Why does my computer hard drive not boot with anything so far except Ubuntu Studio and Mint Linux?

Z

Zert

New Member
Joined
Apr 26, 2020
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
Credits
0
Ok, so recently I have brought an old computer back from the dead. It is an HP Elitebook 8560p with an i5 Processor (Intel Duo Core). Its got 4 gb of ram and a 500gb Hard Drive.

My issue with this particular laptop is related to hard drives actually.
  1. It doesnt recognize SSD drives at all. It doesnt see them.
  2. The only 2 Linix distros that it will boot from on a regular Hard Drive are Ubuntu Studio 19.04, KXStudio Linux, and Mint Linux Tricia xcfe. Neither of which I really want as aiming for a lighter weight linux distro that doesnt use so much system resources. Sparkylinux doesnt wont boot after installation, Lubuntu wont boot after installation, and Im pretty sure debian (I began installation of debian but gave up) wont boot neither. Im not even going to bother with AntiX, ArchBang, CentOS, Peppermint, nor CrunchBang. I just dont have that amount of time on my hands nor blank dvds.
Anyway, what is causing these boot issues with Sparkylinux and Lubuntu. Could it be the hard drive is corrupted and Mint Linux is just able to run on corrupted hard drives? I have seen an instance where Mint Linux has run on a corrupted Hard Drive for a few months before the hard drive became just flat out unusable...

Some known hardware issues with the laptop and things I have already tried:
  • This laptop has an issue to where when I plug in the adapter, it will automatically power on.
  • If the laptop has been unplugged for an extended amount of time, the bios clock will go out of sink with what time it is, or it will just flat out reset. I realize that it probably needs a new CMOS battery.
  • I have tried enabling UEFI in order to get the laptop to recognize the drive with Lubuntu and Sparkylinux. No luck. There is no way to disable Legacy Boot in Bios. And there is no option to enable or disable Secure Boot.
  • I have also changed the boot order so that Hard Drive boots first on startup. No luck.
Any help appreciated. I can live with Mint Linux xcfe. It works great. I would at least like to try to get Lubuntu or Sparky working on this computer though if possible...

P.S.
I would have stuck with Ubuntu Linux and or KXstudio they offered no driver for the wifi card and I didnt feel like going through the rigormoroe of installing the drivers on the Terminal.
 


Based on the performance issues that you are having you may want to replace your cmos battery.

Ubuntu based distro's are friendly to the UEFI firmware.
Other distros like Debian you have to either download and install the firmware or find the iso that has the non-free firmware already included in the .iso file.

Since there is no way to enable or disable secure boot in the BIOS you might have to install in UEFI mode.

MX Linux is a distro that is designed for older computers so you can give that a try.

DistroWatch.com: MX Linux

News and feature lists of Linux and BSD distributions.
distrowatch.com distrowatch.com

How old is your HP elitebook and what os came with it?
 
Alexzee said:
Based on the performance issues that you are having you may want to replace your cmos battery.

Ubuntu based distro's are friendly to the UEFI firmware.
Other distros like Debian you have to either download and install the firmware or find the iso that has the non-free firmware already included in the .iso file.

Since there is no way to enable or disable secure boot in the BIOS you might have to install in UEFI mode.

MX Linux is a distro that is designed for older computers so you can give that a try.

DistroWatch.com: MX Linux

News and feature lists of Linux and BSD distributions.
distrowatch.com distrowatch.com

How old is your HP elitebook and what os came with it?
Click to expand...

It was made in either 2011 or 2010. It came with Windows 8 Pro.
 
Zert said:
It was made in either 2011 or 2010. It came with Windows 8 Pro.
Click to expand...
Windows 8 was when all of the UEFI implementation got started and folks started having trouble installing Linux.

Try giving MX Linux a spin.
It worked great on my 12 year old quad core desktop.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Members online

Total: 345 (members: 1, guests: 344)

Latest posts

Top