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My laptop does not have a cd drive and attempts to create a live USB disk have failed as the software crashes for some reason.

Is there any method to reinstalling 14.04 without either of these options?

The error im getting with startup boot-creator is upon finishing copying files onto the USB stick I am getting an authentication message followed by password prompt. When I enter the password, I get an error message "Failed to install bootloader". The result is the USB stick with all necessary files on it, but it is not bootable. I do have all administrative rights for the account I am using.

To answer the question to how i installed ubuntu in the first place, I first installed it over 5 years ago so I honestly do not remember.

moto
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  • How did you install in the first place? How did you try to make a usb ? crashes with what error ? – Panther Nov 30 '14 at 02:59
  • possible duplicate of How to roll back Ubuntu to a previous version? – psusi Nov 30 '14 at 03:04
  • The error im getting with startup boot-creator is upon finishing copying files onto the USB stick I am getting an authentication message followed by password prompt. When I enter the password, I get an error message "Failed to install bootloader". The result is the USB stick with all necessary files on it, but it is not bootable. I do have all administrative rights for the account I am using.

    To answer the question to how i installed ubuntu in the first place, I first installed it over 5 years ago so I honestly do not remember.

     – moto Nov 30 '14 at 04:05
  • the duplicate link above does not provide any solutions to reinstalling without a usb or live cd – moto Nov 30 '14 at 04:36
  • I read this as 2 different problems: 1. you can not install to disk with a dvd (non present) or usb (errors out). 2. you want to downgrade your system to 14.04. Question: does your system still work? If not you can forget about getting it to work and need to fix the USB problem. If it does: the only option I know without a live dvd or usb requires a working system (that includes a bootloader). It is by creating a partition with an ISO on it and booting of that ISO. (either of these methods has been asked on AU before ;) ) – Rinzwind Nov 30 '14 at 06:00
  • Here is a list of methods for installing without a DVD: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation #8 is the one mentioned by me in previous comment. – Rinzwind Nov 30 '14 at 06:03

1 Answers1

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I don't know about downgrading ubuntu without like running into some serious problems, even upgrading ubuntu "in-place" used to cause problems often too, but backing up your home (and other important files) and then installing a new (or in this case old) version should work.

You could try fixing the usb stick to make it bootable, using gparted or fdisk should be able to set the bootable flag on the usb stick, if that's the only problem.

Sometimes the live-usb creators just don't work, you could try another different method of making a bootable usb stick, like using unetbootin or plain dd, but I really like the multi-iso method that pendrivelinux.com suggests, it works from the terminal of any linux, and you can add new iso's (if the drive has space) by just copying the whole iso and editing one grub text file. It's at http://www.pendrivelinux.com/boot-multiple-iso-from-usb-via-grub2-using-linux/ and there are programs that should do something similar if you don't want to DIY.

They recommend formating the usb to a single partition, but this isn't really necessary if you can get grub to boot & work from the 1st partition. Most usb drives come from the factory as a single partition anyway so should be ready to go, or you can use gparted to (format if needed and) make the usb bootable (set bootable flag) too.

Here's the key parts, to get grub onto the usb & setup:

  1. Mount the usb - Type mkdir /mnt/USB && mount /dev/sdx1 /mnt/USB (replacing x with your actual usb device)
  2. Type grub-install --force --no-floppy --boot-directory=/mnt/USB/boot /dev/sdx (replacing x with your actual USB device, often sda or sdb etc... but NOT the partition sda1 or sdb1)
  3. Type cd /mnt/USB/boot/grub (to change directory)
  4. Download the demo grub.cfg - Can use web browser to save it or wget: Type wget pendrivelinux.com/downloads/multibootlinux/grub.cfg (to get the grub.cfg file)

The grub.cfg is basically this, with a few more/different examples, can copy & paste this and edit to fit your specific iso's instead of wget/download, and put this into the usb's boot/grub/grub.cfg:

# This grub.cfg file was created by Lance http://www.pendrivelinux.com
# Suggested Entries and the suggestor, if available, will also be noted.

set timeout=10
set default=0

menuentry "Ubuntu Desktop ISO" {
 loopback loop /ubuntu.iso
 linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz boot=casper iso-scan/filename=/ubuntu.iso noeject noprompt splash --
 initrd (loop)/casper/initrd.lz
}

menuentry "Linux Mint ISO" {
 loopback loop /linuxmint.iso
 linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/mint.seed boot=casper initrd=/casper/initrd.lz iso-scan/filename=/linuxmint.iso noeject noprompt splash --
 initrd (loop)/casper/initrd.lz
}

Parts to edit are the name of the iso, change "ubuntu.iso" or "linuxmint.iso" to the actual iso name you've downloaded, and the menuentry title to be more descriptive.

Then just download a live iso and copy it to the usb's root. Or you could even put them in an iso directory, but then you'd have to chance references to "/ubuntu.iso" into /iso/ubuntu.iso". And you can put as many different live iso's to try as will fit on your usb.

And, you should be able to get this method to work by copying the iso to a partition on your hard drive, and installing grub to the hard drive (if it isn't already there) and adding the appropriate grub.cfg lines to point to the iso on the HD and install from there, though a separate live usb or cd is more common and should be more tested & reliable... And if you want to overwrite your whole HD, including the iso you booted from, and have enough ram you could boot the live iso with the toram boot parameter (added to the line with noeject noprompt splash toram -- for example)

Xen2050
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  • Hello thanks for your detailed response. However I am running into problems at step 2 and 3. "2. Type grub-install --force --no-floppy --boot-directory=/mnt/USB/boot /dev/sdx (replacing x with your actual USB device) 3. Type cd /mnt/USB/boot/grub (to change directory)" After step 2 /mnt/USB/boot is not created. When i run the grub-install command however, it says installation successful. Am I missing something? I used the correct command and used 'sdb1' instead of sdx as it is where my usb drive is mounted. – moto Nov 30 '14 at 16:03
  • I think your problem might be that grub-install should be "pointed" at /dev/sdb and not /dev/sdb1, so it installs to the "main" or "root" of the usb (in the partition table (MBR, GPT) I think). You can install it onto a partition like sdb1 but it may not boot correctly from there. – Xen2050 Nov 30 '14 at 22:59
  • Or maybe it's not mounted writeable (rw)... In Step 1 the mounting directories are a little confusing there, usually Ubuntu will already have mounted the partition by itself and it might be in some other directory like /media/mountedusb you can check with mount (and it should be mounted writeable, rw in mount) or lsblk is prettier for the sdx1 dir stuff) so you'd use grub-install --force --no-floppy --boot-directory=/media/mountedusb/boot /dev/sdb – Xen2050 Nov 30 '14 at 23:09
  • And in case your USB was really messed up to start with, re-partitioning it with gparted may be necessary, maybe even a new MBR or GPT. Some methods of creating "bootable usb's" from iso's used to brute-force dd copy the iso directly onto the start of usb's, turning an 8GB usb into what looks like a 900mb dvd, overwriting the MBR so even a new partition may not always show up, and the old iso could still get mounted somehow months after "formatting" the usb. BUT, some usb's are supposed to be "specially factory formatted & aligned" for best performance and repartitioning isn't recommended – Xen2050 Nov 30 '14 at 23:22
  • Just saying, the dd method is ugly, and you can't change any files on the USB stick after doing it, but it works, and you can boot from it. If you just need a quick-and-dirty way to boot a Ubuntu ISO, IMHO this is the easiest method. – Hitechcomputergeek Sep 16 '15 at 23:54
  • Also, this laptop, my school laptop, has Ubuntu 15.04 on it and it works for this, but on my crappy netbook, which (still) runs Ubuntu 14.10, the usb-creator-gtk fails in the exact same way as the OP of the question. At the time I didn't have this laptop, so what I actually did was dd the Ubuntu 15.04 ISO to one flash drive and boot from it. Then, from there, I found the ISO file on my HD, used gparted to format my OTHER flash drive and make a 1.5GB partition and a 6.5GB partition for file storage (useful while booted from the USB), then used the USB creator to install to the 1.5GB partition. – Hitechcomputergeek Sep 17 '15 at 00:06
  • But I did that because I like to keep a Ubuntu live USB handy. – Hitechcomputergeek Sep 17 '15 at 00:07