Hi, I used Rufus to create a bootable USB with the ubuntu-mate-24.04.3-desktop-amd64.iso on a Dell Inspiron 15 but it stops at GRUB
States:
GRUB Loading
Welcome to GRUB!
unaligned pointer 0x251
Aborted. Press any key to exit.
Is this a familiar issue to anybody? Same machine boots to Knoppix 9.1 DVD iso without issue.
Hi, @milkshakepig and welcome to the Ubuntu MATE Community!
In your BIOS, did you disable secure boot?
You’ve got another USB drive to try? From what I’ve gathered from around the internet, this is an USB drive failure.
Secure boot is disabled, UEFI mode enabled.
since your pc boots off a DVD but not off a usb stick, I blame the usb stick.
Use another stick (as Claudio said) and burn the iso, then test.
Sorry, I meant to say the ISO was prepared the same way to USB for Knoppix. I just applied the Ubuntu MATE ISO to that same key I used for Knoppix 9.1 DVD image, after wiping it and using rufus 4.11 for the same. The system gets to Grub then reboots, no error displayed this time. I do not have any writable optical media to apply the image to.
You burned the knoppix iso to a usb, it booted.
You burned the um24.04 iso to a usb, it fails to boot.
Of what I know DELL Inspiron 15 works well with Linux.
Ok.
Then, maybe while creating the Ubuntu MATE ISO image, something went wrong. Did you try wiping it and creating it again?
Another option is that the Ubuntu MATE ISO you downloaded is corrupted, maybe try downloading it again?
Sorry to insist on this, but this kind of error message displays when there is physical damage, either on the drive or in the ISO image, or while creating the ISO image. You say it worked with the Knoppix image, so I guess the drive is fine.
Rufus is an app that allows you to reformat the ISO during its write, which is done via options in the rufus menus. A consequence of providing this (esp. with Ubuntu releases >20.04) is that your rufus app needs to be updated for later ISOs, so is your rufus version capable of writing 24.04 ISOs?
The rufus docs do refer to this, and suggest writing ISO without change (ie. using that option where all details come from within the ISO itself rather you selecting them), though note I'm not a rufus user and thus it'll use different language (no doubt) to what I've used. I think it calls the clone or unchanged mode dd-mode.
Was your rufus updated? OR you wrote the ISO unchanged to your thumb-drive? as if it was an outdated version of rufus & you selected non-standard options (for a Ubuntu 24.04.3 ISO) that maybe your issue as stopping at grub (or failing to boot correctly) can occur.
ISO mode failed even with the update. dd mode resolved. Thank you guiverc, this was a RUFUS issue nothing else.
What rufus allows you to do (ie. reformat the Ubuntu ISO during its write) is a wonderful feature; but unless you use specific options suitable for your hardware, you risk creating a thumb-drive that will boot/install on some hardware but not others.
The default settings (within the ISO itself, which a simple clone of ISO to your media achieves; what dd-mode does with rufus) will work in most hardware (alas still only 99%, but that's a far higher % than the reformat options achieve with rufus options)