I have an older desktop (circa 2010) that I’m trying to repurpose into a small game server and NAS. It doesn’t have UEFI. I’ve tried booting from USB and from DVD. I can get into the BIOS boot menu and select the device to boot from, but after I select it just goes to a blank screen.

I’m using the onboard AMD GPU. This is a fresh hard drive. I’ve tried the boot media on my laptop and it boots fine. I’ve put the old Windows 7 SSD back into the desktop and it boots fine. I’ve tried different images: Fedora Silverblue, Antix x64, Antix 386. Everything is giving the same results.

Can you recommend any other troubleshooting tips?

  • gnuhaut@lemmy.ml
    2·
    6 hours ago

    I have had USB thumb drives that just wouldn’t boot on some computers. Try a different USB drive maybe.

  • Stowaway@midwest.social
    1·
    22 hours ago

    Try USB 2 ports using a USB 2 drive, and try different ports. Ive seen issues where I had a perfectly good drive and it wouldnt boot at all. Using a different port it installed fine. Similar issues using USB 3 drive or ports in machines only a few years old.

  • Xanza@lemm.eeEnglish
    2·
    2 days ago

    In your BIOS, ensure that you have compatibility mode enabled for USB devices. Sometimes it’s called legacy mode. If not, your PC could refuse to boot from some devices. Sounds like what’s happening here at least. Usually if this mode is disabled the USB device won’t show, but its worth a shot.

  • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
    1·
    2 days ago

    What are you using to create the boot media? Try Rufus, and make sure it’s BIOS and MBR.