Legacy live boot fail: initramfs

Greetings, all,

I'm trying to install Bodhi on an old netbook. Downloaded legacy, unetbootin, Md5 good. Each time I try to boot to live system I end up with initramfs "unable to find a medium containing a live file system." Other messages: No caching mode page found and Assuming drive cache: write through.

In unetbootin, at least a couple of files overwrite; not sure if that's relevant.

I have used different usb drives, tried on my desktop (modern), etc. Same result.

Any ideas? I'd really like to make this work.

Thanks, Jeff

Hello there

Maybe an idea: Burn ISO to DVD and try to install via CD/DVD device.

Stefan

More ideas here

https://www.google.sk/search?q=ubunt...hrome&ie=UTF-8

Stefan,

Thanks! Dang that Google! Always shows where I should have looked

jeff

np

Let us know please if you find a solution. Good for other users as a knowledge base. Thx

Your most likely seeing the intel-ucode ubuntu-bug#1789353 affecting all APU/ARM CPUs. I haven't been able to boot into debian_x64 ever since they release mandatory firmware-updates in their kernel builds. There isn't any simple fix for it either, and you can't back-out the change once you upgraded your firmware. Doing a quick CMOS-wipe wont help because the GPP-flags are changed. You could try diddling with 'liveboot-intramfs-tools' to try to fix it but my understanding is it requires a custom kernel build that concatenates the firmware-update (ucode.bios) on top of the kernel's stack. That is pretty messy. To test if your legacy machine has the ucode-bug boot from bodhi_x32 CDR ver2.18.3 and don't blink. If if fails the valid ucode test you will see an error message that the ucode***.bio is invalid. The odd thing is you can still boot with a centOS7_USBx64 and check if your machines controllers are operational. I've also booted from a linuxmint17.1_x64 CDR but it won't help you wipe the firmware-upgrade off your legacy machine. The thinking is that most users don't both updating firmware so debian does it for you while your not watching.Doing a BIOS-restore will also not fix the machine because the GPP-flags are hose. I also tried to downgrade the firmware and that didn't work either. Debian says to add the boot-flag 'dis_ucode_lsr' to disable checking on the recovery command-line. I've yet to see a good work around for this bug. Stick to your CDR and you should be fine, don't try updating the kernel on a legacy machine. Stick to 3.13.0-37 LTS.

All,

Thanks for your guidance! So far the only thing that worked was DVD. On my Sammy netbook, the Wifi did not show, so back to the drawing board. Right now I'm using Helium (Crunchbang) and will play with Bodhi soon.

Best, jeff

Originally Posted by jtindigo All, Thanks for your guidance! So far the only thing that worked was DVD. On my Sammy netbook, the Wifi did not show, so back to the drawing board. Right now I'm using Helium (Crunchbang) and will play with Bodhi soon. Best, jeff

I've not been able to set my Samsung to it's original boot order since that ucode change came out for amd64 machines (see separate posting.) The new kernels just do not work for amd64 14h/15h family APUs. Avoid microcode_amd.bin firmware update on your notebook or your be sorry cos booting from a USB-drive will not work until you wipe the CMOS-bio (clear flags) Try to first get copy of the Ultimate Boot CDR (UBCD @ www.ultimatebootcd.com.) Test hardware then test USBs. It might be note worthy here to know that some USB-geometry changes when you write to the partition. Should that happen your USB will be useless and you wont even be able to format it. Now that is a different issue, but there are some good tools out there already for writing all zeros to USB-drive and restoring geometry. I picked up some nice tools to fix geometry from https://www.pendrive/linux.com. There are better flash drive repair tools using windows to fix geometry by Mandrixstyle.com (Sorry guys I'm still a newbie here.) If your going to let Debian/mint manage your firmware(ucode) then you'd should get hold of some good firmware backup tools. Unfortunately Samsung has gone the way of the dough-dough bird. All their laptops are now MD (Manuf discontinued) so you wont get any technical help from them. I got a copy of the AMI-bios tool off the UBCD, and use that to make a bootable dos-USB to fix firmware since you can't do it without a working system. DOS7 boots up in minimal x32b-mode and you can only flash part of the bios, but it still works to get control over the Samsung bios use this steps.

For Samsung korean machine I did this:
1. download dos6/7 from https://allbootdisk.com/downloads dos6.22_bootdisk.iso
2. use unetboot to flash dos to a "refreshed" usb-pendrive.
3. use UBCD to extract the file xbios320.exe.gz from the CD's image. (Use AUFDOS.exe for Intel.)
4. unpack that with Winzip/ARC to ram. The copy this file to the DOS6 drive.
5. reBoot dos6 then run (!xbios) select make BIOS backups form the display menu to RAM A:\
6. Copy this file to your DOS-USB-pendrive.**
7. Wipe the BIOS with the UBCD tool wipe-cmos.
8. Reboot into linux and run the lucode-tool by Hmh@debian.org select intel/amd64.
9. Pull of the correct APU firmware for your arch mine was h15 there are 3/4 firmware ucodes merged together in each Debian ucode.gz release if you get the wrong one your machine will panic.
10. Try to reboot your machine in recovery mode. Do NOT run Update-GRUB it will lockout every multi-boot partition you have. if you still get kernel panic you will have to boot using an original stock-bios.
11. You should be able to reboot into an older kernel Samsung 3.13.0-37-generic #64 even with a malformed firmware arch. I'm doing that now on an older machine. It just wont run any 4.10.0-38/4.13.0-45 kernal because of pointer misalignment.

**Now the tricky bit you may have trouble copy files out of ram to USB if your USB-port is disabled by the ucode. A solution to try is to down-grade the firmware using an older linux-mint17.1 boot CD then reinstalling amd64_firmware_2.0** NOT amd64_firm_3.0** I know this all seems messy, but another way is to reboot the UBCD and copy out the firmware first to DOS6-USB then wipe the ROM & the disks. I'm sorry if my work instructs are a bit vague. You'll have to fill in the blanks on coding firmware other wise you might find other things (sound, ports, etc) not working on your Samsung machine. My external-VGA monitor wont work unless given the proper ucode sequence. Meaning it doesn't work in recovery mode.

The last thing i wanted to remind you of is if all this frustrates you like it does me then boot centOS7 on a pendrive. It boots clean into x64 bit mode and has no Debian firmware issues even if that piece of crap-ucode is stuck on your Samsung machine.

I had this with Bodhi 5 and the solution was as above - install via DVD. With Bodhi 4 I can install via usb or dvd and no issues. Maybe try Bodhi 4 first? It's worth it!