USB boot start up

I made a copy of Zorin 8 to install on a 2003 Dell Dim 4550 computer running Win XP. My computer will not boot to the disc nor does it show up under my BIOS. As a test of the USB I put it in another computer 2006 Dell Dim E520 and same thing can't locate USB. First USB Ceton brand 4GB, not large enough. Tried PNY brand 8GB also not big enough, that surprised me, but tried later an did load to the USB. Tried a 16GB Scan Cruzer USB, starts as a removable disk, drive E, loads and changes to UUI, drive E, the 8 GB also changed to UUI.
Not sure what's happening here.
Sorry another XP er trying to leave windows

In your topic there are really strange things. I do not either figure out what is happening there. I can try to help if you could tell more in details, what you did and what you are trying to do, to install the operating system.

According to my understanding you tried to use a DVD and also a USB Flash Drive to boot your computer to make the installation. You mentioned that you had not big enough USB devices. All what you mentioned are big enough to instal Zorin 8 Core which takes only 1,7 Gb space from the memory. Also Ultimate distro is less than 4 Gb.

How and where you downloaded the .iso file, did you make the md5sum check to the downloaded file?

UUI refers to the Universal USB Installer, so did you use that Installer program to make a bootable USB drive of your .iso file?

How did you make the selection of boot order in BIOS, You mentioned regarding the disc "nor does it show up under my BIOS? Did you see the boot order menu in BIOS what was the devices there to boot from?

I also see that there will start the Windows in your computer, so that is not correct. There is something that has gone wrong to boot to something else !

Zorin 8/8.1 Core and Ultimate 32 Bit, Ubunbtu 13.10 32 Bit, Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit, Asus AMD Athlon 64 Bit X2 Dual core 4000+, HP 530 Intel Celeron M 32 Bit

Henriolavi,
First I apologize for the length of this post
I'm trying to boot the computer off the USB flash drive. I would like to get familiar & learn before changing systems. I would also like to see how Linux works on my 2003 computer, which I still use for one of my programs.

Don't know why a 4 GB flash drive wouldn't work, but I did hear somewhere to use a min 5 GB to download. Got an error message: OOPS only have 3600+/- MB need 3900+/- MB.
The 8 GB & 16 GB flash drives both show 5.52 GB used space.

Downloaded from Pendrivelinux.com - Universal-USB- Installer 1.9.5.2.exe.
Formatted two flash drives with the Installer an 8 GB & 16 GB.
Downloaded Zorin os from Zorin website 8.1, 32 bit
I did use the persitence feature when downloading the flies
Not familiar with ms5sum so probably not

Yes to the question did I make a bootable USB drive with Zorin, both flash drives show 5.52 GB

No to the selection question.
Boot order:
1. Diskette Drive
2. Hard Drive C:
3. IDC CD-Rom Device
4. Integrated NIC (disabled)

Sorry I don't understand the last question; I also see that will start the Windows in your computer so that is not coorect.....

I see from your reply that many things there are ok. First the reason why 4 Gb drive shows to be too small is that you have probably selected up to 4Gb persistent file size in UUI program, so there should be at least 5,7 Gb free memory. In 8 GB and 16 Gb drives that 5.52 Gb seems to be ok. 4Gb drive will work if you reduce the persistent file size only to ca. 2 Gb. The selection of 8 Gb drive and with 4 Gb persistence file size is ok. to have more space. That 5 Gb minimum memory for Zorin os. you mentioned, does dot apply here. It is the requirement when Zorin 8 is installed to HDD. It will be extracted mode there and that is why it takes more than 1.7 Gb space from the HDD.

The md5sum checker program is used to calculate the downloaded files check sums to be sure that there are not errors in the files. It is highly recommended to be done at least for the downloaded Zorin 8.1 .iso file before installation to USB, DVD or HDD. An erroneous .iso file can also lead to problems to make a bootable USB Drive.

In your BIOS Boot Selection Menu listing, I do not see any USB drive to be able to be selected. There are two alternatives either you have not connected the USB drive to any USB port in your computer before starting the BIOS with selection to pop up the selection menu, or your BIOS do not have that option, that you can boot from a USB drive.

In the first case there are no problem, You only connect the drive to a USB port and you will see it in the boot selection menu as something like this "USB: San Disk Cruzer" or only "USB: FDD" to select that boot device option. When this option is selected and hitting "Enter" it should start the Zorin instead of Windows. In the second case that you do not get any USB Boot option into your BIOS then you should use a DVD to boot your computer to Zorin. In that option there is not a possibility to have any persistent live sessions.

In the last lines I only stated that it seems that it will start the Windows os. due to you said that it will be started as a removable media and to be drive E. That is on the Windows os. not Zorin. So there where something why it did not start Zorin from USB isntead.

In case there is not a possibility to boot your computer from USB, I have seen a tutorial to make changes to BIOS to get that option also available. However I am not familiar whether it is possible to apply to all BIOSes and computers. Hopefully that is not something needed to be done to get your computer to boot from a USB.

Zorin 8/8.1 Core and Ultimate 32 Bit, Ubunbtu 13.10 32 Bit, Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit, Asus AMD Athlon 64 Bit X2 Dual core 4000+, HP 530 Intel Celeron M 32 Bit

Hi,

before you used the USB drives to create your bootable stick(s), did you format them to FAT32 completely cleaning any other files stored on them before?.

Regards Wolfman

Thanks to Henriolavi & Wolfman
To Wolfman's question did I format the USB; yes each time I used the installer or from the USB drive E on my computer before I did a download. I did download more than once using different flash drives.

Regarding the md5sum checker program should I start over, delete USB installer, & Zorin 8.1 from the computer; reinstall after doing the md5sum program. Don't know how to do this is there a tutorial for this procedure?

In the Bios Boot selection menu, I don't see it either, one of the reasons this post started.

In my device manager, under Universal Series Bus controllers
Intel (r) 82801DB/DBM USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller-24 CD
Intel (r) 82801DB/DBM USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller-24 C2
Intel (r) 82801DB/DBM USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller-24 C4
Intel (r) 82801DB/DBM USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller-24 C7
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub
Under Disk drives I see
WDC WD600BB-75CAAO
Microsoft driver
driver date 07/01/2001
Driver version 5.1.2535.0
This is what I see in Device Manager, but I don't understand what I'm seeing.
I just used a flash drive in the 2003 computer; one had PDF files, the other had folders with pictures, both opened just fine.
Thanks for your help
I'll get a couple of DVD disc an try with that, or I'll march this computer the repair shop

Wolfmans note here is an utmost important to take into consideration. Even if you use a new USB drive there might be some data included and the drive may be not formatted at all or made to some other format. To make formatting you have to use some disk tool to be sure that the format is the right one, fat 32. If you do not have in your Windows a disk tool to make this formatting to fat 32, there is in the UUI installation tool that option that putting a tick to " Format (selected drive): Erases Content", it will make the right format into that drive.

You said :
"Regarding the md5sum checker program should I start over, delete USB installer, & Zorin 8.1 from the computer; reinstall after doing the md5sum program. Don't know how to do this is there a tutorial for this procedure?"

No you need not to do anything else than run the md5sum program selecting the .iso file to be checked. If it shows that there are no errors in that file all is ok. Only in case that it shows that there are errors then you have to download a new .iso file and start everything once more. The use of that program is very simple and self explaining so I doubt if there is a need for tutorial.

You said:
"In the Bios Boot selection menu, I don't see it either, one of the reasons this post started."

It is essential that you can see the "Boot Selection Menu" to make the selection which device is used to boot from. To see this menu you have to start the computer and press some function key repeatedly before it will boot from the default device ( it may be f1, f8 , f9 , f12 or even some other) to get the menu pop up selected, othervice it will start from the default device and go to Windows.

I believe that everything works in your USB just fine and there are not any problems. Only problem that I see here is that you do not make the boot selection from the "BIOS Boot Selection Menu" to start the Zorin from your USB Drive. I do not know how to help any better due to every computer and BIOS looks little different. Only common is that there have to use some function key to get there. You have to try to find out the way to get Boot Selection Menu popped up and make the boot device selection there to USB FDD. All other things or problems here are out of my scope of knowledge. Best help you could get if someone had just that same type of computer as you have knowing little more of the details.

I suspect your BIOS does not support USB - you need PLOP Boot manager to do this!

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/boot-from- ... a-plop-cd/

I made a tutorial video on using winmd5com in Windows on my veoh.com account - just search for my username (same as here)!

My suggestion here is that before going to PLOP there should be clear that your computer's BIOS do not offer that possibility to be bootable from USB. I still hesitate that you said that, you do not see the Boot Order Menu from BIOS, Did I understand it correctly. If it is really so that there is a Boot Order Menu that clearly denies to boot from an installed USB device, there for sure have to be the alternative to boot from CD/DVD. Something has to work.

Look at this link. There is a Dell and in the pictures there a BIOS Boot Order Menu opened having the first option as USB. The function key there used was f12 to go into Boot Options. It seems to use UNetbootin instead of UUI that is more or less same software to make a persistent USBlive Drive.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6729

I have not used PLOP so I can not give any comments to that how it will work. However, i saw from some web sites that it is not so straight forwarded to be used either.


Zorin 8/8.1 Core and Ultimate 32 Bit, Ubunbtu 13.10 32 Bit, Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit, Asus AMD Athlon 64 Bit X2 Dual core 4000+, HP 530 Intel Celeron M 32 Bit

In the instance I used PLOP it was to install Pupply Linux on an ancient Toshiba with 96 Mb RAM before sending it for recycling. It only had a CD-Rom, I created a floppy disc with PLOP on to boot to the external DVD drive attached to a USB Port!