USB Problem.

I must be doing something wrong here. I bought a new Scandisk 16 Gb memory stick. I ran balenaEtcher to load the Zorin .iso file I'd downloaded to the USB stick. All seemed well. When I shut down my laptop.and tried to.boot from the USB - nothing! I'd turned off fast boot and made space for Zorin as previously advised. Restarted Win10 to check the USB drive and the computer couldn't even recognise the drive!

Having spent a career as a Unix consultant this is damned embarrassing. Please advise where I've cocked up.

Many thanks,

David.

Hi, I have never liked Etcher. What I prefer needs a GNU/Linux install to begin with, MultiSystem. For you I would advise you use Rufus instead. Did you also turn off the sleep settings on the hard drive in hidden advanced Power Management? Did you disable Windows Boot Manager in the BIOS? Is your BIOS up to date? Did you change your boot parameters to boot from USB? Did you format the stick to FAT32 beforehand?

Also your notebook - is it HP? Check in Windows 10 how many partitions are labelled as Primary - Notebook manufacturers have a habit of having 4 partitions (2 hidden) all marked as Primary and as I am sure you are aware, you can only ever have 4 primary partitions - I experienced the same issue on an HP Mini 110.

Kryspen wrote:Having spent a career as a Unix consultant this is damned embarrassing.

Swarfendor437 wrote:Did you also turn off the sleep settings on the hard drive in hidden advanced Power Management? -Windoze
Did you disable Windows Boot Manager in the BIOS? -Windoze

Seems you are not the one who should be feeling embarrassment, Kryspen.
Windows 10 is ridiculously tedious, bloated, slow, cluttered, scattered and difficult to manage. Longtime Windows Enthusiasts are even outraged. More so that Windows is trying to charge regular steady payments for the Windows Operating System as a service, instead of as a purchase.
All while using the machine you pay for and the O.S. you pay for to operate as a Server for them for free.

Swarfendor is best for handling Installation issues. He also wrote the unofficial Zorin 15 Guide you will see at the top of the board index. It has some pointers on Installation, dual booting and cremating a Bootable USB. (Unless it works, then it was created, instead.)

Thanks for those suggestions. I've already done some of them - like creating a partition for Zorin and will.work on the rest.
Have you any suggestions as to how I could resurrect the USB drive or must I write that off.

Thanks again,

David

Kryspen wrote:Thanks for those suggestions. I've already done some of them - like creating a partition for Zorin and will.work on the rest.
Have you any suggestions as to how I could resurrect the USB drive or must I write that off.

Thanks again,

David

Windows is notoriously finicky about reading USB thumb drives. You may need to set it aside for now and use another to get everything set up. In my own meager experience, if you plug a thumb drive into a Linux run machine, it reads that sucker.

You could try reformatting the USB. Fat32 is usually best. I've had to do that before. Aravisian is right, windows is stupid in this regard, as so many other things.

I can't, at the moment, reformat the faulty USB stick as Windoze won't even recognise it.
I'm trying to build a bootable Zorin system on another USB stick using Rufus. It's asking me if I want to build a .iso file on the stick on a disk image file. Is disk image the correct choice?

I gather I need to go into the BIOS to turn Smart Boot off and disable Windows Boot Manager. Is this as simple as selecting the USB stick in the boot order or something different?

I'm on an HP laptop. Which key do I press to go into the BIOS, please?

As for how to get into bios, usually the computer tells you what key to press while it's booting. Sometimes it goes by fast, so be on the lookout. Write it down!

I believe you want an ISO file.

Well as far as I can tell I've done everything you suggested. When I try to install Zorin on my HP/Win10 machine I still get this message "something has gone wrong" (or words to that effect). I've given up. I have a Lenovo laptop running CloudReady. I've installed Zorin on there alongside CloudReady with no problem whatsoever. If I didn't need Win10 to run Dragon the box would go straight out of the window.

Cheers for all your help

David

Kryspen wrote:I can't, at the moment, reformat the faulty USB stick as Windoze won't even recognise it.
I'm trying to build a bootable Zorin system on another USB stick using Rufus. It's asking me if I want to build a .iso file on the stick on a disk image file. Is disk image the correct choice?

I gather I need to go into the BIOS to turn Smart Boot off and disable Windows Boot Manager. Is this as simple as selecting the USB stick in the boot order or something different?

I'm on an HP laptop. Which key do I press to go into the BIOS, please?

Yes, bootable Disk Image.

I am sorry, I cannot answer any question on Windows 10. I stopped at XP, though I did use and tolerate 7 for a while... At least it was still the NT Kernel.
Swarfendor can help you there.
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=14361
https://app.box.com/s/sp7uzb7r2o731g7jkn6tcb8gxvtz6gvy

To disable "smart" (a.k. dumb) things on Windows, some you do through Windows settings. I know that much.

Sadly, it is not as simple as choosing the boot order. There are quite a few hoops that Windows makes you jump through. It's definitely possible (And I fear I will soon need to do it on my sons computer)... but you do need to know all of the steps and take those steps one at a time.
I don't trust my knowledge of the steps enough to lead you astray- this post is more a post of encouragement.
But try to get Swarfendor to help you. He's pretty adept at smacking windows around.

Edit:

Kryspen wrote:Well as far as I can tell I've done everything you suggested. When I try to install Zorin on my HP/Win10 machine I still get this message "something has gone wrong" (or words to that effect). I've given up. I have a Lenovo laptop running CloudReady. I've installed Zorin on there alongside CloudReady with no problem whatsoever. If I didn't need Win10 to run Dragon the box would go straight out of the window.

Cheers for all your help

David

If you have Zorin installed on the Lenovo, have you tried seeing if it reads the USB stick that Windows hates?
Dragon got good reviews on Wine3 which is what comes with Zorin 12. I do not know if you have Zorin 12 or Zorin 15 (15 lacks Wine entirely) on the Lenovo.
You might try installing wine3 through synaptic and trying Dragon out with it on that machine. If after a week or so you are confident it is working well, you could then open up the option of installing a straight shot Linux on the HP and wiping Windows off of it with a wad of toilet paper.

HP has a habit of making 4 Primary Partitions - that is the maximum number you can have on any system, regardless of how many drives exist. On my HP 110 Mini (Netbook) it has:
1. Hidden Partition (Primary)
2. C:\ with Windowws 7 Starter (Primary)
3. Hidden recovery/factory restore partition (Primary)
4. Hidden media restoration creator to create 3 DVDs to do a factory restore using USB DVD-RW that I bought from a discount store (Primary)

You have to make the choice as to which one is to go. I only have experience of messing with Windows 10 on an old rig using the free experimental Windows 10 you can sign up to - needless to say that rig was not U/EFI based and used mbr not GPT. Another issue is if there are SSD's in the system. If you have an SSD and an HD if it is physically possible to remove the SSD I'd take that out, install Zorin on the HDD and then put the SSD back in. I still don't know how to use BIOS GRUB and have to find some articles on how to do that - when I installed Zorin on this EFI rig I chose BIOS GRUB - this puts an Ubunut GRUB in BIOS but there are no OS shown - it would be helpful if Zorin gave instructions for this as it is included in the setup/GParted options but no explanation. Also no explanation on ESP - Makulu Lindoz 15 reminds you of this if you failed to create one - it should be Minimum of 30 Mb - I opt for 50 Mb just to be safe. If your system is GPT then you need to follow this guide:

https://linoxide.com/distros/install-ub ... indows-10/