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kingston USB can not boot !

Posted: 20 Sep 2013, 23:44
by hypomania
hello,
I have PC with Gigabyte motherboard and I can boot Linux from CD or USB-HD.
but I have problem with kingston USB, I put all porteus folders on it and I run installation script successfully but still not bootable !
also, I can open it from porteus to save data normally but still not bootable !

what is the problem ? how can I use Linux from this kingston USB ?

Re: kingston USB can not boot !

Posted: 21 Sep 2013, 03:49
by donald
Hi Arabic_World
Was your Kingston bootable before you installed porteus ?
I ask, because I found a lot of (Google) sites talking about not booting
Kingston-usb-sticks.I also have a verbatim-usb-stick which will never boot
no matter what i do.
Can you try another usb-stick (a different Brand) to check out if it works then?

Re: kingston USB can not boot !

Posted: 21 Sep 2013, 04:38
by hypomania
Hi , donald
I did not use it to boot before, just was for saving data.
I tried another USB flash memory and it is work fine and boot normally, except Kingston !
I read in Ubuntu forum that they not recommended Kingston but I thought they may talking about old staff of Kingston !

Re: kingston USB can not boot !

Posted: 21 Sep 2013, 20:20
by wread
Sector 0 of the usb is damaged, so the system cannot find vmlinuz...

Re: kingston USB can not boot !

Posted: 21 Sep 2013, 23:24
by hypomania
@wread !
what do you mean !!
the flash memory is new, but do you mean format it with different filesystem may be solve the problem ? ext2 ?

Re: kingston USB can not boot !

Posted: 22 Sep 2013, 00:12
by wread
Indeed,
did you ever buy a new light bulb that didn't light?

When you format a HD, a journal is made with the sectors that do not work, and and are then left out the system. If sector 0 is damaged, the HD cannot start any operating system. The HD can still be used as slave disk.

Normally, people don't buy USBs to be used as HD-substitute, so they don't really care if sector 0 is ok. In my class, the students buy always new USBs -I prescribe it!- and about one in a hundred has sector 0 damaged. They go to the store with the invoice and claim another new piece......

Nice to chat with you ArabicWorld!

Re: kingston USB can not boot !

Posted: 22 Sep 2013, 05:37
by donald
@wread
Maybe I do not understand but:
afaik since a couple of years ago low-level-formatting is not possible anymore.
the term is still in use, but in fact it is no low-level.The physical structure
of the HD/USB ( CHS = Cylinder/Head/Sector) is fixed in the controller and in the
CHS structure there is no sector 0 it is always 0/0/1.You can overwrite the whole
Drive (with physical acces - not only Logical) with zeros,or format,reformat
to what ever you want, the CHS-structure remains the same
This said I took a look (with win-hex) at the physical sector1 (MBR) on my not booting
usb-stick and it was nothing wrong with it(512byte/read/writeable)
but when I install a bootloader,winhex claims that the controller is pointing
somewhere incorrect.And additionally I have two of these same usb sticks with
exact the same behavior.
In my opinion it's a faulty controller if the sticks aren't booting.
To be more exact:trying to boot this usb-sticks gave me no usual error-messages,
the whole system freeze,only power reset was then possible.
regards
donald

Re: kingston USB can not boot !

Posted: 22 Sep 2013, 16:25
by wread
@donald
I am afraid you are doing something wrong....Excuse me, I know that you are an advanced user, but..

-Did you format your USB with ext4 ok before loading it with Porteus?
-Did you run the porteus installer with success?

My students come to me once in a while with that problem; if it cannot be solved, then the USB if 100% factory defect.

Regards!

Re: kingston USB can not boot !

Posted: 22 Sep 2013, 17:35
by donald
@wread
Yes, it seems that they are factory defect, as Kingston and Verbatim often are.
I reformatted them with every Filesystem you can think of.The Installer completed whitout Errors and the MBR is written correctly.If I look at the MBR before Installing, win-hex show me the sector without saying something about errors.
Then I install the syslinux bootloader and wanted to look again at the MBR to check if everything is written and ok.but now win-hex told me ( by trying to read the data again ) that the controller is pointing to a non existing sector (outside) before it showed me the MBR.
I have 4 Usb-sticks from various brands which boot whithout any Problems.
so it seems to me, that it is a factory, controller defect.
regards....donald
EDIT:
Please excuse me too
In CHS addressing the sector numbers always start at 1, there is no sector 0,
which can lead to confusion since logical sector addressing schemes
(e.g., with LBA, or with "absolute sector addressing" in DOS) typically start counting with 0.

Re: kingston USB can not boot !

Posted: 23 Sep 2013, 01:23
by donald
^
.....a little later.....and half a bottle of wine.....

I think it's not worth the effort.

usb-flash-drives are cheap.If one will not boot,take another.

and If you are going to buy one, think twice which Brand you take.... :crazy:

Re: kingston USB can not boot !

Posted: 23 Sep 2013, 10:57
by wread
Ich bin hundertprozentig damit einverstanden!

Re: kingston USB can not boot !

Posted: 23 Sep 2013, 17:01
by donald
:friends:

Re: kingston USB can not boot !

Posted: 24 Sep 2013, 11:54
by brokenman
Yes low level format is a term passed down from the days when we could recreate the surface structure on a spinning disc. Today I would call it 'zero fill' instead. It does sound like a fauly controller but just to be sure please format the USB device using the HP USB format tool. I have recovered non bootable USB devices by doing a full format with this tool before. I despise recommending a win based tool, but I have had success using it. If you're going to ive up on the device then this is worth a shot, although at the end of the day, faulty=faulty.

Re: kingston USB can not boot !

Posted: 24 Sep 2013, 17:43
by Slaxmax
Use the manufacturer formatting tool .
In the terminal type lsusb see VID and PID of the flash drive and search in http://flashboot.ru/iflash/ in UTILS see the tool.
I recovered 3 dead flash drives using this procedure.
Is a danger procedure be carefull.

Re: kingston USB can not boot !

Posted: 24 Sep 2013, 18:29
by donald
@brokenman
As a last chance for that damn thing I've done as suggested
zero the whole drive, used HP-Tool, install porteus, no problems at all,
reboot....aaaaand....freeze
Also if I use plop, last message "port1 device detected" and freeze, not even
the flying-stars background is moving...I'm done with that usb-drive
It's only usable for storing files.

@Slaxmax
Thanks for thinking about it, but at last it turns out that the flash-ram inside
is OK (read/write/eraseable).It's the faulty controller which interrupts the
access if you try to boot.This is because of a bad Firmware