Q4OS Forum

barquest

Member

Registered: 2021-01-28

Posts: 5

Grub cannot install on Samsung USB flash drive

I have an old HP laptop with Intel 3rd Generation Core processor, 8 GB memory, and Windows installed on the internal SSD. I play around with Linux distributions, usually installed on SSDs in external enclosures connected via USB. I was able to install Q4OS Trinity on one of them. Then I tried a few different USB flash drives because I ran out of SSDs in external enclosures. I was able to install on an old SanDisk USB flash drive, but then the drive failed (bad luck). Then I tried a Samsung BAR Plus 32 GB USB flash drive. The installation went fine until the Grub stage, at which the installation failed. I got the impression -- my impression, mind you, not a fact -- that Q4OS was tryng to install Grub on the USB flash drive acting as a LiveUSB, not the Samsung USB flash drive serving as the main drive. I tried it twice, so it was no fluke. Then, just for laughs, I tried installing on an old, slow Lexar USB flash drive. Two hours later (!), it went past the Grub stage. So there seems to be something about the Samsung, even though it's brand new. After all this, I installed Sparky Linux Xfce on the Samsung, so I don't think it's defective (I'm writing this on that system).

Note: in the above, before installation, I remove the internal SSD so I don't have a dual-boot, which would be messy given the number of times I do this. Also, I am using the q4os-3.12-x64-instcd.r3.iso, and I choose Trinity for the desktop and select the middle choice for features.

My questions:
- Has anyone seen a Grub failure, and if so, did you find a solution?
- I was able to finish the installation with respect to adding users and whatever else it does after the Grub stage, though of course it wouldn't boot. Could I manually fix Grub after finishing the installation, and if so, what commands would I execute to do it?

Tolkem

Member

Registered: 2019-10-06

Posts: 487

Re: Grub cannot install on Samsung USB flash drive

I have Q4OS installed in a USB stick and didn't have this issue. I use the Plasma version and it works just fine. You might try this https://sourceforge.net/projects/q4os/f … o/download instead of the one you used, this boots as a live OS so you get to see how it works before installing it.

Hope this helps!

bin

Member

From: U.K.

Registered: 2016-01-28

Posts: 1,333

Re: Grub cannot install on Samsung USB flash drive

I agree with @Tolkem here. I have no proof but it does seem that working from the Live media rather than the instcd does produce different results in some cases (based solely on other posts in the forum)

barquest

Member

Registered: 2021-01-28

Posts: 5

Re: Grub cannot install on Samsung USB flash drive

I tried something else. I also have a SanDisk Ultra Luxe 3.1 drive. I used it to install Q4OS and it worked. Very strange. That said, I've seen differences between USB flash drives with respect to how the OS treats them. I have older SanDisk Extreme 3.0 drives, in 16 GB and 32 GB. When I plugged them into Windows, one appeared as a hard drive and the other appeared as removeable media (the 16 GB died, so testing is no longer possible). I used the Samsung drive for another Linux distribution.