Strange boot-up problems on old desktop computer

[Gabriel_M]

See if the information in this manual is helpful: https://www.manualslib.com/manual/67510 ... =30#manual. Essentially, pages 26 through 30.

[trawglodyte]

Your QSI says you have a 64-bit processor. Can you install the 64-bit version of MX Linux or does it have to be 32-bit for some other reason?

[br1anstorm]

Your QSI says you have a 64-bit processor. Can you install the 64-bit version of MX Linux or does it have to be 32-bit for some other reason?

Well, @trawglodyte , I'm not sure how this suggestion relates to the problem of not being able to boot at all. But - for the record - I have in the past installed and run both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of MXLinux, Linux Mint, Solydx and PCLinuxOS on this rather old desktop computer. All worked fairly well, albeit not always very speedily.

I have recently been relying on MXLinux (because I find it user-friendly) and I installed the 32-bit rather than the 64-bit on the assumption that this would be less demanding on the not-very powerful CPU and limited RAM in the machine.

But choice of OS version seems not to be the key issue. Or is it? (if so please explain....) The difficulty is that I cannot get the system to boot normally at all. Not even to get to the Grub screen. And messages about disk boot failure, Grub rescue, and "cannot find the canonical pathway...(??)" all seem to appear before the machine has booted into any operating system.

Do you have any insight into the cause of the problems and the reason for the error messages which I have documented in this thread?

[trawglodyte]

Do you have any insight into the cause of the problems and the reason for the error messages which I have documented in this thread?

No, I don't. Thanks for answering my question though, I thought perhaps it had something to do with your troubles. Just a spitball, I do hope you get your machine working.

[FullScale4Me]

Just some ramblings from a retired server tech:

Boot flags are a thing not touched on in this thread. Old PCs like these *may* need either LBA or Legacy_Boot on their boot volume to spring to life. Boot from live media and use GParted to investigate and initiate experiments.

There is a *recent* thread here in this forum on MX 23 32-bit version NOT booting to a usable desktop on 64-bit PCs (32-bit version won't boot on 64-bit machine) so, just saying.....MX 21 is NOT affected by whatever issue is present in MX23.

I've had this happen to me a few times over the years. Does your boot media boot to a usable desktop on another PC? (It may be a bad ISO or boot media.)

[br1anstorm]

Thanks @FullScale4Me for your ramblings...

Just a quick response on the thoughts you offer.

The subject of boot flags, LBA etc is way above my pay grade. I had a look at the Wikipedia explanation of LBA. It might as well have been written in Chinese or Greek. I couldn't begin to understand it. It follows that I'm hardly equipped to investigate and experiment in GParted: I wouldn't know what to look for, what to do, or what to change.

On the 32-bit v 64-bit debate, in this case I think it's a red herring. I have run Live sessions off DVDs of both MX21.3 and MX23.5, (and other distros) in both 32 and 64-bit versions. When I tried it, MX23.5 32-bit ran in Live session, and I installed it on the HDD. I reverted to MX21.3 32-bit on the assumption that it was well tried and tested.

On the question of "boot media", I have an assortment of distros on CDs or DVDs, and one or two on USB sticks. All verified (MD5 or SHA256). From them I have installed my choice of operating system on various other computers (mostly more recent laptops such as the ThinkPad I'm using to type this). So I'm confident that the ISOs I'm using are not corrupt or faulty.

But - as described at length in this thread - I have all kinds of difficulty getting whatever I have installed on the HDD to boot. I have tried LMDE and Mint, as well as MX. I have wiped and reformatted the HDD using GParted. I have tried installing Grub on the MBR, and I have tried creating a separate /boot partition and putting Grub there. None of these has enabled the system to boot into whatever is installed on the HDD.

We come back to the central issue. I can run a Live session in the old desktop computer from a CD/DVD. I can install MX, Mint or whatever on to the hard disk. I can run SMART checks on the integrity of the HDD and the results say that the disk is good. BUT.... when I try to boot up the computer to run whatever is on the HDD, I get the error messages already described. Disk Boot Failure.... grub rescue ... cannot find the canonical pathway ... SRST .... etc. Running MX Boot Repair or sudo update-grub results in similar error messages.

In my simple layman's mind, this tells me two things. One, the actual physical hardware (HDD - I've tried two; the CPU; the display screen; etc etc) is all OK. Two, whatever OS I install on the hard disk - if and when I can actually launch it via the unorthodox route of choosing the 'boot from hard disk' option from the CD/DVD Live session splash/launch menu - runs perfectly normally.

The problem seems to be that on powering up, as the boot process (BIOS?) goes through whatever steps it has to go through, it cannot see, find or access the hard drive. Why not? Is it a bootloader problem? Is it somehow related to the settings in the BIOS? That remains the unanswered question. And so far, I haven't found an answer. I'm still hoping that someone with greater expertise than me will review all the evidence and suggest possible solutions!

[FullScale4Me]

Thanks @FullScale4Me for your ramblings...

Just a quick response on the thoughts you offer.

The subject of boot flags, LBA etc is way above my pay grade. I had a look at the Wikipedia explanation of LBA. It might as well have been written in Chinese or Greek. I couldn't begin to understand it. It follows that I'm hardly equipped to investigate and experiment in GParted: I wouldn't know what to look for, what to do, or what to change.

<snip>

The problem seems to be that on powering up, as the boot process (BIOS?) goes through whatever steps it has to go through, it cannot see, find or access the hard drive. Why not? Is it a bootloader problem? Is it somehow related to the settings in the BIOS? That remains the unanswered question. And so far, I haven't found an answer. I'm still hoping that someone with greater expertise than me will review all the evidence and suggest possible solutions!

I feel you are overanalyzing the flag issue one level beyond what we would normally ask in a support thread. A flag only persists until the next formatting.

GParted manages flags via a checkbox.

• Left click to highlight the partition.

• Right click for menu.

• Left click Manage flags.

There's no heavy lifting involved for what's a simple on/off affair. Try it!



What it may look like below.



While researching something else, I came across the Rufus program (USB burner) having support for older PCs like yours. It has (in addition to using a MBR aka msDOS portion table), under 'Show advanced drive properties', a checkable option 'Add fixes for old BIOSes (extra partition, align, etc.)' checked. Above is the GParted view of the resulting USB.

[br1anstorm]

Thanks @FullScale4Me , I'm prepared to try almost any uncomplicated experiment to get this old computer functioning normally.

I try to understand what I'm doing, but a lot of this is the proverbial steep learning curve.

However your suggestions on managing flags in GParted look pretty straightforward. This is what I found when I booted into a Live session and launched GParted.

I should start by saying that - following earlier comments from @CharlesV - I currently have the hard drive configured with a dedicated boot partition on which Grub is installed.

The configuration is as follows:
/dev/sda1 .........format ext4.........label boot........size 1GB........flags boot
/dev/sda2 ........linux-swap ..............................size 2GB
/dev/sda3 .......format ext4 ........label root MX21.3 ..........size 30GB
/dev/sda4 .........extended partition ...............................size 116GB, containing
/dev/sda5.........format ext4 ........label DATA...........size 50GB,
with the remaining 66GB in the extended partition unallocated.

I clicked as advised to get to the Manage Flags for /dev/sda1, the boot partition. It already shows the 'boot' flag. The list of flags in the popup window was as shown in your posted screenshot. Only the 'boot' box is ticked. So I selected and clicked the box for 'lba' . A short pause with the rotating pointer icon.... and then no action. The 'lba' box flag cannot be ticked.

Just out of curiosity I then tried to select and tick each of the other flag-boxes separately and in turn. I could tick and activate any of the flags on the list except 'hidden', 'lba' and 'msftres'. These three flags could not be set on /dev/sda1.

Still curious, I looked at the Manage Flags for the MX root partition, dev/sda3. No flags are set. I don't know what any of them represent. I tried to set 'lba' on that partition. No joy: it wouldn't do so. But it would allow me to set the 'boot' flag on that partition as well. Should I do so? Is it acceptable to have a 'boot' flag on more than one partition?

What does that reveal? Anything significant? Suggests that the computer doesn't like, or won't accept, 'lba'. Is that why it won't boot normally?

I haven't yet looked into the Rufus angle. I have used Rufus to create bootable USB drives of Linux ISOs, but not for any other troubleshooting/problem-solving.

[putih]

Maybe MBR have some issue
During install select PBR