Zorin 9 usb boot problems using unetbooting
 

Good day guys. First timer to this forum. I recently installed windows 8 and the interface looks really good but the performance is terible. Ive been looking for an alternative to windows. So I found zorin. The attractive interface, the speed, programs all interest me. I downloaded the iso from the official website. The x64 version. I downloaded the unetbooting to make the flash drive as the bootable device to install the zorin. On the site where I downloaded the unetbooting, has instructions. I followed them. The installation was completed and asked to reboot. I did and I accessed the bios menu and made the flash drive boot. The screen pops up with press any key to boot from usb.....
I did then, forgive my bad memory but, another message came below it saying something about the os was not found, some more info i cant remember I'll update this thread with accurate info. It also asked to press a combo of alt+cnt+del to restart. All i want is a way to safely install the zorin instead of using the sloppy windows 8.

Thanks for the help :)

Would my pc i3 3.3Ghz processor, 4Gb ddr3, 4Gb graphics card, an Asus motherboard be a problem? Am still new at this so I want to provide as much info to help.

Hello Tiitoe,

I have had problems in the past trying to get Zorin to boot from a USB drive as well. What I then tried was creating a boot-able DVD and it worked like a charm so if that is an option in that your machine has a CD/DVD you could give that a try.

I now have a few laptops to install on and will be needing to get the USB boot to work. I have not done a huge amount of research regarding why the USB was failing but am going to now and will update this post if and when I find a solution so all of us can share in the knowledge.

I know it's not the full answer to your question but for the sake of getting the OS to install I wanted to offer this as a solution.

Good Luck,
Tim

Have your tried using the dd method to put the Zorin iso on the USB drive? I know the regular Ubuntu releases are already hybrid isos, so it might work.

thanks for the efforts tim.

i have tried the dd method using win32 diskimager. it didnt do anything. windows 8 just booted up. Trying out new methods do enlighten me. Feel free to give more

Hi Folks,

In trying to get to the bottom of the unbootable USB issue that started this post, here is what I've done thus far:

I have created three liveUSB devices. One using UNetBootin, one using the stock Startup Disk Creator within Zorin OS 9 Core, and one using the Linux Mint utility called MintStick. In using UNetBootin and the stock Startup Disk Creator I used GParted to format the USB drive. MintStick has two utilities-a format tool and a writting tool which I used both.

When booting up to the USB I was given the below error when using the UNetBootin USB and the Startup Disk Creator USB:

BusyBox v1.21.1 (Ubuntu 1:1.21.0-1ubuntu) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

(initramfs) stdin: Not a typewriter
mount: mounting /dev/loop0 on //filesystem.squashfs failed: No such device

Can not mount /dev/loop0(cdrom/casper/filesystem.squashfs on //filesystem.squashfs

(initramfs)_

When selecting the USB drive in the boot menu that was created with MintStick my system booted into my HDD and I was greeted with my usual login for Zorin OS 9 Core as though the boot menu selection did not even recognize the USB even though it was selected to boot from.

There maybe someone who can help with the error as I'm lost. I have looked at the regular Ubuntu forums and AskUbuntu and have seen any number of thoughts and resolutions but they seem to be segmented at best or beyond my technical knowledge and ability.

I am going to attempt the command line 'dd' approach now and see what I get. I will post those results in a couple hours.

Tim

For anyone viewing this thread and wanting more info I thought showingthe USB drive contents might help. Here are links to the three images:

http://postmyimage.com/img2/937_MintStick_Result.png

http://postmyimage.com/img2/600_Star...tor_Result.png

http://postmyimage.com/img2/251_UNetBootin_Result.png

Also, I am doing all this work in Zorin OS 9 Core with it being the only OS on the machine. It is a HP TouchSmart Laptop with 4GB Ram, Intel® Core™ i3-3227U CPU @ 1.90GHz × 4, and IvyBridge Graphics. If more machine info is needed let me know.

Tim

There is a recently developed tool called mkusb that gives you a GUI method of dd'ing a drive:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/mkusb

I haven't used it, but it looks like its principal feature is identifying the drive so you don't use the wrong target. I personally NEVER got a bootable drive out of unetbootin or Startup Disk Creator, but dd seems to work just fine. You do have to dd to the WHOLE drive, not a partition on it (like of=/dev/sdx, or whatever letter your USB is).

Hey Albinard,

Great minds think alike!!!

I found the mkusb and installed it and ran it. And...no luck... Now that I think of it, I beieve the Linux Mint utility MintStick is built with 'dd' under the hood just like mkusb as I got the same results as above when using MintStick. I power up, hit F9 for the boot menu, arrow down to the USB device and hit enter. My system then boots straight into my installed OS.

I also for the giggles of it did the 'dd' stuff from the command line and got the dame result as mkusb. I'm in no way a command line pro so I tried it three times just to make sure I did it right and no luck. Damit anyhow! One way or the other I'm gonna get this figured out. Kind of strange in that I had regular issues with Startup disk creator and even UNetbootin from time to time and once I got MintStick from the Mint website I saw the issue making bootable usb media solved. That was until now.

I am going to post this to the AskUbuntu site and see if I can get some help there...

Tim

P.S.-If you want to try MintStick, head over to www.packages.linuxmint.com to get it. I typically grab the packages from Mint 17 area. Scroll down looking for 'mintstick' and you can download he .deb frpm the link. Works great!!!

On a guess, I'd say MintStick is fine-tuned for the isos Mint puts out - seems to do the job just right!

Hey guys

I have windows 8 installed and i notice you have zorin. So just for knowledge sake, would the current os prevent the bios from doing it's job?

Hey Folks,

I hit the Zorin Forum this morning and found some answers. I joined the Zorin forum last week and in signing both my wife and I up got banned from the site but the ban got lifted....HOOOOORAAAAAAY!

So, this is the post I found that I think is as close as possible to what I've had going on. I see some good prospects in getting the issue resolved with this info. Here is the post....

http://zoringroup.com/forum/viewtopi...s+error#p36057

I am going to try the suggestions posted there and will post my results back here.

Tiitoe - I'm not thinking the bios would be doing this per what I've read but it could be. Let me try the stuff from the Zorin forum and see what I come up with.

Take care,
Tim

Well...got it working like a charm! Please read on...

I found Multisystem USB Creator on the Zorin forum so I downloaded it and installed it. In doing so I found the easiest way to get that accomplished. I found the current download and great instructions on Mint Blog. Here is the link:

http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/1219

As Mint is, of course, Debian/Ubuntu based the instruction on the site was spot on in installing Multisystem in my current install of Zorin OS 9 Core.

Once I got Multisystem installed I formatted my USB drive with GParted to FAT32. One word of caution here!!!!! Make sure the label of the USB drive has no spaces! Multisystem gave me an error in French that I had to translate stating it does not allow spaces in the label. When formatting with GParted you can change the label by selection the USB drive on the right, going to Partition...then New.

With a newly formatted and correctly labeled USB drive I started up Multisystem from Accesories in my main menu. You need the USB drive plugged in when you start Multisystem! I then selected the drive and hit Confirm. It then confirmed it was going to install GRUB so I hit OK. The next screen was looking for a ISO image. I dragged the image from my downloads folder into the bottom of the Multisystem window then hit the blue button "Add Live CD". After a couple minutes it was done.

I then did the usual shutdown, hit F9 (in my case) selected the USB in UEFI from the boot menu and Zorin OS 9 Lite started without a hitch and I did my install...Whew...finally done!

Hope this help and if there are any steps missed I very much apologize so please edit as needed.

Tiitoe-If this works for you as it did for me please remember (as I'm sure you will) to mark this off as SOLVED so others can get the education.

Have a great day!!!!!!!
Tim

Hey Tim
I read the link for the Zorin forum and they have the same problem with the unetbooting. They fixed it with the multisystem but they were using a Linux. The multisystem download link you provided will not open on windows 8. The format of the file looks like its made to be open by a linux os. Windows is annoying me... Pardon my impatience but the only problem now is to find a multisystem for windows. So basically the problem has been solved for linux to linux but not windows to linux. I hope i dont confuse or cause stress. Am just a newbie at computers and need assistance in getting rid of windows lol.

So i did some reading and i realized that i have to use another program called Xboot

here's the link: http://www.pendrivelinux.com/xboot-m...o-usb-creator/

iam now using the program, formatted my usb drive to fat32, and used the syslinix bootloader. After install reboot I'll reply the outcome.

Hey Tiitoe!

Oh crap!!! I am so sorry about that...I very blatantly lost it in the posts that you were using Windows...my mistake! No worries as I have a couple Windows machines I'm refurbishing for folks needing a PC. Just as a confirmation, you're running Windows 8, right? I think one of the laptops I have is an 8 machine so maybe I can help out.

Let me know what OS you've got and tomorrow I will start researching the topic and see what I can come up with. Looking at the Zorin forum may help the most for both of us. One of the members, Wolfman, seems to be very knowledgeable.

Sorry about that and look for a post on Friday.

Take care,
Tim