Short version:
Failed to install Fedora 24 Workstation via bootable USB media created in Windows 10. ISO hash matched, tried several means of creating bootable media, tried two different flash drives, and two different USB ports. Looking for help/advice.
The rest:
I built a PC into an NZXT H440 case. Beautiful case, but solid front panel so no room to install an optical drive. I installed Windows 10 on it using a USB flash drive stick. I left space on the hard drive for a later Linux installation. So now I wish to install Linux on it using a USB stick as well. My efforts to install Fedora 24 this way have failed thus far. I’ve tried several different ways of writing the ISO to the USB on Windows 10, I’ve tried two different USB 3.0 ports, and two different USB sticks that have worked for other purposes.
At this point I’m wondering a few things:
How can I troubleshoot, diagnose, and resolve this and successfully install Fedora 24 via USB?
Should I consider a different version of Fedora or a different flavor of Linux to resolve this issue more easily/safely?
How can I use this issue to contribute to the open source community -- for example, should I write a bug report? Should I try to update documentation somewhere? Is there something I should test out in this situation that would later help someone else?
Here’s more of the story. First, some information on computer hardware:
Processor: Intel Core i5-6500 @ 3.2 GHz (x64 Skylake)
Motherboard: ASUS H170 Pro Gaming
RAM: G.Skill 8 GB
Video: NVidia GeForce GTX 970
This is the name of the ISO file I have tried to install:
Fedora-Workstation-Live-x86_64-24-1.2.iso
I downloaded it from the Get Fedora site under Workstation.
I first looked at the old Fedora 20 installation documentation here, which I just found with a Google search. So I first tried LiveUSB Creator. It said it succeeded, but when I booted from the USB it got stuck. I first saw:
vesamenu32.c32: not a COM32R image
boot:
I figured out I could enter “linux” there and it would proceed. But then it got stuck again. The output was:
[ OK ] Started User Manager for UID 42.
[ OK ] Started Session c2 of user gdm.ion Daemon….
[ 176.867773] Buffer I/O error on dev dm-0, logical block 1048584, lost async page write
etc.
And I was never able to get a prompt or find a way out of that.
So then I read that I should use “dd” utility and that was more reliable for creating the USB media and I tried that. I downloaded a version for Windows here. But I got an error:
> dd if=Fedora-Workstation-Live-x86_64-24-1.2.iso of=E:
rawwrite dd for windows version 0.5.
Written by John Newbigin <jn@it.swin.edu.au>
This program is covered by the GPL. See copying.txt for details
read from 95 disk
Exception EAccessViolation in module dd.exe at 0019E7B9.
Access violation at address 0019F7B9. Write of address 02C00000.
I tried running command prompt as administrator, same thing. That didn’t work for me at all. I tried the latest beta version (0.65 if I remember correctly) too, didn’t work either.
So then I thought I’d give Cygwin a try:
$ dd if=Fedora-Workstation-Live-x86_64-24-1.2.iso of=E:
3010560+0 records in
3010560+0 records out
1541406720 bytes (1.5 GB, 1.4 GiB) copied, 13.6211 s, 113 MB/s
Appeared to have worked perfectly. But again boot/installation failed in the same place with a similar Buffer I/O error message. I tried again running cygwin in Adminstrator mode (didn’t think it would matter, but I don’t know Windows internals). That didn’t make a difference. I did a “dd” version check:
$ dd --version
dd (coreutils) 8.25
Packaged by Cygwin (8.25-3)
Then I tried rebooting again and choosing troubleshooting → simple graphics mode from the boot menu. That also didn’t work: it stopped in the same place, but didn’t give me the I/O error message.
Then I realized I’d been looking at the wrong documentation. I was looking at the Fedora 20 version when I want the Fedora 24 version. Woops. I’d found the link in a search engine and not examined it closely enough -- my bad. So since then, here is the documentation I have been using to try to create bootable USB media and install, under Procedure 3.3. Creating USB Media on Windows. It says to use SUSE Studio ImageWriter or RaWrite32. The SUSE ImageWriter link is to an executable.
I downloaded and ran it, clicked select image, and it only showed *.raw. Clicking the dropdown did not allow changing that. So in the file name box I typed *.* and hit enter to see all files. Then I typed *.iso → enter and got to the ones I want. I selected the v24 ISO and hit ok.
Then I went to the dropdown to set the destination. It was empty. Keyboard input does not allow me to type anything. I don’t see a way to use this… I tried “copy” and got an unhandled exception. This GUI doesn’t work.
Next I tried RaWrite32. Selected the image, it gave me hashes, one matched the hash on the getfedora site. Nice. Output looked good when I copied:
1.44 GByte successfully written to disk.
This time the media check failed, which hadn’t happened before. It failed at 4.8%. Then I tried a different USB port. Again failed at 4.8%. Then I tried RaWrite32 to a different USB stick, the one I had used for Windows 10 installation. Again failed at 4.8%. But really it’s not clear it started:
[FAILED] Failed to start Media check on /dev/disk/by-label/Fedora-WS-Live-24-1-2.
See ‘systemctl status “checkisomd50dev-disk-by\\x24label-Fedora\\x2dWS\\x2dLive\\x2d24\\x2d1\\x2d2.service” ’ for details.
Since I can’t get a command prompt, I don’t see how I can check that. Each time I tried to bypass the media check, it again failed to load in the same place it had failed before:
[ OK ] Started User Manager for UID 42.
[ OK ] Started Session c2 of user gdm.ion Daemon….
[ <some number> ] Buffer I/O error on dev dm-0, logical block <some number>, lost async page write
When I left it up for a while I got a few more of those Buffer I/O error messages at different blocks. No matter what keys I pressed I couldn’t get a command prompt or change anything, and I just had to tap the power button at which point it would take some shutdown steps.
So the downloaded ISO hash matched. I tried both ImageWriter.exe and RaWrite32 as recommended in the documentation. I tried two different USB 3.0 ports, and two different flash drives. What’s left as the likely root cause? Has creating the bootable media on USB by this method from Windows 10 worked for other people?
I found this bug description, but it sounds like there it worked if you bypassed the media check, where in my case it does not. Also it was about creating bootable USB media on Mac OS, not on Windows 10.
Thanks in advance for your help and insight.