Problem booting 19.1 beta [SOLVED ]

[Jerry N]

I have created 19.1 cimmaron and mate beta flash drives but I am having trouble getting them to boot on my two primary desktop machines. I also created a 19.1 beta mate DVD and it boots just fine. Versions of Mint up through Mint 19 work just fine but the 19.1 flash drives will not boot consistently no matter what I try. The computers in question are 10-12 years old and use Gigabyte mother boards with AMD Phenom II X4 955 processors. Has the boot system been changed between Mint 19 and Mint 19.1? One added data point: The Mint 19.1 flash drive boots just fine on an HP Laptop that is no older than 5 or 6 years and has an Intel processor.

Jerry

[all41]

Go into bios and make sure that usb is enabled in the boot options and at the top of the boot order.
You enter the bios setup by pressing a certain button at the oem splash screen. This button is often
displayed at the bottom of the splash screen. Sometimes F10, F1, Esc---depends on your computer.

[Jerry N]

The computers in question are set to boot from USB and do indeed readily boot from USB sticks that have Mint 19, Mint 18.3, and all earlier versions. They just won't consistently boot Mint 19.1 USB sticks. All the USB sticks were created in Mint 18.x using the USB IMAGE WRITER. Mint 19.1 beta (Mate) installed without difficulty on a hard drive from a DVD written by K3B. There are no problems in booting 19.1 from the hard drive.

Jerry

[Jerry N]

When trying to boot 19.1 from a USB stick, I typically get either a Boot Error or the following message:
" ISOLINUX 6.03 1017017 EHDD Copyright (C) 1994-2014 H Peter Anvin Et al"
The computer is completely locked up at that point and has to be rebooted.
I have been able to get 19.1 to boot 2 or 3 times.

[Jerry N]

I have been trying to boot the Mint 19.1 Beta USB Stick with the USB 3.0 ports on my 10-12 year old computers, with inconsistent but poor results. I have determined that the USB Sticks WILL boot consistently on USB 2.0 ports on these computers. This is an adequate work around.

Still, why do Mint 17.x, 18.x, and 19.0 images boot without difficulty on the USB 3.0 ports?

Jerry

[Petermint]

Re USB 2/3. There are some devices that have a USB 2 chip half modified for USB 3. They work under Windows because Windows has special code to handle the errors. Plug the device into USB 2 and run the lsusb command to find the chip id then search for linux plus the chip id. Use USB 2 or find a memory stick that works with USB 3.

I threw away a couple of cheap SSD enclosures because they had the fake USB 3 chips.

[Pierre]

there does seem to be an issue with using those usb3 ports, ATM,
and it is still suggested that you only boot your usb stick in an usb2 port.

- - likewise, I'm also having issues with my newer drive enclosures, that will only work on usb3,
- and are also not backwards compatible. ..

[Petermint]

One of several examples: viewtopic.php?f=50&t=229769

[Jerry N]

Pierre and Petermint caused me to think a bit. Ouch, kind of hard on an old guy ! The mint versions (17.x, 18.x, 19.0) that boot properly in the USB 3.0 port on my out-of-date desktop computers are on PNY 128gb USB 3.0 units. The Mint 19.1 that does not boot consistently on the USB 3.0 port on these computers (but does boot on a USB 2.0 port) is installed on a Silicon Power 128gb USB 3.0 thumbdrive. I have another PNY 128gb USB 3.0 thumbdrive and I installed Mint 19.1 on it as a test. It does indeed boot without difficulty on the USB 3.0 port. So my problem was caused by out of date computers and choice of thumbdrive brands - PNY boots on the USB 3.0 port and Silicon Power does not! The Silicon Power thumbdrive does boot on the USB 3.0 port on an HP laptop that is several years newer than my desktop computers.

Jerry

[Petermint]

Run the lsusb command.
Plug both devices in and run the lsusb command.
You will see two extra lines like:
Bus 003 Device 007: ID 0781:5590 SanDisk Corp.

That id, 0781:5590, is the manufacturers id for the usb 3 chip in the devices. Search for Linux 0781:5590 USB 3, using your ids.

[Jerry N]

"Search for Linux 0781:5590 USB 3, using your ids."

I guess I am bit dense today - search where?

Jerry

[Petermint]

Google for the following using your ids.
Linux 0781:5590 USB 3

What are the ids?

[Jerry N]

LSUSB shows two of my USB 3.0 Sticks as:
ID 154b:00b2 PNY
ID 13fe:6000 Kingston Technology Company Inc.

I Googled these as suggested but I fail to find any useful information about the specific drives

[Petermint]

I found some problems for 13fe:*. Kingston does not manufacture the chips, it just buys them from someone else who burns the Kingston id into the chips. One of the reasons I do not buy Kingston. There are a small number of brands, Toshiba, Samsung, and others that do manufacture their own chips.

One difference you find with manufacturers is the consistency from batch to batch. A chip manufacturer will use the same chip for the lifetime of a product. The other brands might by different chips for every batch, whatever is cheapest on the day. You can have one batch, usually the first, that is fast and reliable when handed out to people writing reviews. The brand may then buy cheaper imitations for other batches.