"Operation System not found" message on Dell Inspiron N7110 laptop

[osprey]

so the USB stick works to boot Kubuntu on my win11 computer, but not the Dell Inspiron. maybe it is salvageable if I can find why it isn't detecting Kubuntu on the flash drive. any ideas? the BIOS menu is pretty bleak when I glance through it.

I've gone through and disabled each option in turn before attempting to boot, and none of the options changed the result, aside from some of the USB port ones, which only made it not detect any stick in the first place.

Do you have the latest BIOS for that machine, as mentioned in post #32?

If your BIOS has a manufacturer's update, then the machine clearly has been thought of as better with such installed, no? I know from experience that BIOS updates can make a difference to it's operation, and that might be just what helps in this case. It may not of course, but if it's there and you do not install it, you will not know what it can do in your case.

 

[leftiealex]

Do you have the latest BIOS for that machine, as mentioned in post #32?

If your BIOS has a manufacturer's update, then the machine clearly has been thought of as better with such installed, no? I know from experience that BIOS updates can make a difference to it's operation, and that might be just what helps in this case. It may not of course, but if it's there and you do not install it, you will not know what it can do in your case.

okay, I know it's been a while, but I have a new USB stick and it has the BIOS update executable on it and I'm still getting the same message when I try to follow the official website's instructions, and when it switches to the DOS screen it is unresponsive to any key press. I've tried different ports, and intermediate versions, but it seems like something isn't letting the USB stick get read. I don't have a way to burn a disk either, so I think i may just be stuck. I asked the official tech support website, but I figured someone here would be faster.

 

[Brickwizard]

OK lets do a re-cap
My dell is about 18 months older than yours, over the years it's had about 30 different distro's on it for testing, Dell is about the easiest machine to install Linux on [my opinion]
Your machine [like mine] is UEFI and USB bootable, it is too old to have windows quick-start, but may have safe boot, if it does turn it off, there is no need to update the bios/EUFI unless yours has been corrupted,
I always use Etcher to burn [write] the ISO to pen-drive
check the bios [F2] on start up and make sure boot from USB is enabled [it should be by default] re-boot using F12 for the one rime boot option, select the usb and enter,
if it still fails , look back at my original post as to why it may have failed [and I will add another reason, the hard drive may be on the way out]

 

[leftiealex]

OK lets do a re-cap
My dell is about 18 months older than yours, over the years it's had about 30 different distro's on it for testing, Dell is about the easiest machine to install Linux on [my opinion]
Your machine [like mine] is UEFI and USB bootable, it is too old to have windows quick-start, but may have safe boot, if it does turn it off, there is no need to update the bios/EUFI unless yours has been corrupted,
I always use Etcher to burn [write] the ISO to pen-drive
check the bios [F2] on start up and make sure boot from USB is enabled [it should be by default] re-boot using F12 for the one rime boot option, select the usb and enter,
if it still fails , look back at my original post as to why it may have failed [and I will add another reason, the hard drive may be on the way out]

I have done these exact steps. the hard drive was working as of last week when I did a system checkup through BIOS. also, shouldn't the state of the hard drive not matter if I am just trying to run the environment off the stick?

I know it isn't the stick because it boots the now permanent burn of kubuntu on it on my win11 machine, unless there is some incompatibility between the two. there must be something missing, but I'm quite confident it isn't something on this list.

also, I messed up a little bit earlier, it never booted into DOS. the hard drive is completely blank right now.

 

[ML_113]

I don't trust any distro running on USB pendrive except the Puppy family.
I suggest EasyOS, the installation is easy with dd command.