[SOLVED] Zorin 12.2 Ultimate Black Screen

I'm a returning Zorin User, back from forswearing ever using a windows operating system ever again (again). My laptop's hard drive developed irreparable disk drive errors, and im attempting to boot from a flash drive live cd, to install to an external hard drive, that can be booted to thereafter, until my new internal hdd arrives in the mail.

So my laptop has a basic bios, but no OS or anything atm. Im booting to external hardware. Regardless of if i use this laptop, or a diff one, i get an instant black window when choosing to try or install zorin. Having to use my tablet for the screenshots, so i apologise if the reflection from the laptop screen is annoying.

The images had to ve taken by a tablet camera app. So they are kinda terrible, terribly large, and might need to be opened in a new tab by context menu to be seen well enough.

This is what the initial menu looks like:

https://i.imgur.com/zLJlCYN.jpg

I press e, for settings, and try one of two commands of the 'nomodeset' command in the ho-es of trying to boot the iso:

The command 'nomodeset acpi-osi=' as depicted in this thread, in step one of the green-checked answer
https://askubuntu.com/questions/838212/ ... p72-laptop

Or the command - 'nouveau.modeset=0' from the link
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=13520

This is what it looks like for me to try this, replacing the commands 'quiet' and 'splash':

https://i.imgur.com/NHsm2wM.jpg

And no matter what i do or do not do, on any laptop at all, this is what happens next, which never goes anywhere thereafter. You cant tell as well from the screenshot, because that accursed sunlight was impossible to work with, but its basically a smaller black screen, enclosed by the darkmgrey border of the zorin 12 grub menu.

https://i.imgur.com/YdaYm8K.jpg

I have been unable to find any other solutions elsewhere. Please help.

Hi, When you boot from the iso, do you get the accessibility = keyboard logo to begin with? If so hit escape, to see F2 Language selection, press escape again then press 'F6 Other options' and check mark all the options as in this image:



i.e., acpi=off
noapic
nolapic
nomodeset

I don't know in your case whether edd=on is required (enhanced disk drive services)

I get off work at 5 pm, so I'll be able to see if that will work then

It looks like my image doesnt have any Accessibility logo menu. Hitting escape opens the grub terminal.

Update: it bears mentioning that writing the image to my 64 gig harddrive produces this result:

https://i.imgur.com/hsHUo4y.jpg

Your 64 Gig Flash Drive has probably seen better days then. I have never been successful with Etcher. Give Rufus a try. (I haven't tried that either - I prefer MultiSystem but you have to have a GNU/Linux install in the first place to use MultiSystem.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Boo ... ufus.shtml

My constant formatting and reformatting of my flash rrive while trying to turn it into a bootable usb caused iit to irreparably turn faulty. I tried recovering it, but it didnt work. I used to have tons of flash drives, but no idea where they are now! Any-hoo, Rufus allows you to do the same with an ext-HDD if you use the...Alt-F5 command?...I think? Something like that. I had already turned it into a kali linux distro earlier, but I'd rather install Zorin to the HDD's storage making it the operating system somehow. Is there a way, since its a 1-2 TB thing to boot to its live, th3n install to it? That's assuming Rufus does the job.

Edit: "Try Alt-F in Rufus to enable detection of fixed disks/hard drives"

Source: https://github.com/pbatard/rufus/issues/134

Well, I've managed to use rufus+Alt-F to create a bootable DD disk image to my salvaged internal 1TB hdd that an old laptop had. Now, im booted into live mode, I MIGHT be able to install to my 2TB silicon power external hard drive, and use that as a portable os, while my new hdd is in the mail. I'll update again with results within 2 hours, I think.

Update @ 9:33 A.M. - 1/15/18 :
I almost managed to install to a hard drive listed as sdb, while running live in sda. My problem may have been not creating a boot and home partition as well, and as such, when it failed to install the bootloader to sda, i had to hard reset because there was no way to cancel or cose anything. Trying again with preparation for the casualty.

So if I understand correctly, you are trying to install to an external drive and boot of off that?

This thread may help:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/786986/ ... ive/942312