Boots and executes OS loader, but then weird screen artifact 'develops'

[daragh]

Hi,

I have tried to install XUbuntu from a 'LiveCD' on the USB stick, and also tried to load&run ChromiumOS from the USB stick, but in both cases, while the boot appears to go fine, and the first stage of the installer/loader runs, the execution hangs - I believe at the point the display is changed from text to graphical and/or something about the display is changed in the executing program.

What makes this really interesting to me is that in both cases, a strange artifact develops on the screen. It starts at the bottom 1/4 of the screen and goes very slowly from dark (black) to greys, and while it forms a shape like a box within the frame of the compete screen, it is not regularly formed, and does not come into clarity in a uniform fashion. I.e., it does not look computer-generated at all! Very curious.

I have been running various versions of Windows and Linux on this laptop for years - it is a 10 yr old Sony Vaio PCG-R505EL. Unfortunately Boot from USB doesn't normally work, and the CD drive in the docking station is connected via SCSI, which makes it difficult to re-install new OS's. I think PLoP BM is my saviour, but unfortunately haven't gotten it to run yet

Any help would be most appreciated, and thank you for developing such a useful tool!

Cheers,
Daragh

[Elmar]

hi,

strange

how did you make the usb device bootable?
if you use fat, is the partition in lba mode?

regards
elmar

[daragh]

Hey Elmar,

it's FAT32. I used Image Writer for putting Chromium on there, but also Ubuntu Live USB Creator (usb-creator) from Xubuntu.

Want me to try something else?

D

[Elmar]

for testing, you can try to boot ploplinux from usb. maybe it gives us more infos whats happening.