Test memory” it says “error: can’t find command `linux16’. Press any key to continue…”
Does anyone have an idea what I could be doing wrong?
Apreciate any help,
Matt
[hr]
Also, if I remove the USB now, and try to boot again, it gives me no option to enter the BIOS settings and just says “checking media” then “No boot device found. Press any key to reboot the machine” -> infinite loop. Now I’m kind of scared I briked my work laptop…
There needs to be a way to access the BIOS / UEFI with one of the F-Keys (F1 - F12). Please try pressing and testing which one gets you into the settings. There you should set the boot device again. As you only installed the system on an usb stick with the startup disk creator it shouldn’t affect your harddrive and windows booting.
As for the system booting itself. Are there any boot messages ? (Notice: Pressing ESC gets rid of the bootsplash to show bootmessages)
yes, pressing F12 brought me back to the boot options page. Now it does show the option to press F2 or F12 and allows me to boot into windows again, I guess it was just hidden for a while.
So I get the welcome screen for Netrunner and the 5 boot options. “Check the integrity of the DVD” gives a grayish screen for a few seconds and then a black screen of death. No amount of pressing escape helps during that process. I can still CTR-ALT-DEL reset, but then the USB boot option doesn’t appear again until I do a hard reboot from the power switch. “Start Netrunner” gives the same run around (gray screen then black) and no amount of pushing ESC gets me to the bootmessages.
Ah, wait, you mean before I start booting. Ok, yes that gets me to a line that says “boot: _” and I can enter text… what should I tell him?