second linux OS installers keep rebooting
 

I am trying to install multiple linux versions on a few year old Lenovo. The first one installs fine (Ubuntu Gnome). I went to install KDE Neon (and later had the exact same issue with Deepin), the installer starts up fine, and whether I select a live mode or install now, it thinks for a second, beeps and restarts, bringing back to the installer menu again. Without the USB inserted, gnome starts up and runs fine. I am having to run usb mode in legacy rather then uefi mode to get the installers to load at all (otherwise the usb flashes for a few seconds and the screen just hangs endlessly, no cursor). I highly doubt this issue is with KDE Neon or Deepin installers, but rather something odd in my system/bios. Any ideas...?

you ought to say a bit more: the exact type of your laptop, the exact version of the software you want to install and the exact steps you made.

Lenovo IdeaPad Z580, I5-3210M, 6gb ram, BIOS 5FCN95WW (appears to be the latest, though I didn't update it). Used Universal-USB-Installer to make Ubuntu Gnome 17 installer, installed that worked. Then made KDE Neon User Edition (latest, not stable neon-useredition-20170706-1018-amd64.iso), restarting issue attempting to install, tried the latest Deepin 15.4.1, same issue. I'm convinced this is nothing to do with the distros. Any other info would be helpful?

what if you start to install ubuntu again? will that work, or will do the same (keep rebooting)?

so when you got that medium pluged in select to boot off it, it hangs for a moment -- beeps at you then reboots.

so to me it sounds like that medium is not actually bootable even though you used something that is suppose to make it that way.

try using a different method to create a bootable medium.

The BIOS is looking to see if bootable, if no then skip it. move on to next hdd seeking a bootable medium.

or in your case just reboots and tries it again.

"beeps and restarts, bringing back to the installer menu again."

if you are seeing the installer text window where you're being asked to install first step or something like that. then it might still be a bad burn.

I'd still try maybe even getting a different ios check sum it, then use a different method to burn it to USB Stick.


". I am having to run usb mode in legacy rather then uefi mode to get the installers to load at all "

might be the installers are not uefi, check with the distro. might be BIOS setting for UEFI awareness (program at the Y) failure.

pardon the pun on awareness programs.

are you using 32bit or 64bit iso? It may be the Universal-USB-Installer. Try rufus https://rufus.akeo.ie/ and see if it works any better. Rufus has option to select partition scheme of efi/bios

I'm going to try Rufus and report back (might be a bit). I kindof suspected something of this nature. Thanks for all the tips. Also thanks BW-userx, those tips are helpful and I will try those as well.

If you like his tips, please mark his post as helpful. That's how we give each other reputation.

There are "other" ways to install some of those distros. Like debootstrap from a running .deb based distro. I use that to install ubuntu and debian all the time, it's a great way to work around certain issues, like missing firmware for networking devices before you boot up for the first time. Or to mostly skip a full install of "stable" to run testing or sid/experimental. Basically it can really speed things up on an otherwise noticeably slow internet connection.

Normally random reboots is a loose connection, heat, or a power brownout type effect. I'd hazard a guess that the power option is in play, using a powered USB Hub could improve things. If it's completely "random", you might check your RAM with memtest86+. You might also check that what you installed is what you think you installed.

$ cmp installer.iso /dev/sda

I normally do that after I do the initial zero out of the storage device.

$ cmp /dev/zero /dev/sda

If it doesn't fail at end of "device" or exit gracefully, then what I wrote didn't get written. So the device has failed to a read-only state (partially?) while pretending to be a read/write device.

Thanks everyone for the help, using Rufus and selecting EFI type MBR did the trick and I was able to enter the neon live environment and install multiple distros, which also worked great.

edencorbin,

Glad that you resolved your problem.

Please go to your original post, click on the Thread Tools tab at the top and then click on Mark this thread as solved.