I'm having a frustrating time trying to migrate my old laptop to Linux (Lubuntu). I downloaded the Lubuntu .iso file on my newer laptop and verified it with certutil. After making it bootable with balenaEtcher, I checked it with diskpart and saw it wasn't recognized as a boot drive. I tried again with Rufus and then Ventoy, but still no luck. I've got a new USB stick now, and even with it, all three programs failed to make it bootable. I even tried a different distro (Debian), and it still didn't work, even though my checksums matched. Both my laptops are running Windows 10 and 11 and are from Dell and Samsung respectively. I've checked everything with admin rights. Any ideas on what could be going wrong? This is driving me crazy!
3 Answers
Have you checked your BIOS settings? Sometimes, you need to disable Secure Boot and Fast Boot to allow USB drives to be recognized as bootable. Also, double-check the boot order and make sure your USB drive is prioritized. Just because diskpart says something, it could be misleading!
I had a similar issue when I was trying to boot from USB. Here's what I did: Enter BIOS with F2 and set USB as the boot priority, then press F12 during startup to select USB as boot. Make sure to respond quickly to 'press any key to boot from USB'! Sometimes it takes a few tries due to timing! Hope that helps!
Check if your USB ports are okay. Sometimes, using front USB ports or hubs can cause issues. I usually recommend using a rear USB port, and also consider using an 8GB or 16GB USB stick instead of a larger one. Sometimes the size can affect the reliability when creating bootable drives!
Yeah, I actually disabled both Secure Boot and Fast Boot already, but thanks for the reminder!