fresh install fails to boot... even usb fails now

Wvpianoman

This is a first for me. Installed Solus 4.8 on a Dell latitude e6540 (it was booting and running Garuda Linux when I installed). Reboot after install and it won't go past the Dell logo. Even trying to boot of USB fails now.

brent

Wvpianoman

welcome to the forum.
lots of missing info here.
you installed it next to Garuda? grub and uefi in same boot are incompatible imo. something like that?

or did you give solus the whole disk?
did you prep the disk (format to gpt) before you installed solus?

black screen means bootloader or possible nvidia weirdness or disk not formatted right or a couple other things.

you should be able to get the USB live back by powering down then power up and hit F12 over and over til you get a boot menu. pick usb of course.

this is just a response to what I think I am understanding. Goodnight, hang in there. furnish more info and the calvary will come.

edit: also at Main Site at top of screen is a troubleshooting help section.

BuzzPCSOS

Wvpianoman I wonder if you installed Solus on your hard drive but your UEFI loader onto your install USB. This would also answer why you can no longer boot from your USB.
Additionally the Dell latitude e6540 uses a 4th gen Intel processor so the laptop needs an MBR formatted hard drive and a GRUB loader. I think you might find that the installer has tried to set the hard drive to GPT/UEFI which will prevent your laptop from starting.
I have run into a similar issue with an old laptop but need to look into the problem more carefully before I can be definite.
I hope this at least gives you a starting point for your investigations.
Edit:
If your boot USB installer was running on Ventoy you can repair it by using the "Update" button which will restore the boot function without damaging the other files you have on the stick.

Wvpianoman

BuzzPCSOS
I'll.double check, but the USB drive is mbr and not uefi.
Getting ready to pop the drive loose and see what happens hope it's ssd failure and not something much worse. I really like that older laptop

BuzzPCSOS

Wvpianoman It looks like many of the modern distros use GPT for old BIOS only PCs. Some PCs are ok with this but not all. We both seem to have PCs that don't boot into a GPT formatted drive.
The only way to get past this is to manually format your drive to MBR and then build all the necessary partitions. Solus can then be installed from the installer by using the "Select which partition to install Solus onto" button. Better instructions than I can give should be on the Solus help site.

Wvpianoman

Believe the laptop is toast. Swapped the SSD and it will boot with USB, but doesn't see any drive in the computer oh well. Was a pretty nice laptop. Now I have a target!!!!!!

BuzzPCSOS

Wvpianoman If the drive is formatted as GPT it will not show up on the file manager. Try using KDE Partition Manager on Solus Plasma to see if the drive is visible there. The program can be used to check SMART data (drive health) and also to format the drive as a MBR (MsDos) file system.
All being well the drive will be usable again on that PC without needing to shoot at it.
I tried various other distros on my laptop; Fedora, MX Linux and Spiral Linux. Fedora and MX failed due to setting the disk as GPT.
Spiral Linux uses an older iso (November 2023) but updates directly from the Debian repo. It set disk format to MBR so the install worked without trouble. I would suggest trying Spiral before completely giving up as it should install OK.

AlphaElwedritsch

BuzzPCSOS Spiral Linux uses an older iso (November 2023) but updates directly from the Debian repo.

The maintainer of Spiral Linux, aka Gecko, hates both GPT and Wayland. So as long as he can avoid using them, he will.

Wvpianoman

Was brand new, unformatted. Solus, fedora and Garuda (all 3 have been installed in the past couple of years, and worked perfectly). Now all 3 couldn't even see the new SSD. Even bios did not see any drives.

BuzzPCSOS

Wvpianoman Oh well, worth a shot I suppose.

Axios

If it was me and your at that point I would check the memory battery and flash the bios
it can get corrupted.
I have an adapter if I take a drive out I can adapt it to usb and see whats going on.
(just info)

Wvpianoman

Axios Not worth the hassle or trouble, to be honest. I'll drop off at local Career Tech Center and let them grab pats, turn it into a wind chime or run it through a shredder. Time to dig out another one and see what happens. I've got a Macbook Pro 9,2 here to fire up and see what I can get to die inside it lol My mom got me a wall hanging when I was a kid that said "Demolition Expert. No job too large" Stuff just seems to break around me from time to time.