USB Install - booting to black/purple screen

**quadrplax** · April 8th, 2014

No, because it never boots on it's own when the light comes on on its own, it hangs on the purple/black screen forever, as the original title says. I still require the second drive to boot it, which I would prefer not to have to do. I've put some useful information in my signature, and it's that desktop that this happens on.

**chileno35** · April 11th, 2014

Originally Posted by quadrplax

What is the akku? Ubuntu is installed on a flash drive, as my signature says. The computer I have trouble booting with is the desktop, the laptop works fine. It seems inconsistent, too. Today when I first tried to boot, the light turned off like usual, but before I plugged in the flash drive a few seconds later, The light turned back on on it's own. It never booted though, despite the light being on. I then chose regular boot from grub and put the other drive in immediately when the light turned off, and then it successfully booted.

Ok. Sorry. Then i missunderstood you.

By the way, with "Akku" i mean the Notebook-battery... but never mind.

**stalkingwolf** · April 11th, 2014

Did you install the live version to the flash drive or did you do a full system install? Did you make the mistake i did several times and install grub to the wrong drive? Have you tried the recovery mode and fix broken packages?
Usually when i do a full system install to a flash drive i unplug the main HDD. That pervents me from commiting gross acts of stupid.

**quadrplax** · April 11th, 2014

Recovery mode from GRUB returns an error and the light turns off as usual. As my signature states, the two flash drives are full installs of Ubuntu. How could you install grub to the wrong drive? As I said before, the boot sequence works perfectly fine on the EliteBook. Also, out of curiosity, today I tried booting to a HP ProBook 6560b, and it also worked perfectly fine. Also, not sure why this is happening, but every time I boot to Ubuntu now it shows grub, not just the times that I unplug the drive/turn off the computer while it's booting like it used to when I was trying to get it to work. I'm not sure why this is, data is saving and loading perfectly fine while I'm in Ubuntu.

EDIT: While I'm doing this on the ProBook, the light turns off for about 2 seconds, but then it comes back on and recovers. Also, I doubt this is any good information, but I'm trying to recover files off of a (really) old computer, a Packard Bell 945 with Windows 98, in order to convert it to a VM. It suprisingly can get all the way to grub. When I try to boot to any of the options in grub, it crashes to the bios.

**23dornot23d** · April 15th, 2014

Can you post a photograph of the two USBs plugged in when it works please.

I have an idea what it is - because I have a old computer that does something similar ..... but I need to
first see how you are connecting these USB drives to the computer.

( best if you can give one picture when it works / and / the other picture when you only have one plugged in )

As I said before, the boot sequence works perfectly fine on the EliteBook. Also, out of curiosity, today I tried booting to a HP ProBook 6560b, and it also worked perfectly fine. Also, not sure why this is happening, but every time I boot to Ubuntu now it shows grub, not just the times that I unplug the drive/turn off the computer while it's booting like it used to when I was trying to get it to work. I'm not sure why this is, data is saving and loading perfectly fine while I'm in Ubuntu.

Then it may answer your questions .... especially since you have already said it works ok on 2 other computers.

**quadrplax** · April 15th, 2014

I'm sorry, but I'm not capable of taking a picture of it, but here is a crummy diagram of the events in order:

**23dornot23d** · April 15th, 2014

If the case of where it works is when two usb drives hold each other rigid and in place ......

Then it could be a faulty USB port .... or bad connection ... and what happens when the other USB is plugged into place
is that it either sits snug up against the other USB card and supports it such that the connection is better.

This results in no lost connection at any time during boot up .....

I have only got this on one of my own computers and it was found when using a connection to the internet
it was a USB cable and every now and then it would just stop ,,,,,, but once something else was plugged in below it
it was fine .......

Just with you saying its only happening on that one computer ...... and the others are fine ......

Just a thought and I think you said it was old .....

Something else to take a close look at ..... might be wrong but it does seem more likely to be something
happening on the hardware side - rather than the programs - if they work fine on other computers.

**quadrplax** · April 15th, 2014

two usb drives hold each other rigid and in place

There is enough space between the USB ports that they don't touch each other. Also, I don't think that would be the problem because it happens consistently at one specific time during boot.

it could be a faulty USB port .... or bad connection

It happens on both of my 16GB USB's and it doesn't matter which port I plug them into, it still happens. I've also tried it on other computers of the exact same model and it still happens.

I think you said it was old

See my signature.

**quadrplax** · April 24th, 2014

Although my problem is not solved, I am going to close this thread. I will only be using this computer for 16 more days and therefore this is not worth the bother of trying to fix. Thank you all for trying to help.