Cannot boot from the LiveUSB memory stick

[Noel_Lewis]

Hello all,

Am signed up for the RH Certification exam in a week, but I can't get my Live USB stick to boot up.

I am using Windows 11 on a Thinkpad Extreme X1 laptop and used the Fedora Writer to write into the memory stick successfully. It wrote the rhrexboot.iso file successfully to the memory stick.  I tried to boot up using the mem stick but it just doesn't recognize the USB stick at all.  Tried multiple USB ports and another new USB stick, same thing. It just doesn't boot up from the USB stick.

I saw some older posts where someone else ran into the ame problem and suggested using an older rhrexboot-2020-08.iso file, which I did, but no luck with this one either.

Also, after the Fedora Media writer software wrote (successfully) to the USB mem stick, I can't use my Windows thinkpad trackpoint anymore.  That doesn't work now after writing into the USB stick.

Any idea how to resolve this please?  Or how do I open a RH ticket?

Thanks.
Noel Lewis

[Fran_Garcia]

Hi Noel,

Have you tried disabling secure boot in your UEFI / BIOS settings?  IIRC rhrexboot.iso file uses UEFI , and rhrexboot-2020-08.iso uses BIOS, so your system should be configured accordingly.

Don't forget to rollback the changes prior to booting Windows again.

Good luck

[Noel_Lewis]

Hi Fran,

Yes I tried that too..  I disabled Secure Boot in the BIOS, didn't make any difference.

Noel

[PetrCihlar]

The older ISO is Secure Boot compliant so it should boot no matter of Secure Boot settings you have in BIOS. 
The second thing you can check is if you have USB booting allowed. Sometimes it may be disabled for security reasons.

Depending on what generation of the laptop you have, the problem may be it is too new and the chipset is not supported. There may also be a problem with the video card. Nvidia is not well supported. Try switching to Intel video in Bios if you have this option. This might help.
Regards
Petr

[Noel_Lewis]

Hi Petr:

Thanks for the answer.

I've tried with both rhrexboot.iso and the older rhrexboot-2020-08.iso.  Both don't work for me.I am using a fairly new (about 1 1/2 years old) Thinkpad X1 Extreme laptop with 32GB mem and 1TB hard drive, Intel Core i7 CPU at 2.7GHz running Windows 11 Pro x64-bit.

I was able to write the files into multiple USB sticks with Fedora Media Writer, that was no problem. It just doesn't boot from the mem sticks (tried various USB hubs and ports also).    I disabled the Secure Boot in the BIOS but there's no option to change the video in the BIOS, its pre-set to Nvida.

Another side problem that I noticed is that after writing the rhrexboot* software into the USB mem sticks, my mouse trackpoint doesn't work anymore.  (This is a bit annoying as now I have to depend on an external mouse, which am not used to.  But its minor.)  Something in the rhrexboot* software seemed to have conflicted with my system mouse drivers, but that's another issue for another day to resolve.

I opened a ticket with the RH folks last nite, and he did some simple BIOS checks (which I'd already done before), but couldn't figure it out.  He ended up suggesting to open (another ticket) at https://rhtapps.redhat.com/comments , to document the problem.  He also suggested using an older laptop, which I just don't have lying around.

So, at this point, am stuck, and my exam date is fast approaching...  turns out getting LiveUSB to work on my system is more challenging then the actual RH Cert am planning to take (if I even can.) .

Thxs for your help and suggestion.  I'll keep trying, hopefully it'll work. Fingers crossed.

Noel

[chandrasred]

You can raise ticket here : https://rhtapps.redhat.com/comments   [ in subject select Problems with certification central ]

1. make sure to provide them sharable drive link [ view only ] in message body which should contain all the error screenshots.

2. Provide the your exam code SKU and your RedHat User Login name [ Username which you either call as RHL ID or RHN ID ].

3. Make sure to provide all details in detailed way.

[Noel_Lewis]

Hi Chandrasred,

Thanks for your suggestions.  I opened a ticket at the https://rhtapps.redhat.com/comments.

Waiting to see if they find something.

Thanks,

Noel Lewis

[alexajo]

Please share the resolution once this is resolved as to help others with the same issue. I wish you luck.

[Noel_Lewis · Accepted solution]

Got an update from the RH support rep, he said there's some hardware compatibility issue with my Thinkpad Nvidia graphics card, hence its not working for me.  He indicated that they're updating the ISO on a timely manner to latest versions, but he didn't give me a hard date of when this will be fixed.  He said its a challenge to test various hardwares with the LiveUSB ISO image, because there are so many different types of hardware and graphic cards.   So, at this point, unfortunately, I'll just have to cancel my RH Cert exam date until I can find an alternate laptop that works with the LiveUSB ISO image.

As for my side-problem of my Thinkpad TrackPoint not working anymore after I burned the LiveUSB image to the USB memory stick, he said to reboot and see if that works. I've already done this countless times, it didn't fix the problem, the Trackpoint still doesn't work.  So now I have to resort to using an external USB mouse instead of my Trackpoint.  Not a major hurdle but be aware that some things *may* not work with the LiveUSB ISO image, as it happened in my case with my TrackPoint on my Thinkpad.  Good luck to you folks.

[OscarO]

Hi, 

I'm trying to boot the image in an HP Windows 11 (just upgraded yesterday because it was working fine before) and it tries to load it but it does nothing. It screen is blinking every 5 seconds or so. I'm using the latest available image. Is someone else having this issue?

Thank you.