[sf-lug] can not boot LinuxMint from USB on a new machine - FreeDos HP 500-021kl

[Frantisek Apfelbeck]

Hi to all,
Thanks Ken for prompt replay, answers in the text as  >>> however I can say now that I've managed to boot the Linux Mint live USB. The problem was that the memory stick was shown under the hard drive option in the boot menu as  GH PicoN PMAP which I did not expected, it is kind of strange, not sure why they call USB hard drive ... Anyway it is sorted I can boot the Linux Live distribution, easy way from here, however I'll have another few questions later on.


Hi Frantisek,
Try the Esc button to bring up the boot devices.  

>>> That was a good one, before I used F10 which brought me to the "boot menu", this one is better, gives me more options.

If you can get into the 
UEFI Settings/BIOS, Set the delay time to greater than 0, to give 
yourself a better chance to hit the boot option keys.  The gotcha it 
that getting into the UEFI settings usually takes a function key, 
(varies by machine, F2, F10, F12, DEL, ...) so you may need to try 
various things like typing the key rapidly just after power on, or 
holding down the key then power on. 
  With FreeDOS, I assume your machine had disabled Secure Boot, 

>>> I played with Secure Boot before and it was set to disabled, I left it like that.

but usually there is a separate setting for UEFI vs Legacy (or 
compatibility mode).  How is the disk set up?  

>>> I do not know how is the hard drive set up, I'm not good in DOS enough to find out easily the partitions and all the necessary info.

Does it use the msdos 
partitioning or gpt?  Does it have an EFI boot partition (about 300M, 
Fat32, boot flagged), a grub-bios partition (about 1 meg, 
unformatted)?   Did you want to keep the FreeDOS, because I'm not sure 
it it can use gpt partitioning, but from what you are saying, it seems 
like gpt would suit you better (you could set up it for both EFI and 
legacy booting, and not have to worry about lacking a primary partition 
for Windows when you get around to install it.

>>> I'm not interested in FreeDos really. My plan is to install at least two distributions of Linux and one of Windows.

Ken

>>> Many thanks Ken, your help was really appreciated it kind of helped me to "click" and realize the issue.

>>> Talk to you soon,

>>> Sincerely,

>>> Frantisek Algoldor Apfelbeck


biotechnologist&kvasir and hacker


http://www.frantisekapfelbeck.org


"There is no way to peace, peace is the way." Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi




On Tuesday, February 25, 2014 8:45 AM, Ken Shaffer <kenshaffer80 at gmail.com> wrote:
 
Hi Frantisek,
Try the Esc button to bring up the boot devices.  If you can get into the UEFI Settings/BIOS, Set the delay time to greater than 0, to give yourself a better chance to hit the boot option keys.  The gotcha it that getting into the UEFI settings usually takes a function key, (varies by machine, F2, F10, F12, DEL, ...) so you may need to try various things like typing the key rapidly just after power on, or holding down the key then power on. 
  With FreeDOS, I assume your machine had disabled Secure Boot, but usually there is a separate setting for UEFI vs Legacy (or compatibility mode).  How is the disk set up?  Does it use the msdos partitioning or gpt?  Does it have an EFI boot partition (about 300M, Fat32, boot flagged), a grub-bios partition (about 1 meg, unformatted)?   Did you want to keep the FreeDOS, because I'm not sure it it can use gpt partitioning, but from what you are saying, it seems like gpt would suit you better (you could set up it for both EFI and legacy booting, and not have to worry about lacking a primary partition for Windows when you get around to install it.
Ken
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