Hi All,

I recently decided to tryout Linux and dual booted my laptop (originally just had windows 8) with Xubuntu. Now I want to try out Kali Linux. So I downloaded Kali and made a bootable USB, the problem is that when I try to boot from the USB it just brings up the grub menu asking me to select Xubuntu, Windows etc. I've changed the boot menu in the BIOS but that has no effect.

I've tried booting into windows and the restarting by holding shift but when I select the usb option it just says:

"system doesn't have any USB boot option. Please select other boot option in Boot Manager Menu"

and then returns to the grub menu. I don't understand because I used a bootable usb to install xubunto?

I'd be really grateful if anyone can help me out with this!

Thanks

If you are getting the boot menu for Xubuntu and windows when you try to boot the flash drive, then the change you made in the BIOS is not taking effect for whatever reason. You might explore the various options for booting, maybe disabling secure boot, not really sure. You might post some info on the hardware you are using and someone else who uses it might be able to help.

In addition, you could make sure you have properly copied the iso image to the USB key. A method that never fails for me is using the dd command.

I play around with dual booting A LOT!! If you still have windows installed and you're trying to make two more primary partitions i would have to believe that your windows installation doesn't have room to fart. Personally, I would buy a cheap laptop and use that as a labrat. A couple linux OS's on a single HD is pretty decent, 3 or 4 even is ok as they typically dont take up too much space.

try gparted to use as your partition manager, and if you insist on using the USB, You will need to change your BIOS to boot from the USB and disable EFI.. Sounds like you have it booting from the HDD.

How did you make the usb bootable? Some of the methods of making a bootable usb won't work with an efi booting system where as they will work with a legacy bios system. If one flip flops between bios and efi mode to get different OS's to work will eventually end up with booting problems.

You can disable efi

I prefer running Kali from my "labrat" laptop vs any USB, Live CD or vm... just my .02

First, thanks everyone for the replies!

I've included the computer info from /proc/cpuinfo at the bottom (I'm not sure if this is overkill or even the right info so let me know if it's not) the computer is a Toshiba Satellite C850 - 19Z and this is the labrat.

I used http://www.pendrivelinux.com/univers...easy-as-1-2-3/ to make the bootable usb for Xubuntu and Kali. I want to use it to install on the operating system (not use as a live version) and I used gparted to make the new partition.

I have disabled secure boot in the BIOS and I'm not really sure how to use the DD comand or what it is. When I restart windows by holding shift + clicking it does say EFI before the usb option so I'll try and figure out how to disable that and see if that makes everything work.

Computer info

processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 42
model name : Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU B830 @ 1.80GHz
stepping : 7
microcode : 0x28
cpu MHz : 1800.000
cache size : 2048 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
core id : 0
cpu cores : 2
apicid : 0
initial apicid : 0
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 13
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf eagerfpu pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic popcnt tsc_deadline_timer xsave lahf_lm arat epb xsaveopt pln pts dtherm tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid
bogomips : 3591.91
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

processor : 1
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 42
model name : Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU B830 @ 1.80GHz
stepping : 7
microcode : 0x28
cpu MHz : 1800.000
cache size : 2048 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
core id : 1
cpu cores : 2
apicid : 2
initial apicid : 2
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 13
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf eagerfpu pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic popcnt tsc_deadline_timer xsave lahf_lm arat epb xsaveopt pln pts dtherm tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid
bogomips : 3591.91
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

If you are getting a message that your system doesn't have a usb boot option as you indicated in your first post, then look under the hard drive option to see the name of the manufacturer of the usb/flash drive as an option. If you used a flash drive before then obviously you should be able to use it again unless something went wrong when creating the new Kali image. Can you try it on another computer to see if it boots?

Which version of kali are you using? The i386 version doesn't support efi booting.

I was using the amd 64 version 1.1.0a

So I tried the method here > http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2015/01/14...uefi-firmware/ which involved using DD. After trying the install with no luck I then went back to windows to try and make the usb bootable again...

when I did this it said I needed to format the usb before it could be used so I went ahead and formatted and now I only have 2.79gb of space (was 32gb lol) so I'm going to have to go buy a new usb before I can continue. I may just get some dvd's!

boot into Xubuntu and use gparted to create a new msdos partition table and format the usb. Does your xubuntu have a /boot/efi?

I don't think you need to buy a new USB key; that's probably Windows being dumb and not properly recognizing your USB key. I've had similar issues before after formatting USB keys on Linux. You can try to boot Xubuntu and use Gparted to reformat it. You probably need to create a new partition table (on Gparted, select the USB key, then go to "Device" > "Create partition table" > "msdos partition table").

That said, I'm a bit lost as to why your system is not able to boot from your USB key. As yancek suggested, something might have gone wrong when transferring the iso image to the USB key. If you still have Kali's iso image around, you can check its md5sum (or sha1sum) against the one specified on their website to see if they match, like this:

or

(Replace the name of the according to yours).

If the iso image is OK, then it's probably some BIOS setting. You can check your motherboard manual and/or the messages that the motherboard prints to the screen before the Grub menu appears to see if there's a boot menu button.

Ok so I fixed the usb with gparted but decided to get some dvd's anyway. I burned the kali iso to the disc and was originally unable to get it to boot. I changed the boot mode from EUFI to legacy BIOS and it started the installation (to which I couldn't believe!) but then kept giving me a red screen and saying the install couldn't be completed.

I don't know if this'll help but I set my partitions up with 4gb for swap and 40gb for everything else.

Oh and I just checked for /boot/efi in xubuntu and it's there

Any messages for reason cd not booting in efi mode? Did you go into efi boot menu to select booting from cd?

maybe this will help https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140...-mode-machines

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