Can't Boot from a CD or USB for the life of me...
 

Hi all.

I have had a lot of experience with BIOS systems, booting from usb drives etc. But this time, I have no idea what is going on. I am running a Dell Inspiron 15r laptop with an Intel i5 chipset.

Ok, so when I first got this laptop, it came with Windows 8 (gross) and I popped in a Linux Mint live cd and installed LM no problem, so I know it is capable of booting from removable media.

But recently, I've been trying to repartition my hard drive with GParted Live, and the computer absolutely refuses to boot to it.

I've tried both live USB and CD, neither works.

I've tried every possible arrangement of UEFI/Legacy boot options in the BIOS.

I've made sure that the boot order is correct in the BIOS, so that's not the problem, and secure boot is off.

I have even just selected the CD drive for the computer to directly boot to, and it just hangs at a black screen with a blinking underscore.

I don't have any idea what I'm supposed to do, all I know is I need help.

Thanks,
Kogami

Have you verified the GParted CD by booting it on another computer?

Does it have the option for fast boot in the bios? We've had issues with booting on devices that have fast boot enabled at work.

You may need a modern linux, you can easily use the original live Mint or a new version to run gparted. If not installed in live then add it via software manager.

If it came with Windows 8, it likely has Windows "secure boot" enabled.

You will need to turn secure boot off in the UEFI to boot to anything that does not have a secure boot key.

This link may help.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI

Note that turning off secure boot may disable booting from Windows.

There are a number of distro's that allow you to run with secure boot enabled.

If you did install it once then what has changed?

Yeah, the media is just fine, I'll have to check and see if fast-boot is enabled. Otherwise, I've tried secure boot both on and off, and no dice either way.

Turn off USB emulation in BIOS and see if that works.

I'll give it a shot and let you know how turning off the emulation goes.