[Installation] Kubuntu 17.04 boots from SSD via USB but not via SATA

[Cymno]

I have freshly installed Kubuntu 64bit on a new SSD via Live USB stick. When I put the SSD into the HD slot of my old laptop it attempts booting, shows the kubuntu logo, but then stops and just shows a black screen with a single white "-" in the top left corner. However, when I boot the SSD using a USB to SATA connector (which I am using right now) it boots and runs fine. But when I shut it down, the computer doesn't power off completely and shows the very same black screen with white dash. I force shutdown the computer. When I restart it the USB connected drive doesn't show up in the boot options (only boot from LAN). Powering the computer down and turning it on again or unplugging the adapter seems to solve that problem on the next try or the one after that.

What could cause these problems? Pls help.
ideas:
-I used gparted to look at the drives partitions:
(/dev/sda1 : FAT32 (for usage as universal USB-"stick") 10 GiB; flags: lba (don't know what for), boot
/dev/sda2: extended:
L /dev/sda3: linux-swap 5 GiB
L /dev/sda4: ext4 (with kubuntu) 90 GiB; mount: / ; flags: none)
I changed the boot flag over to sda4, but it seemed to change nothing.
-When I installed kubuntu, the partition manager showed /sda1,2,3,4 as subcatecories of /sda. I think I put the bootloader selector on /sda, might I have installed the bootloader on the adapter, or is this normal?
-The windows program LinuxLiveUSBCreator which I used did not find the kubuntu version (which I had just downloaded from kubuntu.org) and said it installed it using the preferences for the older version 15.0something. Might this have caused an issue?
-The USB stick also had an about a year older version of kubuntu already installed. I don't think that would cause trouble tho.

Btw, Kubuntu runs really well and quick, even with the USB 2.0 connection. The upgrade to 64bit made videos run smooth again (480p 2x speed! lol) and the pressure sensitive pen got recognized out of the box and works nicely with Krita (goodbye paint.net!)

Oh and on the forum, when I clicked preview post it took me to login screen and erased my progress, Restore auto save only restored a small part and I had to retype about 2/3 of this post. tip: save before you click anything!

[mr_raider]

Can you list your hardware specs?

[Snowhog]

Oh and on the forum, when I clicked preview post it took me to login screen and erased my progress, Restore auto save only restored a small part and I had to retype about 2/3 of this post. tip: save before you click anything!

On the login screen, below Username, there is a Remember me? check box. Check it and a session cookie gets set which will ensure your session doesn't timeout during inactivity, which happens when you are typing a longish post (typing isn't "activity"; pressing the submit Reply button is).

[Cymno]

I have this ThinkPad X61 tablet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkP...ies#X61_Tablet
It has the same internal specs as the X61 basis model according to this german wiki: http://thinkwiki.de/X61#X61_Tablet
My model has
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU L7500 @ 1.60GHz (Merom, 4MB L2-cache)
RAM: 2x SODIMM DDR2 Synchronous 667 MHz (1,5 ns) (1GiB)
Graphics: Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller
PCI: Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub
firmware /BIOS: version: 7SET38WW (1.24 ) date: 10/12/2009

*-storage
description: SATA controller
product: 82801HM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA Controller [AHCI mode]
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 1f.2
bus info: pci@0000:00:1f.2
version: 03
width: 32 bits
clock: 66MHz
capabilities: storage msi pm ahci_1.0 bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=ahci latency=0
resources: irq:27 ioport:1c30(size=8) ioport:1c24(size=4) ioport:1c28(size=8) ioport:1c20(size=4) ioport:1c00(size=32) memory:fe226000-fe2267ff

*-usb:5
description: USB controller
product: 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 1d.7
bus info: pci@0000:00:1d.7
version: 03
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm debug ehci bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=ehci-pci latency=0
resources: irq:19 memory:fe227000-fe2273ff
*-usbhost
product: EHCI Host Controller
vendor: Linux 4.10.0-20-generic ehci_hcd
physical id: 1
bus info: usb@2
logical name: usb2
version: 4.10
capabilities: usb-2.00
configuration: driver=hub slots=4 speed=480Mbit/s
*-usb
description: Mass storage device
product: Usb production
vendor: JMicron
physical id: 1
bus info: usb@2:1
logical name: scsi2
version: 0.00
serial: 0012345667888
capabilities: usb-2.00 scsi emulated scsi-host
configuration: driver=usb-storage maxpower=2mA speed=480Mbit/s
*-disk
description: SCSI Disk
product: Name
vendor: Disk
physical id: 0.0.0
bus info: scsi@2:0.0.0
logical name: /dev/sda
version: SBFA
size: 111GiB (120GB)
capabilities: partitioned partitioned:dos
configuration: ansiversion=2 logicalsectorsize=512 sectorsize=512 signature=b46906b1
*-volume:0
description: Windows FAT volume
vendor: MSWIN4.1
physical id: 1
bus info: scsi@2:0.0.0,1
logical name: /dev/sda1
version: FAT32
serial: 24a2-9b41
size: 10GiB
capacity: 10GiB
capabilities: primary fat initialized
configuration: FATs=2 filesystem=fat label=10GB_TEST
*-volume:1
description: Extended partition
physical id: 2
bus info: scsi@2:0.0.0,2
size: 95GiB
capacity: 95GiB
capabilities: primary extended partitioned partitioned:extended
*-logicalvolume:0
description: Linux swap volume
physical id: 5
logical name: /dev/sda5
version: 1
serial: b79dcaa4-6c99-4d70-a9cc-4fb44b48b068
size: 5772MiB
capacity: 5772MiB
capabilities: nofs swap initialized
configuration: filesystem=swap pagesize=4096
*-logicalvolume:1
description: EXT4 volume
vendor: Linux
physical id: 6
logical name: /dev/sda6
logical name: /
version: 1.0
serial: 01a5973d-5743-4ec9-81ee-b5f17b93452f
size: 89GiB
capacity: 89GiB
capabilities: bootable journaled extended_attributes large_files huge_files dir_nlink recover 64bit extents ext4 ext2 initialized
configuration: created=2017-04-27 02:07:20 filesystem=ext4 lastmountpoint=/ modified=2017-04-28 19:57:35 mount.fstype=ext4 mount.options=rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro,data=ordered mounted=2017-04-28 19:57:36 state=mounted

let me know if you need the full lshw dump...

Snowhog: thank you, that worked

[mr_raider]

Recheck the download file iso you used to make the install disk. Make sure it's not corrupted. You can also try a different USB key creator. Rufus seems to work well on Windows.

Also, if you do re-install, place, make the Linux ext4 root partition the first one on your disk. Although Linux can theoretically boot from inside an extended partition, it's an ugly hack that I like to avoid, especially when there is no dual OS install.

[claydoh]

My question: what computer did you use to install the OS to the ssd, and how was it connected to it? This is not clear.

[Cymno]

claydoh: I used my laptop running Windows Vista to install Kubuntu to my USB Stick with LinuxLive USB Creator. Then I booted the laptop from the stick and installed the OS to my SSD in live usb mode.

mr_raider: I checked the 256 sha hash of the iso file.
I didn't want to use Rufus, because as far as I can tell it is destructive to the USB data.
Instead I used UNetbootin running the kubuntu system from the ssd to create a new Live USB stick (on the same stick). It didn't go smoothly:

On the first try to boot from USB, after a short while the windows froze and didn't react anymore. I force shutdown the computer and reinstalled. This time it didn't even find a bootable medium. On the third installation try it ran a few minutes before freezing again and I noticed in the file manager the storage filling up by 100s of MiB during only a few minutes. I reinstalled and on the fourth try (each installation took ca. 10 min) I went into KSysGuard and killed one process (pretty much at random, because it only showed the CPU usage of three processes, all of which ran at less than 5%) ("packagekitd", did it try to update something?) which I suspected might cause the memory leak(?) and the CPU usage of consistently 100% (it was also very laggy). The CPU usage immediately returned to normal and in the file manager I could see the memory no longer increasing. (((It probably wasn't completely fixed tho, as the properties of "/" showed a size of 128 TiB) apparently that's normal and an old bug)) After that I could install the OS to the SSD (in the HD slot) without problem.
This is my new SSD partitioning:
/dev/sda1: ext4; mount /; size 76GB; flags boot
/dev/sda3: fat32; size 25GiB; flags none
unallocated: 5 GiB
/dev/sda2: extended: (forgot during installation, but it's only the swap anyway)
L/dev/sda5: linux-swap; size 5GiB; flags none

When I started the computer back up, with the SSD in the HD slot, at first I thought the problem was fixed, as it booted without problem. I used the computer a few hours for browsing. But when I tried to start it back up later, I had the exact issue as previously and it didn't boot, but it did from the adapter. When I interrupted the boot from HD slot, with shift/GRUB, and selected recovery mode, and then from recovery mode resume booting, it did boot, but showed a few graphical glitches during startup, and on shutdown it showed a faint blue bar on the top 2 cm of the screen with blue and red dots in the upper part of it, and it DID shutdown eventually, albeit only after about 2 minutes idle.

I will not update this during the next time, as I will be very busy the next few days and not have time to deal with computer problems. :/ Feel free to leave ideas what might cause the issues, or how to fix them, I will read them eventually.

[mr_raider]

Well at least now you are booting. The issue seems to be getting to the login screen.

The Intel gm965 is a fairly old and weak graphics card. The drivers may be some what inadequate.

Have you tried downloading and installing the Intel drivers from their site:

https://01.org/linuxgraphics/downloads

[Cymno]

mr_raider:
The issue is not fixed, my reinstallation did not change it
The problem is (and was) that Kubuntu would not boot from the SATA connector of my laptop. It still doesn't, and only boots when I am using a USB adapter.

Thank you for the graphics driver link, unfortunately I don't know how to install them, and the Update Tool (v2.0.4) is outdated and does not yet work with Ubuntu 17.04.

It would make sense if the problem is caused by a graphics issue, since the temporary fix to boot from SATA is to first boot in recovery mode, and from there resume booting, which shows a warning that not all graphics processes may be started that way.

[Cymno]

Here's an update:

mr_raider: You are right. I am booting and the issue is to get to the login screen. I got my terms confused, sorry. The problem is that during the boot process it would often crash.

I have found a very strange workaround for the startup problem:

As soon as the kubuntu logo shows during startup, I hold down 'Esc' for at least 5 seconds. This makes the logo flash faster and faster, and keep on flashing for a little time after I release the key. Doing this will most often result in a successfull login screen. (In a test it worked 14/25 times, but in practice it seems to work almost every time, likely because I hold down 'Esc' for longer)

I am still using my laptop, the workaround is reliable enough so that I put the ssd in the hd slot.

[mr_raider]

Here's an update:

mr_raider: You are right. I am booting and the issue is to get to the login screen. I got my terms confused, sorry. The problem is that during the boot process it would often crash.

I have found a very strange workaround for the startup problem:

As soon as the kubuntu logo shows during startup, I hold down 'Esc' for at least 5 seconds. This makes the logo flash faster and faster, and keep on flashing for a little time after I release the key. Doing this will most often result in a successfull login screen. (In a test it worked 14/25 times, but in practice it seems to work almost every time, likely because I hold down 'Esc' for longer)

I am still using my laptop, the workaround is reliable enough so that I put the ssd in the hd slot.

Have you tried reading the logs to see what the issue is? It seems the boot process is hanging on some error.

Another thing to do is edit your /etc/default/grub.cfg.

Put a # in front the grub hidden timeout = 0 line

That will open up the boot menu, which you can use for recovery mode.

[woodsmoke]

A Vista man!

me to, made the mistake of updating it once, installed a Linux over it, reinstalled it and never put it anywhere a update!

woodDanielCraigrunsthesamethinginfirstBondfilmsmok e

[bweinel]

Sounds like the SATA controller is having trouble reading the SSD. Have you tried going into the system BIOS -> Advanced Adaptor Settings -> SATA Contoller and checking to see how the SATA mode is set. If it's set to AHCI (likely the default) try changing the SATA mode to IDE and then see if it will boot. I have run into this issue before with some drive/controller combinations.

cheers,
bill

[Cymno]

So, just a little update: My strange workaround with pressing escape was reliable enough that I didn't bother trying to fix it anymore. I used it for almost a year, and now after I updated to Kubuntu 17.10 the problem seems gone.
: )

[GreyGeek]

When are you going to update to 18.04, considering that support for 17.10 will cease in a few months?