Skip to main content ↑ ↓
Topic: [SOLVED] Unable to boot from USB. Affects ONLY Artix images on one machine. (Read 835 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 2 Guests are viewing this topic.

[SOLVED] Unable to boot from USB. Affects ONLY Artix images on one machine.

Hi, I'm nooby, so thanks in advance. I am trying to install the most recent main artix-base-runit image on my laptop.

Flashed to a flash drive using balenaEtcher, then verified the .ISO was bootable on my desktop computer. Successful.

I proceed to plug in and boot to the device on my thinkpad. Infinite black screen. Artix splash menu never appears. This is the primary issue.

Based on the testing done with my main desktop machine, there does not appear to be any issue with the flash drive, or the Artix .ISO integrity.

To eliminate the possibility that the issue was with a particular USB port on the laptop, I used all three to the same result.

To further eliminate the possibility that all three USB ports suddenly went bad, I did the same procedure with a standard Arch .ISO. The laptop boots that image just fine. In fact, I also successfully installed Ubuntu on the laptop just to test if there would be any issues following the full installation. No issues. Ubuntu is currently fully functional on the laptop.

I tried also to use a different Artix image. I have tried the current stable base-openrc image, as well as an archived image of the base-runit image. Neither work on the laptop. I also tried an xfce-runit image. That does not work either.

At this point, I am guessing that Artix has some kind of system requirement which it is failing to detect on the laptop for some reason. I have previously totally formatted the only internal hard disk (just prior to the successful Ubuntu install) to ensure that no data was leftover from a previously aborted Artix install, which became severely corrupted at the kernel level for reasons.

This is a first for me, never have I run into a device which specifically hates ONE particular distribution. Does anyone have any advice?

Re: Unable to boot from USB. Affects ONLY Artix images on one machine.

Reply #1 –
Hi,
This wouldn't be the first time I hear of balenaEtcher not liking some images, use either Rufus instead if from windows, or dd if from linux.
Or go super fancy and use Ventoy, put the iso in the place it creates, it can force nonstandard bioses to boot anyway.
If it's a recent Thinkpad i'd also ask about whether secure boot is turned off.

Re: Unable to boot from USB. Affects ONLY Artix images on one machine.

Reply #2 –
Never heard of Ventoy until now! That makes my life a lot easier, regardless of its purpose in troubleshooting todays issue. That actually did the trick though. Thanks so much Hitman. Any idea what the issue with Etcher is?

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to boot from USB. Affects ONLY Artix images on one machine.

Reply #3 –
Same problem on my side on a Thinkpad T450s (no secureboot, UEFI only & CSM).

I tried flashing with both Etcher and dd, but to no avail. Just a blank screen after selecting the USB boot device while some activity indicated on the device.

Using Ventoy I can select which ISO to boot. The problem still persists when selecting normal boot, but I can boot it selecting the GRUB2 variant!?

Other ISOs just boot fine, even without Ventoy. Any ideas?

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to boot from USB. Affects ONLY Artix images on one machine.

Reply #4 –
I'm on a Thinkpad X1, and everything in sbub's message applied to me as well.
I can boot any other ISO just fine without Ventoy on this machine, and the Artix ISO boots up on my HP Stream 14 without Ventoy, but for some reason only on my Thinkpad with Artix do I require Ventoy (with GRUB2 boot).
I'm not entirely sure what's causing the problem, but I'm just glad I can finally install my favourite distro on both of my machines. :D

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to boot from USB. Affects ONLY Artix images on one machine.

Reply #5 –
is it a similar experience to this?