Cannot Boot Remote Exam Live ISO USB for Remote Exam, Boot hanging at 100%

[o1e]

Hello all,

i’m having some issues with the boot of the Remote Exam Live ISO.

During the preparation for the Remote Exam for ROL Course DO288, i tried to boot my Laptop using the Remote Exam Live ISO. I'm following the docs available here: https://www.redhat.com/en/resources/remote-exams-preparation-ebook.

Downloaded https://static.redhat.com/downloads/training-certification/rhrexboot.iso and written it to USB Stick by using the dd utility.

The boot process is starting until the screen "environment is loading into memory" appears, it counts up to 100% and then nothing more is happening. 

I tried different USB-Stick, always the same result.

For tests, i also used the rhrexboot-2020-08.iso Image, which i found as reference in an redhat Issue description, this one is working for me. Boot is without error, and the hardware compatibility checks are successful.

I plan to do the exam soon, thanks to advice how to proceed. I only have one Laptop available for the training/exam, it's a Lenovo Thinkpad P50.

Greetings

Oliver

[Fazel_Hussain]

My 2 cents.

I have been through a situation recently, where my Laptop (IdeaPad 300-141SK) that I was using for almost four remote exams without any issues became incompatible for the new remote exam ISO that was rolled out recently by RedHat.  (Similar errors shown in your screenshots)

So, it is possible that the Laptop that worked for your remote exam before will not necessarily work with the new Remote Exam ISO due to enhancement done to the new ISOs. I reached out to RedHat exam support and their reply was to borrow another laptop from your friend or colleague to try or make a Testing Center reservation for attending the exam. 

So, watchout and do the compatiblity test atleast some days ahead of your remote exam and don't get caught out on the day of exam to learn that the new remote exam ISO will not support your current laptop you have been using all along.

And more importantly, once the new remote exam ISO is rolled out, you will not be able to use the previous ISO that worked on your laptop. The compatibility test will prompty fail with the message "old ISO not supported" and RedHat exam support made it very clear without new ISO image, the remote exam will not be possible.

[morbius]

I'm getting ready for my next RH exam and today I checked if my USB drive that I used in June exam is still working. No, it's not, compatibility check reports it's outdated and unsupported.

So, I downloaded the current image, copied it on a USB using dd, but it wouldn't boot after several attempts. As you can imagine, I got royally angry at RH again, but then thought maybe it's something with the image, so I downloaded it from another link, copied it on the same USB drive and this time it booted fine! Both iso images are the same, with md5sum a58eb6d4f588ad261f8d0e79745b67ee. The lesson from this is that it's possible to have data corruption while copying the image to the drive, so it's worth trying to create the boot USB again if it fails to boot.