ldlinux.c32 error message when trying to boot live usb distro

[AlexOceanic]

Hi All

I know you must be getting sick of beginners running into problems with Kali after your repeated warnings but hoping one of you might be kind enough to help this noob resolve the below issue so I can move from Kali to another distro - the lesson has been learned!

After successfully running a number of live distro's from USB prior to the HDD install of Kali, I'm now getting an error at the GRUB/bootup stage of "unable to load ldlinux.c32" when trying to boot from USB and the laptop becomes unresponsive (requires hard reset).
Kali still loads fine without a USB stick so I can run any terminal commands you might need to help resolve the issue.

I had recently tried to (unsuccessfully) install an official NVIDIA driver and have also been getting errors on the Synaptics package manager too although the applications to seem to install successfully.

Please could you help me remove Kali/fix GRUB/MBR or whatever is preventing me from booting from USB?

I've added some further detail from a previous post I've just deleted from the "Getting Started" forum in the attached txt file but probably worth starting from scratch at this point (@Brickwizard just in case you sent any further replies to the initial post)

Many thanks

Alex

Make and model of machine:
Clevo W170HN
Architecture: x86_64
CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit
Model name: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2630QM CPU @ 2.00GHz
RAM - 8GB

Distribution and build number:
Kali GNU/Linux Rolling
VERSION="2022.2"
#1 SMP PREEMPT Debian 5.16.18-1kali1 (2022-04-01)

 

[AlexOceanic]

@Brickwizard

are you using rufus??????? it is known not to play too well with linux ,try https://www.balena.io/etcher

@AlexOceanic

Yes I think I did use Rufus to create the ISO's as it goes.

Can you advise how I can download/install Balena Etcher please where I haven't been able to find any software at all via the default Kali software repository and Etcher doesn't show in the Synaptics software manager I installed.

Thanks

Alex

 

[Brickwizard]

the link is in my post
,try https://www.balena.io/etcher you should be able to run it on Kali

 

[AlexOceanic]

the link is in my post
,try https://www.balena.io/etcher you should be able to run it on KaIi

I tried this yesterday but don't know how to run/install the "balenaEtcher-1.14.3-x64.AppImage" file if you could advise please?

 

[lomszz]

You need to make it executable with terminal make sure your directory is at same place where file exists

chmod +x balenaEtcher-1.14.3-x64.AppImage

or by opening file permissions.

 

[AlexOceanic]

You need to make it executable with terminal make sure your directory is at same place where file exists

chmod +x balenaEtcher-1.14.3-x64.AppImage

or by opening file permissions.

Thanks lomszz - that did the trick

Will report back if this resolves the missing ldlinux.c32 issue

 

[AlexOceanic]

You need to make it executable with terminal make sure your directory is at same place where file exists

chmod +x balenaEtcher-1.14.3-x64.AppImage

or by opening file permissions.

So Balena wrote the iso successfully to the USB but the computer still won't boot from USB.

I briefly see the the blue "Welcome to Grub" screen for 1 second before it progresses to the Kali dual boot menu screen (I got the same result when I used the "cp" command yesterday to write the ISO file to the USB stick).

If you or anyone else has any other suggestions to resolve this issue they would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Alex

 

[lomszz]

You need to change first boot order from bios, of course it boots to grub first if you don't

 

[AlexOceanic]

You need to change first boot order from bios, of course it boots to grub first if you don't

Thanks but the BIOS is still set to boot from USB first.

I've just flashed the boot-repair-disk-32bit.iso to USB and will see if that can start up....

 

[lomszz]

Thanks but the BIOS is still set to boot from USB first.

I've just flashed the boot-repair-disk-32bit.iso to USB and will see if that can start up....

Hmm, this is weird and i'm out of ideas :/

 

[AlexOceanic]

Hmm, this is weird and i'm out of ideas :/

So I'm always very nervous about things seemingly fixing themselves but just in case this helps some other panicking noob...

1. Triple checked BIOS settings were set to boot USB first and order was:

1. USB Kingston
2. SATA ODD
3. SATA HDD
4. USB CD
5. USB FDD
6. PCI LAN: Gigabit Ethernet Control

2. Reset order to:

1. USB Kingston
2. USB CD
3. USB FDD
4. PCI LAN: Gigabit Ethernet Control
5. SATA ODD
6. SATA HDD

At which point the boot-repair-disk-32bit.iso started up on restart and I let it run a diagnostic (it did find a couple of errors like the MBR was overwritten by 34 blocks or something but I didn't take any action and couldn't find my Windows partition to save the log file (probably should have put another usb stick in to see if it could see/write to that but still)).

3. Put the Fedora iso usb stick in and that booted too!

Doesn't make sense to me as thought the USB CD/FDD would be irrelevant but there you go.

Off to break Fedora by updating the graphics card now...

Thanks again for your help

Alex