Ubuntu LiveUSB + Black Screen
Greetings to you, Habrovchane! I wanted to share with you a completely non-trivial method (as I would like) of installing Ubuntu 11.04 (although the version and the distribution itself do not matter) on the freshly bought animal, named Asus 1215N (the animal also does not matter). It will be more likely not about him, but about the problem that I faced because of the specifications of this unit. It all started with the fact that there was no so-called “cutter” in the device, so the choice of distribution media automatically fell on a USB flash drive. The relevant section of the site www.ubuntu.com told in detail, in pictures, how to implement it. What I actually did. I downloaded the utility “Universal USB Installer” from the site www.pendrivelinux.com (version 1.8.6.2). Launched it and executed all points of the instruction. Having rebooted, I was unpleasantly surprised by the blinking cursor on the black background of the screen. The cursor blinked, loading did not go! Why?!
The first answer I got in my head was a penny flash drive. She was ADATA (without additional name) on 8Gb. Well, okay, I thought, and dug in the pocket of another, the same ADATA, only 16Gb. The effect is the same! Only on this flash drive was installed a diode showing its activity. Now, along with the cursor on the screen, the diode also blinked, which made me completely confused. A surface search (such as: “linux usb black screen”) on the Internet, along with a corporation of good, did not give a specific (helping) answer, although I did not have a problem. I decided to look, so to speak, at the beginning!
What happens right after POST (Power-ON Self Test)? Correct - download MBR (Master Boot Record).
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Since the standard MS Windows 7 Home Premium tools (which were preinstalled) do not have a HEX editor, especially with the support for editing physical disks, I had to search for free software (in order not to infringe upon the rights of the haves). The first thing I had was HxD . I will notice! You need to run the HEX editor as an administrator (do not forget about UAC).
Open the physical section in edit mode:
And we look into the first 512 bytes (that is, into sector 0):
The corresponding article on the Wiki tells us that the first 512 bytes is the MBR. Of them:
My attention was drawn to the description of the sections.
The only existing section, on which all the information lay, was not the first as it should be, but the fourth. It was not marked as bootable (the first byte 00h, but should be 80h)! But as the boot mark the first section, which does not exist as such! WTF ?!
As it turned out, the culprit was UltraISO (version 9.3.6.2750). Which previously recorded Alkid LiveCD on the same flash drive. Before writing the ISO image, he changed the 0 sector and made the section 4th. Universal USB Installer, in consequence, could not properly handle this situation and we got a non-existent active partition.
It would seem that there is no section - display an error message. Why is there no message? Yes, because there is no error! MBR is loading. The loader finds a single flagged (80h) partition. Reads the address of the first sector of this section. In our case, this is sector 0. It loads the loader located in this sector and transfers control to it. Those. infinitely loads itself!
You can fix it in two ways:
I did this:
And why do we need specialized software for cutting sections? Save and reboot into a friendly Ubunt interface. That's all. I hope someone helped!
The first answer I got in my head was a penny flash drive. She was ADATA (without additional name) on 8Gb. Well, okay, I thought, and dug in the pocket of another, the same ADATA, only 16Gb. The effect is the same! Only on this flash drive was installed a diode showing its activity. Now, along with the cursor on the screen, the diode also blinked, which made me completely confused. A surface search (such as: “linux usb black screen”) on the Internet, along with a corporation of good, did not give a specific (helping) answer, although I did not have a problem. I decided to look, so to speak, at the beginning!
What happens right after POST (Power-ON Self Test)? Correct - download MBR (Master Boot Record).
')
Since the standard MS Windows 7 Home Premium tools (which were preinstalled) do not have a HEX editor, especially with the support for editing physical disks, I had to search for free software (in order not to infringe upon the rights of the haves). The first thing I had was HxD . I will notice! You need to run the HEX editor as an administrator (do not forget about UAC).
Open the physical section in edit mode:
And we look into the first 512 bytes (that is, into sector 0):
The corresponding article on the Wiki tells us that the first 512 bytes is the MBR. Of them:
- 446 bytes - downloader.
- 64 bytes - description of sections (4 sections, 16 bytes each).
- 2 bytes - the signature.
My attention was drawn to the description of the sections.
The only existing section, on which all the information lay, was not the first as it should be, but the fourth. It was not marked as bootable (the first byte 00h, but should be 80h)! But as the boot mark the first section, which does not exist as such! WTF ?!
As it turned out, the culprit was UltraISO (version 9.3.6.2750). Which previously recorded Alkid LiveCD on the same flash drive. Before writing the ISO image, he changed the 0 sector and made the section 4th. Universal USB Installer, in consequence, could not properly handle this situation and we got a non-existent active partition.
It would seem that there is no section - display an error message. Why is there no message? Yes, because there is no error! MBR is loading. The loader finds a single flagged (80h) partition. Reads the address of the first sector of this section. In our case, this is sector 0. It loads the loader located in this sector and transfers control to it. Those. infinitely loads itself!
You can fix it in two ways:
- Put the 80h label in the fourth section, not forgetting to remove it from the first. Otherwise, you will get the message “Invalid partition table”. This will help, but only until the next experience with LiveUSB. Because to tagged fourth, you will again get tagged first and an error message.
- Make the fourth section first! And this is the right way!
I did this:
And why do we need specialized software for cutting sections? Save and reboot into a friendly Ubunt interface. That's all. I hope someone helped!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/128004/
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