10.04 Live trying to boot from USB

[Boston00b]

I created a bootable USB using unetbootin in order to retrieve files off of a failed windows hard drive.

It doesn't boot!

The "default" command line reads:

> /ubnkern initrd=/ubninit

Should I change/add commands?

Thanks in advance.

[snowpine]

Not a lot of details to go off of. "It didn't boot" is not very specific, tell us exactly what happens (blank screen, error message, boots straight to Windows, etc.) :) A couple troubleshooting tips to get you pointed in the right direction:

1. Your computer's BIOS needs to support boot from USB (older computer's don't, necessarily) and you need to press a certain key at startup to access the BIOS boot menu and choose the USB device.

2. Can you try booting the USB stick on another computer to test if it works?

3. Can you try booting from an Ubuntu Live CD (rather than USB) to test if it works?

4. Can you try using the Ubuntu Live USB creator (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromUSBStick) rather than Unetbootin?

[Boston00b]

The hard drive does not boot windows any longer, which is why Iam trying alternative approaches to getting the data I need form the hard drive. I turned on the machine, hit F12 to access alternative boot options, and booted from the USB, to which I had installed Ubuntu 10.04 Live. That brought me to a unnetbootin screen that has one item on it: "Default" acros the bottom, it gives an automatic boot 10-second countdown, but at 1 second it goes back to 10 seconds. I pressed TAB to edit options and that's how I saw the command line I put in my initial post.

[snowpine]

Does the computer have a CD drive?

[dacman48]

try using the universal installer from pendrivelinux.com. ive found it works better than unetbootin