I have an old Dell Inspiron 5558 that's over 10 years old and can't run Windows 11, so I decided to give Linux a try. I successfully installed Linux Mint, which works great and has made my laptop much faster. Now, I want to explore other distros to find the best fit for me. However, whenever I try to boot from any other distro's USB drive, I receive a 'no bootable device found' error. I've disabled secure boot in the BIOS settings, and it seems the USB drive is only recognized in UEFI mode, not legacy. I tested the same USB drive on another computer and it worked fine. Can anyone offer some advice on how to resolve this issue?
4 Answers
It sounds like your BIOS needs to be set to UEFI mode rather than legacy mode. Most newer distros are moving away from legacy support as most computers built in the last 15 years should handle UEFI without any issues. If you’ve verified that your BIOS is set to UEFI, that’s a good start. If your laptop happens to have a 32-bit UEFI, that might complicate things since many distros don’t include the necessary files for that configuration. You might want to check Mint’s EFI partition and see how it's set up.
How did you create your bootable USB drive? The method can really affect whether it works or not. If you’re using Windows, I recommend trying Rufus or Ventoy, as they are user-friendly and reliable for making bootable drives. It's essential to install the bootloader properly on the USB to support legacy if that's what you need.
I’ve had similar issues. Make sure your USB stick is configured properly for whatever distro you’re trying to use. I used Mint's image writer for one drive and it worked, but with other distros, I switched to Fedora Media Writer on the other. Sometimes the tool you choose can make a significant difference.
Don't forget to specify your distro and share some hardware details along with any error messages when you ask for help—this makes troubleshooting a lot easier!
🙂
Good point! I’ll make sure to include those details next time.