Installation always gets stuck. What is wrong with the USB drive?

Matthew Wai · 09-06-2023, 09:27 AM

This topic involves three USB flash drives:
(1) A 64-GB SanDisk Ventoy device containing ISO files for installation.
(2) A 64-GB Xiaomi device.
(3) A 128-GB LanKxin device.

I failed to install SparkyLinux, Linux Mint, and UnionTech OS on LanKxin because the installation got stuck at some point in all cases.
I successfully installed SparkyLinux on Xiaomi by using the same method and settings.
I successfully installed Linux Mint and UnionTech OS on my SATA HDD, which is irrelevant to this topic.

Therefore, I believe a problem lies in LanKxin but don’t know what the problem is.
"FakeFlashTest" showed that the capacity was "117.1GiB" as shown below:
https://forums.linuxmint.com/download/file.php?id=89253
“CrystalDiskMark” showed that the read/write speeds were normal as shown below:
https://www.tenforums.com/attachment...speed-test.jpg

I can always access LanKxin without any problems. So, what is the problem with LanKxin? Can anyone help me pinpoint the problem? I asked the same question on Linux Mint Forums, but no one there has provided an answer.

dc.901 · 09-06-2023, 09:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matthew Wai

This topic involves three USB flash drives:
(1) A 64-GB SanDisk Ventoy device containing ISO files for installation.
(2) A 64-GB Xiaomi device.
(3) A 128-GB LanKxin device.

I failed to install SparkyLinux, Linux Mint, and UnionTech OS on LanKxin because the installation got stuck at some point in all cases.
I successfully installed SparkyLinux on Xiaomi by using the same method and settings.
I successfully installed Linux Mint and UnionTech OS on my SATA HDD, which is irrelevant to this topic.

Therefore, I believe a problem lies in LanKxin but don’t know what the problem is.
"FakeFlashTest" showed that the capacity was "117.1GiB" as shown below:
https://forums.linuxmint.com/download/file.php?id=89253
“CrystalDiskMark” showed that the read/write speeds were normal as shown below:
https://www.tenforums.com/attachment...speed-test.jpg

I can always access LanKxin without any problems. So, what is the problem with LanKxin? Can anyone help me pinpoint the problem? I asked the same question on Linux Mint Forums, but no one there has provided an answer.

Could it be possible the USB port is a problem? If you have ruled this out then:

Couple of things you can do...
On a machine that is already running Linux (any distribution will work) plugin the LanKxin and test with dd
Check dmesg output to get sdX of LanKxin after you insert it.

Open 2 terminals:
Run

Code:

dmesg -T -w

this will scroll new messages.
In second terminal run test dd
First write test - this will delete whatever is on the drive.

Code:

 dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/<whatever device LanKxin shows up with> oflag=direct bs=65536

This will run for a while until it runs out of space

Now do a read test:

Code:

 dd if=/dev/<whatever device LanKxin shows up with> of=/dev/null bs=65536

Did you see any errors on dmesg?

Matthew Wai · 09-07-2023, 03:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc.901

Did you see any errors on dmesg?

I inserted LanKxin, ran "dmesg -T -w", and got the following:

Code:

[Thu Sep  7 15:11:01 2023]  sdb: sdb1 sdb2 sdb3
[Thu Sep  7 15:11:01 2023] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
[Thu Sep  7 15:11:01 2023] EXT4-fs (sdb2): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null)
[Thu Sep  7 15:11:02 2023] EXT4-fs (sdb2): re-mounted. Opts: (null)

At this moment, the following test is in progress:

Code:

Matthew_Wai@My-PC:~$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb oflag=direct bs=65536
[sudo] password for Matthew_Wai: 
Verification successful

The device "/dev/zero" does not actually exist.
Is it intended to write zeros onto the whole LanKxin device?
What will happen if bad sectors are found?

Matthew Wai · 09-07-2023, 06:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc.901

First write test - this will delete whatever is on the drive.

I have just discovered that the test was already completed as shown below:

Code:

Matthew_Wai@My-PC:~$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb oflag=direct bs=65536
[sudo] password for Matthew_Wai: 
Verification successful
dd: error writing '/dev/sdb': No space left on device
1920001+0 records in
1920000+0 records out
125829120000 bytes (126 GB, 117 GiB) copied, 6510.16 s, 19.3 MB/s
Matthew_Wai@My-PC:~$

The following image is a screenshot of System Monitor:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw...-no?authuser=0

pan64 · 09-07-2023, 08:12 AM

this can be a power supply issue too, but you need to check it

Matthew Wai · 09-07-2023, 08:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan64

this can be a power supply issue too, but you need to check it

I have successfully installed Linux and Windows many times over the years without a power supply issue. I am quite sure that the problem lies in the LanKxin USB device.

fatmac · 09-07-2023, 09:49 AM

I bought 3x (supposedly) 128GB pendrives, 2 were actually only 32GB, & reformatted to ext4 - the third would not reformat, & it was stuck with an exFAT header!

Today, I took another look at this '128GB' pendrive, with OpenBSD, & so far, it looks like it may be usable with an ffs filesystem on it - (presently copying a load of files to it, on my OpenBSD machine).

For a USB3 pendrive, it is remarkably slow!

EDIT: It too failed to use it fully! - Heading for the bin!

Matthew Wai · 09-12-2023, 03:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc.901

Now do a read test:

Code:

 dd if=/dev/<whatever device LanKxin shows up with> of=/dev/null bs=65536

The following is the test results:

Code:

Matthew_Wai@My-PC:~$ sudo dd if=/dev/sdb of=/dev/null bs=65536
[sudo] password for Matthew_Wai: 
Verification successful
1920000+0 records in
1920000+0 records out
125829120000 bytes (126 GB, 117 GiB) copied, 2896.72 s, 43.4 MB/s
Matthew_Wai@My-PC:~$

The following image is a screenshot of System Monitor.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw...-no?authuser=0

The read test and write test found nothing wrong. What else can be done?

business_kid · 09-12-2023, 03:53 PM

They're small repurposed usb-2.0 drives. You'd be all year trying to fill them. I junked mine, and didn't return it because the seller was gone.