Can't Boot to Vanilla Dpup

[zoic]

I'm trying to get Vanilla Dpup to boot on an old Win XP machine.

I used Rufus in Windows 10 to burn vanilladpup-9.2.8.iso to an 8 GB flash drive, but it fails to boot on my old HP Mini (Atom n270 CPU) PC. I just get a black screen with a blinking cursor & it never loads. I also tried booting it on another win10 PC but I get an error that the drive is not bootable.

When using the same drive to burn a LXLE iso, it boots fine on both machines, so I know that Rufus and the flash drive are working OK.

Any idea what I'm doing wrong?
Thanks.

[mikeslr]

I'm trying to get Vanilla Dpup to boot on an old Win XP machine.

I used Rufus in Windows 10 to burn vanilladpup-9.2.8.iso to an 8 GB flash drive, but it fails to boot on my old HP Mini (Atom n270 CPU) PC. I just get a black screen with a blinking cursor & it never loads. I also tried booting it on another win10 PC but I get an error that the drive is not bootable.

When using the same drive to burn a LXLE iso, it boots fine on both machines, so I know that Rufus and the flash drive are working OK.

Any idea what I'm doing wrong?
Thanks.

Well, no, but...
Try the instructions here about using rufus, viewtopic.php?p=40522#p40522 especially wizard's revelation that rufus version 3.17 rather than the current version be employed, and my repetition of someone's instructions that rufus be configured to create a 'persistence' partition.

Other than that, I'd have two questions about what rufus is doing. (1) What files is it writing to the USB-Key? A screenshot would help. In absence thereof, what file systems (sfs) were written; and did it also write initrd.gz and vmlinuz. (2) Exactly what instructions (text) does the boot-loader's config file provide? IIRC, rufus installs grub2 and writes a grub.cfg, the latter being instructions in text file you could copy and post.

[zoic]

Thank you for responding! I'm using Rufus 3.19 and it has always completed with no error messages.

I did try running Rufus again configured to create a 'persistence' partition as suggested. This time Vanilla Dpup booted up OK on my Win10 PC, but it "paused" for 60 seconds before doing so. Also, after I shut down the distro, the date and time were messed up when rebooting to Windows, which I am still trying to correct .

1-_boot-to-VanDpup-in-win10.jpg (79.07 KiB) Viewed 2172 times

The newly configured flash drive still fails to boot on my HP Mini, same as before. I does show a grub menu now just before the screen goes black though. I think it may actually be trying to load but it never does.

2-_grub_usb_boot_on_HPmini.jpg (44.9 KiB) Viewed 2172 times

In answer to your questions, (1) I'm including a screenshot of the USB drive and (2) sorry, forgive my ignorance but I don't know where to look for the boot-loader's config file.

3-_Screenshot,USB-files,VanDpup.jpg (53.87 KiB) Viewed 2172 times

[williwaw]

in the first picture

0:pmedia=cd may indicate you are using a boot code for a cd rather than a usb drive
if so, you should edit the kernel line appropriately.
I have had vanilla wait but eventually boot when this is the case as yours
README.txt has examples for different devices and their codes for different pupmodes.

looks like you are using grub4dos?
the top line in the screen shot is telling you to find the file menu.lst in the / (top level) directory, or in /boot/grub/ or in /grub

I see you have a /boot.....
when you find boot grub, make a copy with a slightly different name, then in the original,
change pmedia=cd to pmedia=usbflash

mikeslr post seems to indicate rufus uses grub2 but your second pic shows grub4dos
if you could post your menu.lst, it might help mike help you with the second machine

[bigpup]

after I shut down the distro, the date and time were messed up when rebooting to Windows, which I am still trying to correct

When you shutdown Windows 10.
Make sure to do a complete normal shutdown.
Do not shutdown into hibernate.
Hibernate does not fully release control of computer.
This can cause issues, trying to boot from a USB, with some other operating system on it.

[bigpup]

Try this change to the boot loader config file.

VanillaDpup is using Grub4dos boot loader.

Best if you could do this from a running Puppy version.
You say, VanillaDpup finally booted to a working desktop, on the Windows 10 machine.
So can use it to do this edit.

In Rox file manager navigate to the partition that has all the VanillaDpup files. (your posted image)
Click on the boot directory(folder)
Inside it will be a grub directory.
Click on it to show contents.
There will be a menu.lst file, that is the boot menu config file.
Click on the menu.lst file.
This will open it in a text editor.
Edit any place it has pmedia=cd and change it to pmedia=usbflash
Save the changes and close the text editor program.

Now try to boot using the USB.

If it still has issues.

Specifically tell us what they are.

[dimkr]

Also, after I shut down the distro, the date and time were messed up when rebooting to Windows, which I am still trying to correct .

When the "Quick Setup" thingy shows up, unselect "Hardware clock set to UTC" and press "Ok". Or, configure Windows to use UTC (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/System ... ft_Windows).

[zoic]

Thanks for the responses. I changed all pmedia=cd entries to pmedia=usbflash in the menu.lst file and saved the file. When I booted to the USB drive on the netbook, it still wouldn't boot; behavior was unchanged.

When the "Quick Setup" thingy shows up, unselect "Hardware clock set to UTC" and press "Ok". Or, configure Windows to use UTC (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/System ... ft_Windows).

Tried unselecting the "hardware clock...* but the clock is still fubared . As for the second suggestion, I'm not dual booting anything on the Win10 machine so I don't want to change it to UTC - I just want local time to work as before.

[dimkr]

I just want local time to work as before.

There's no magic solution for this, you'll need to adjust Puppy to behave like Windows, or Windows to behave like Puppy. You'll need to change Puppy to use local time and not UTC (like Windows), then set the correct time in either Puppy or Windows. If you're not dual-booting, you'll just need to set the timezone.

[bigpup]

it fails to boot on my old HP Mini (Atom n270 CPU) PC.it fails to boot on my old HP Mini (Atom n270 CPU) PC. I just get a black screen with a blinking cursor & it never loads.

Only talk about this computer!
Talking about two different computers is getting confusing.

So, after changing to pmedia=usbflash.
It still fails to boot. you just get a black screen with a blinking cursor & it never loads.
Nothing shows before you see the black screen?
No boot menu?
Nothing?

[zoic]

Only talk about this computer!
Talking about two different computers is getting confusing.

Uh, OK .

So, after changing to pmedia=usbflash.
It still fails to boot. you just get a black screen with a blinking cursor & it never loads.
Nothing shows before you see the black screen?
No boot menu?
Nothing?

After choosing the USB drive at the Windows XP boot screen, it goes to the "GRUB4DOS" screen shown in photo #2 in my prior post. Unless I manually select something other than the first line, I see some text flash by too quickly to read and then it goes to the black screen with cursor.

[bigpup]

After choosing the USB drive at the Windows XP boot screen, it goes to the "GRUB4DOS" screen shown in photo #2 in my prior post

That seems to be the problem.
That boot menu, in your posted image, is not the one that should be popping up.

You say it boots OK on another computer.
Does it show a different grub4dos menu when it boots on that computer?

After choosing the USB drive at the Windows XP boot screen

Are you saying you are booting into a Windows XP boot loader and then selecting to boot Vanillapdpup, from some entry in that boot menu?

Usually to boot from a USB drive.
You can do it two ways.

1. Enter the computers bios setup and change the boot device order to the USB being the first device.
So it boots and looks first for the USB to boot from.

2. When computer powers on, press some specific Key, to enter a boot device selection screen.
Select the USB from this list of devices.

Which way are you selecting to boot from the USB?

[zoic]

Thanks for your response...

That boot menu, in your posted image, is not the one that should be popping up.

You say it boots OK on another computer.
Does it show a different grub4dos menu when it boots on that computer?

No, they are identical.

After choosing the USB drive at the Windows XP boot screen

Are you saying you are booting into a Windows XP boot loader and then selecting to boot Vanillapdpup, from some entry in that boot menu?

No. After choosing the flash drive, it loads the Grub4DOS screen & then goes black. The menu for Vanilla Dpup never appears.

Usually to boot from a USB drive.
You can do it two ways.

1. Enter the computers bios setup and change the boot device order to the USB being the first device.
So it boots and looks first for the USB to boot from.

2. When computer powers on, press some specific Key, to enter a boot device selection screen.
Select the USB from this list of devices.

Which way are you selecting to boot from the USB?

I have done both on the XP netbook. The same thing happens with either method.

[williwaw]

After choosing the USB drive at the Windows XP boot screen,

zoic, can you post a pic of this screen please?

and copy and paste the entire contents of the menu.lst that got edited into the webpage editor. if you select what you pasted and and click the [</>] button on top , it will help some.
one other thing to check is if the name of menu.lst is still .lst, that is, .LST in lower case, not .1st

[bigpup]

Going back and looking at that image of the boot menu you posted.

The first entry is command line

No other option for booting.

Well, that first line should auto start after a few seconds.

You said you get this:
"I just get a black screen with a blinking cursor & it never loads".
That is a command line

Not sure why you are getting offered the wrong menu to select from.

you should be seeing one with this option as the first one:
Puppy vanilladpup 9.2.8

I will try doing an install using Rufus and see what I get.

[bigpup]

I did a Vanilladpup64 9.2.9 install to a 32GB USB flash drive.
I got it fresh from the Vanilladpup download location.

Used Rufus 3.19 to do install.

When completed used it to boot my computer.

The first boot menu I go was a vanilladpup menu with a lot of selections you could make.
they all looked like different options for how it would boot.
Ram only, no save, etc.....
I selected the first one which was: Vanilladpup64 9.2.9

It started booting and I got that same image as the first one you posted.
The one with some errors about looking for partition iso9660, and some info statements, with waiting 60 seconds for last statement.

After waiting 60 seconds it went to do a normal boot and showing the info statements you normally see for a normal boot.
Info about loading different Vanilladpup SFS files.
Booted to a working desktop.
Typing this from it running my computer.

So something is wrong with your install if you are not seeing the same.

I did get one warning when using Rufus about syslinux and it wanting to use a newer version.
I just did nothing and let it continue.
Made no selection about this warning.

Note:
That 60 seconds delay and error messages is about pmedia=cd in the boot loader menu entry.
There is no iso9660 partition to find because it is not on a CD/DVD.
So it waits 60 seconds and then starts a drive search for the files.
Finds them on the USB and starts a normal boot.

Edited the menu.lst entries and changed all the pmedia= to pmedia=usbflash
Boot menu selecting first option.
No longer boots to the error messages and waits 60 seconds.
Goes directly into the normal boot process info about loading the different SFS files.
Goes start to

[bigpup]

If basically you see what I posted.
If you are still getting to nothing but a black screen (no curser)
that is a graphics hardware support issue.
Vanilladpup trying to use stuff your hardware can not work with.

there is possible to add a command code statement to the boot menu entry to correct this.

but first have to make sure you get this far in the boot process.