Cannot boot exam iso - but version from 2020 works

[Mattias1]

Hi, 

I have an exam coming up on Friday and hence this is pretty urgent. 

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 on MacOS and also tried Fedora Writer on Windows 10. 

The boot process is starting until the screen "ERROR 36: REBUILD USB DRIVE" appears. It happens on both my Windows 10 machine and my MacBook Pro with Catalina. 

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 (have not been through the full process yet)

I plan the exam on Friday - shall I proceed and use the image 2020-08 or will that not work for the exam. Please advise as otherwise I need to re-schedule the exam to find someone from RedHat that can support me and fix this.

Greetings

Mattias

[Dany]

Hello, I am having the same issue. I tried with 2 USB drives and same error. I downloaded the iso image https://static.redhat.com/downloads/training-certification/rhrexboot.iso

[Seanogor]

Same issue need to offer guidance in Docs about this issue

[LULU]

With a Thinkpad T420s (2 cores, 8GB memory) all versions (I tried) starting from December 2020 booted smooth so far and further passed all compatibiltity checks.

As of the laggy desktop experience during the exams I wanted to do the next exam with a old but more performant mac mini (late 2012, 4 cores, 16GB memory). But same as you I constantly ran into "ERROR 36: REBUILD USB DRIVE".

I can confirm that the rhrexboot-2020-08.iso boots with the mac mini. But the Logitech StreamCam isn't recognized nor the camera microphone. Further I experienced a network failure "TypeError: NetworkError when attempting to fetch resource" Which is quite a funny as I doulbe cheked the network setttings in the setup dialogue where I set the keyboard, mouse speed and speaker volume (for mac mini it's only the "Front Left" but that's not an issue, I guess) and then also was able to login wich Red Hat for the compatibility checks or any exams.

To be mentioned:

- The 2020-08 ISO is much smaller (good for quicker download and dd to the USB thumb drive) than the current image

- The 2020-08 ISO booted much quicker

- The 2020-08 ISO provided access to grub which is would allow some further troubleshooting.

Now I'll stop trying any further with mac mini and older images...

I addition to the trouble with ISOs (it's hard to track and report issues when version numbers are not tied to the ISO) it's not possible to get a preview of any exam workstation to further test the compability of the screen resolution - this two points I already addressed as a feedback..

[Seanogor]

use fedora image writer only to write usbs, get a windows 10 os on 8 gb min ram laptop off family:

https://static.redhat.com/downloads/training-certification/rhrexboot-2020-08.iso

turn on UEFI setting on windows machine by search advanced startup options and also restart and boot from usb

[RohanPhilip]

The "ERROR 36: REBUILD USB DRIVE" appeared when my live USB was a GPT drive and when I tried to reformat the same drive using fdisk the error message I got was something along the lines of "partition table mismatch", so I formatted the USB to a DOS drive and flashed the RHEL exam image on the same DOS drive and the live USB was able to boot. Hope this helps

[CornelStefan]

I have the same issue too..

Tried image 2020 and new one on:
Tower - X570/Ryzen 3900X
Laptop - Thinkpad T470 - I5 7300
Laptop - Lenovo B590 - Intel Ivy Bridge
Laptop - ASUS ROG G750JT - Intel Haswell

Fedora works just fine on all of them. Except of course this image. Anyone know something that's actually compatible? it just looks like someone forgot to put drivers into the image.

2 different USB Sticks and bought a 3rd just to be sure.

[AndyMcIntosh]

Same issue here on Windows 10. Was going to go out and buy a new flash drive then found this thread. My exam is in 2 weeks, really frustrating to see the lack of engagement / feedback from Red Hat here.

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@Mattias1 wrote:

Hi, 

I have an exam coming up on Friday and hence this is pretty urgent. 

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 on MacOS and also tried Fedora Writer on Windows 10. 

The boot process is starting until the screen "ERROR 36: REBUILD USB DRIVE" appears. It happens on both my Windows 10 machine and my MacBook Pro with Catalina. 

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 (have not been through the full process yet)

I plan the exam on Friday - shall I proceed and use the image 2020-08 or will that not work for the exam. Please advise as otherwise I need to re-schedule the exam to find someone from RedHat that can support me and fix this.

Greetings

Mattias

---

[BZSG]

How was your final take? @Mattias1 @AndyMcIntosh 

The RH Training team has been unresponsive for a couple of months even I chased them officially by email.

I'm also struggling with both my MacBook Pro and MacBook Air:

- For MBP: Security settings do not allow this Mac to use an external startup disk. -- not sure it's because of MacOS' default behaviour or my company's security policy;

- For MBA: ERROR 36: REBUILD USE DRIVE -- but rebuild didn't help at all.