Not possible to boot on Windows Laptop with Bootable USD Drive

philippulus

Sorry in the mean time I deleted my question as there was a typo I wanted to edit but I received a notification that I am not able to do that. So I deleted to repost.

philippulus

ORIGINAL QUESTION (edited):

I am attempting to install SOLUS on a DELL XPS 15 7590 from a bootable USB drive.
Whatever I do the bootabale USB drive is not recognized as such and my machine always reboot into Windows (USB drive is correctly set a primary boot device).
Not the same issue with a bootable USB drive with Ubutnu 20.04.
The files structure on both USD bootable drives are not the same, so probably something is not right with the SOLUS Plasma ISO.
Please help as I am about to give up and install Ubuntu...

tomscharbach

philippulus

philippulus I am attempting to install SOLUS on a DELL XPS 15 7590 from a bootable USB drive.
Whatever I do the bootabale USB drive is not recognized as such and my machine always reboot into Windows (USB drive is correctly set a primary boot device). Not the same issue with a bootable USB drive with Ubutnu 20.04.

I don't want to jump into the middle of this, but I noticed that you seem to be running Windows 10 on the XPS 7590.

By default, the XPS 7590 has "Secure Boot" enabled when running Windows. "Secure Boot" needs to be disabled in order to boot the Solus Live USB, but "Secure Boot" does not need to be disabled to boot a Ubuntu Live USB. That might be why your computer is not able to boot the Solus Live USB but can boot the Ubuntu Live USB.

You can disable "Secure Boot" by repeatedly pressing F2 during Windows boot, getting into the BIOS menu, and disabling "Secure Boot". The BIOS screen will look something like this:

philippulus

What I did is mounting the ISO on the USB drive.
Tried this with Rufus under Windows and with Multiwriter under Linux Ubuntu but result is the same, drive is not bootable.
I don't know what is wrong.

philippulus

JoshStrobl
Instructions are not clear.
I downloaded the ISO and mounted it on the USB drive.
What else please?

JoshStrobl

philippulus I downloaded the ISO and mounted it on the USB drive.

You don't mount it to the USB. Please read the page, it walks you through instructions on how to use Rufus or even dd under Linux. It also has information on keys you may need to press to be presented with a menu to select it.

Also you're giving me like 4 minutes to reply. Patience.

philippulus

OK, so I created a SOLUS folder in Downloads in which I put all three files:

There are three command lines in the instructions.
The first one works fine:

nicolas@nicolas-Z97X-UD5H:~/Downloads/SOLUS$ gpg --import joshua-strobl.gpg gpg: key DD672FE9A2BE5892: public key "Joshua Strobl (Personal) <joshua@stroblindustries.com>" imported gpg: key 491BEF725FC0FB1B: public key "Joshua Strobl <joshua@stroblindustries.com>" imported gpg: Total number processed: 2 gpg: imported: 2

But regarding the second one I can't get it working:

nicolas@nicolas-Z97X-UD5H:~/Downloads/SOLUS$ gpg --verify Solus-4.2-Plasma.iso.sha256sum.sign gpg: no signed data gpg: can't hash datafile: No data nicolas@nicolas-Z97X-UD5H:~/Downloads/SOLUS$ gpg --verify Solus-4.2-Plasma.iso.sha256sum gpg: can't open 'Solus-4.2-Plasma.iso.sha256sum': No such file or directory gpg: verify signatures failed: No such file or directory

What do I do wrongly here please?

JoshStrobl

That isn't the command. You need to specify both the sign file and the file itself, per the document. Read the document.

philippulus

JoshStrobl

This does not work as well:

nicolas@nicolas-Z97X-UD5H:~/Downloads/SOLUS$ gpg --verify Solus-4.2-Plasma.iso.sha256sum.sign Solus-4.2-Plasma.iso.sha256sum gpg: can't open signed data 'Solus-4.2-Plasma.iso.sha256sum' gpg: can't hash datafile: No such file or directory

and by the way I have no .sha256sum file, only those three files shown in the screenshot here above...

JoshStrobl

philippulus and by the way I have no .sha256sum file, only those three files shown in the screenshot here above...

They're on the download page. The document literally tells you that you need to download all of them. Not sure why you'd go through the verification process (which isn't required, you can skip it) without download the files needed for it.

Please, read the document. Don't just skip the text and run the commands, the rest of the text exists for a reason.

philippulus

JoshStrobl

So there must not be three files in the same location but three files plus the iso file...
I went through all the commands, then followed instruction to copy the files with MultiWriter.

In the end I tried all three methods:

burning a CD from Windows explorer
making a FAT32 dd image with Rufus on a USB drive
copying files with multiwriter from Linux after cautiously following all instructions

In all cases my boot device (DVD, USB drive created from Windows or from Linux) will not be recognized as such and have the exact same file structure such as:

For some reasons my DELL XPS 15 7590 will not boot from any of these physical drives despite them being set as prioritized boot option:

It's really weird as I could initially install Solus on my Desktop.
Something wrong with the DELL laptop?

This is the error notification I get when Windows boot option is deactivated:

In any case the Ubuntu bootable drive IS recognized by the laptop, but the files structure on it is very much different from Solus (see screenshots in the first message).

So as I have exhausted all my options I am now giving up after spending one full day trying to get a workable solution...

philippulus

tomscharbach

Waow!

That was it.

Where does such a difference come from, or what is the purpose.

Thousand thanks.

tomscharbach

philippulus The "All bootable devices failed Secure Boot verification" error message suggests that your XPS 7590 has "Secure Boot" enabled. See my earlier comment about disabling "Secure Boot" in order to boot the Solus Live USB.

philippulus

tomscharbach

Too fast.
Now there is no place where to install.
SSD is not fund, maybe another DELL security layer to enable disk access?

tomscharbach

philippulus Where does such a difference come from, or what is the purpose.

Secure Boot is intended to ensure your computer starts safely by preventing unauthorized software like malware from taking control of a computer at boot-up. It is a Microsoft safety layer attempting to protect against malware, and Microsoft controls what is authorized and what is not. Microsoft sells certificates to other operating systems (Ubuntu and derivatives, for example) that allow those operating systems to to boot with Secure Boot enabled. Many/most Linux distributions have elected not to buy the certificate, so Secure Boot needs to be disabled in order for them to boot.

I'm glad that I noticed the issue and was able to help. Just to follow up on @JoshStrobl's comments, the installation instructions mention the issue (see the "Notes" at the bottom of the page), but it is easy to miss the implications if you haven't had experience with Linux outside of Ubuntu and derivatives and are accordingly not sensitive to the enabled/disabled issue with Linux distros. I ran into the same issue when I moved from Ubuntu to Solus some years ago, so it came to mind when I saw the Solus/Ubuntu USB boot difference in your post.

tomscharbach

philippulus

philippulus Now there is no place where to install.
SSD is not found, maybe another DELL security layer to enable disk access?

I'm not sure what is going on, but it is almost certainly not a Dell security layer. I use Dell computers exclusively (and have for well over a decade) and I am almost dead certain that Dell does not impose additional security layers.

If I had to guess, the SSD might not be properly formatted (it needs to be GPT formatted) or, alternatively, you might need to go into BIOS again and set SATA to AHCI in order to see the SSD. Again, the Notes from the installation page:

Notes:

Your system must be booted using Unified EFI (UEFI) mode, as opposed to a “legacy (BIOS) mode”.
Secure Boot needs to be disabled.
Your disk is required to be GPT formatted.
If you cannot see your SSD drive, set the SATA configuration to AHCI.

philippulus

@JoshStrobl tomscharbach
Thanks for the great help.

philippulus

Found the solution here:

Boot into BIOS (F2 or F12 at startup)
Select Bios Setup.
Move to System Configuration > SATA Operation and select AHCI.