Why will a linux usb boot on my personal pc but not on school computers?

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I'm enrolled in a linux class right now and one of our assignments was to make a bootable flash drive. My friend is also in this class but he didnt know how to do it so I just made one for him. It was an extra credit assignment so thats why he doesnt know how to do it. He never learned.



So I made 2 bootable drives using my personal computer. I tested them, they both boot. However, when we got to school we had to boot into the flash drive and show the teacher that they worked. I booted into my flash drive and it worked. My friend booted into his flash drive and it didnt work. So I booted into my flash drive because my teacher said if you show me that he has a linux filesystem on his flash drive then he gets points. So I plugged his flash drive while booted into my flash drive. Ubuntu wouldnt recognize it. I opened gparted and gparted listed my flash drive and the computer hdd. Not my friends flash drive. Then I booted into windows and ran diskpart to see all the available disks. It showed my flash drive and the windows hdd. Not his. Then I downloaded a program that lets you view linux partitions in windows. That didnt recognize his drive either.



Windows nor Ubuntu would recognize his flash drive at all. Neither would the BIOS. It cant be a broken usb port because it recognized my drive. So I thought his usb must be corrupt. Well I went home and tried his flash drive on my machine. It booted perfectly fine into Ubuntu.



So I dont see why my drive boots at school and his doesn't, but both of our drives boot on my computer.



Boot from usb is enabled in the bios at school. Both boot drives were made using my computer. Both drives are provided from my school so they're essentially identical. Both drives work on my machine. Both drives were made using the same ISO file and the same iso to usb program with the exact same settings. And yet only one works at school. And also, my computer at school wasn't working so I used his computer to show that my flash drive worked. So we both used the same machine and the same usb port.



edit: yes I tried the obvious by restarting the computer and unplugging it and plugging it back in and even trying a different usb port.










share|improve this question






















  • This is strange. Maybe it has got something to do with UEFI being installed on the School PC instead of the BIOS. It causes trouble sometimes. But the real mystery is that why one Pendrive is booting while the other is not.

    – shivams
    May 5 '15 at 5:01











  • do you suffer the same problems with a other system (windows, fedora, debian,...)? -- are the flash drives identical? or from the same manufacturer?

    – DJCrashdummy
    May 5 '15 at 5:44











  • Can you give more info like: what is the size of the drives. When you plug at home both drives, what does the partition table tells you? what about the filesystem types?

    – BitsOfNix
    May 5 '15 at 11:51











  • It must be Karma—he didn't do the assignment and you did. :P You could at least have taught him to make the bootable flash drive instead of just doing it for him.

    – Wildcard
    Mar 15 '16 at 19:12















0















I'm enrolled in a linux class right now and one of our assignments was to make a bootable flash drive. My friend is also in this class but he didnt know how to do it so I just made one for him. It was an extra credit assignment so thats why he doesnt know how to do it. He never learned.



So I made 2 bootable drives using my personal computer. I tested them, they both boot. However, when we got to school we had to boot into the flash drive and show the teacher that they worked. I booted into my flash drive and it worked. My friend booted into his flash drive and it didnt work. So I booted into my flash drive because my teacher said if you show me that he has a linux filesystem on his flash drive then he gets points. So I plugged his flash drive while booted into my flash drive. Ubuntu wouldnt recognize it. I opened gparted and gparted listed my flash drive and the computer hdd. Not my friends flash drive. Then I booted into windows and ran diskpart to see all the available disks. It showed my flash drive and the windows hdd. Not his. Then I downloaded a program that lets you view linux partitions in windows. That didnt recognize his drive either.



Windows nor Ubuntu would recognize his flash drive at all. Neither would the BIOS. It cant be a broken usb port because it recognized my drive. So I thought his usb must be corrupt. Well I went home and tried his flash drive on my machine. It booted perfectly fine into Ubuntu.



So I dont see why my drive boots at school and his doesn't, but both of our drives boot on my computer.



Boot from usb is enabled in the bios at school. Both boot drives were made using my computer. Both drives are provided from my school so they're essentially identical. Both drives work on my machine. Both drives were made using the same ISO file and the same iso to usb program with the exact same settings. And yet only one works at school. And also, my computer at school wasn't working so I used his computer to show that my flash drive worked. So we both used the same machine and the same usb port.



edit: yes I tried the obvious by restarting the computer and unplugging it and plugging it back in and even trying a different usb port.










share|improve this question






















  • This is strange. Maybe it has got something to do with UEFI being installed on the School PC instead of the BIOS. It causes trouble sometimes. But the real mystery is that why one Pendrive is booting while the other is not.

    – shivams
    May 5 '15 at 5:01











  • do you suffer the same problems with a other system (windows, fedora, debian,...)? -- are the flash drives identical? or from the same manufacturer?

    – DJCrashdummy
    May 5 '15 at 5:44











  • Can you give more info like: what is the size of the drives. When you plug at home both drives, what does the partition table tells you? what about the filesystem types?

    – BitsOfNix
    May 5 '15 at 11:51











  • It must be Karma—he didn't do the assignment and you did. :P You could at least have taught him to make the bootable flash drive instead of just doing it for him.

    – Wildcard
    Mar 15 '16 at 19:12













0












0








0








I'm enrolled in a linux class right now and one of our assignments was to make a bootable flash drive. My friend is also in this class but he didnt know how to do it so I just made one for him. It was an extra credit assignment so thats why he doesnt know how to do it. He never learned.



So I made 2 bootable drives using my personal computer. I tested them, they both boot. However, when we got to school we had to boot into the flash drive and show the teacher that they worked. I booted into my flash drive and it worked. My friend booted into his flash drive and it didnt work. So I booted into my flash drive because my teacher said if you show me that he has a linux filesystem on his flash drive then he gets points. So I plugged his flash drive while booted into my flash drive. Ubuntu wouldnt recognize it. I opened gparted and gparted listed my flash drive and the computer hdd. Not my friends flash drive. Then I booted into windows and ran diskpart to see all the available disks. It showed my flash drive and the windows hdd. Not his. Then I downloaded a program that lets you view linux partitions in windows. That didnt recognize his drive either.



Windows nor Ubuntu would recognize his flash drive at all. Neither would the BIOS. It cant be a broken usb port because it recognized my drive. So I thought his usb must be corrupt. Well I went home and tried his flash drive on my machine. It booted perfectly fine into Ubuntu.



So I dont see why my drive boots at school and his doesn't, but both of our drives boot on my computer.



Boot from usb is enabled in the bios at school. Both boot drives were made using my computer. Both drives are provided from my school so they're essentially identical. Both drives work on my machine. Both drives were made using the same ISO file and the same iso to usb program with the exact same settings. And yet only one works at school. And also, my computer at school wasn't working so I used his computer to show that my flash drive worked. So we both used the same machine and the same usb port.



edit: yes I tried the obvious by restarting the computer and unplugging it and plugging it back in and even trying a different usb port.










share|improve this question














I'm enrolled in a linux class right now and one of our assignments was to make a bootable flash drive. My friend is also in this class but he didnt know how to do it so I just made one for him. It was an extra credit assignment so thats why he doesnt know how to do it. He never learned.



So I made 2 bootable drives using my personal computer. I tested them, they both boot. However, when we got to school we had to boot into the flash drive and show the teacher that they worked. I booted into my flash drive and it worked. My friend booted into his flash drive and it didnt work. So I booted into my flash drive because my teacher said if you show me that he has a linux filesystem on his flash drive then he gets points. So I plugged his flash drive while booted into my flash drive. Ubuntu wouldnt recognize it. I opened gparted and gparted listed my flash drive and the computer hdd. Not my friends flash drive. Then I booted into windows and ran diskpart to see all the available disks. It showed my flash drive and the windows hdd. Not his. Then I downloaded a program that lets you view linux partitions in windows. That didnt recognize his drive either.



Windows nor Ubuntu would recognize his flash drive at all. Neither would the BIOS. It cant be a broken usb port because it recognized my drive. So I thought his usb must be corrupt. Well I went home and tried his flash drive on my machine. It booted perfectly fine into Ubuntu.



So I dont see why my drive boots at school and his doesn't, but both of our drives boot on my computer.



Boot from usb is enabled in the bios at school. Both boot drives were made using my computer. Both drives are provided from my school so they're essentially identical. Both drives work on my machine. Both drives were made using the same ISO file and the same iso to usb program with the exact same settings. And yet only one works at school. And also, my computer at school wasn't working so I used his computer to show that my flash drive worked. So we both used the same machine and the same usb port.



edit: yes I tried the obvious by restarting the computer and unplugging it and plugging it back in and even trying a different usb port.







ubuntu bootable






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asked May 5 '15 at 3:58









HaroldHarold

61




61












  • This is strange. Maybe it has got something to do with UEFI being installed on the School PC instead of the BIOS. It causes trouble sometimes. But the real mystery is that why one Pendrive is booting while the other is not.

    – shivams
    May 5 '15 at 5:01











  • do you suffer the same problems with a other system (windows, fedora, debian,...)? -- are the flash drives identical? or from the same manufacturer?

    – DJCrashdummy
    May 5 '15 at 5:44











  • Can you give more info like: what is the size of the drives. When you plug at home both drives, what does the partition table tells you? what about the filesystem types?

    – BitsOfNix
    May 5 '15 at 11:51











  • It must be Karma—he didn't do the assignment and you did. :P You could at least have taught him to make the bootable flash drive instead of just doing it for him.

    – Wildcard
    Mar 15 '16 at 19:12

















  • This is strange. Maybe it has got something to do with UEFI being installed on the School PC instead of the BIOS. It causes trouble sometimes. But the real mystery is that why one Pendrive is booting while the other is not.

    – shivams
    May 5 '15 at 5:01











  • do you suffer the same problems with a other system (windows, fedora, debian,...)? -- are the flash drives identical? or from the same manufacturer?

    – DJCrashdummy
    May 5 '15 at 5:44











  • Can you give more info like: what is the size of the drives. When you plug at home both drives, what does the partition table tells you? what about the filesystem types?

    – BitsOfNix
    May 5 '15 at 11:51











  • It must be Karma—he didn't do the assignment and you did. :P You could at least have taught him to make the bootable flash drive instead of just doing it for him.

    – Wildcard
    Mar 15 '16 at 19:12
















This is strange. Maybe it has got something to do with UEFI being installed on the School PC instead of the BIOS. It causes trouble sometimes. But the real mystery is that why one Pendrive is booting while the other is not.

– shivams
May 5 '15 at 5:01





This is strange. Maybe it has got something to do with UEFI being installed on the School PC instead of the BIOS. It causes trouble sometimes. But the real mystery is that why one Pendrive is booting while the other is not.

– shivams
May 5 '15 at 5:01













do you suffer the same problems with a other system (windows, fedora, debian,...)? -- are the flash drives identical? or from the same manufacturer?

– DJCrashdummy
May 5 '15 at 5:44





do you suffer the same problems with a other system (windows, fedora, debian,...)? -- are the flash drives identical? or from the same manufacturer?

– DJCrashdummy
May 5 '15 at 5:44













Can you give more info like: what is the size of the drives. When you plug at home both drives, what does the partition table tells you? what about the filesystem types?

– BitsOfNix
May 5 '15 at 11:51





Can you give more info like: what is the size of the drives. When you plug at home both drives, what does the partition table tells you? what about the filesystem types?

– BitsOfNix
May 5 '15 at 11:51













It must be Karma—he didn't do the assignment and you did. :P You could at least have taught him to make the bootable flash drive instead of just doing it for him.

– Wildcard
Mar 15 '16 at 19:12





It must be Karma—he didn't do the assignment and you did. :P You could at least have taught him to make the bootable flash drive instead of just doing it for him.

– Wildcard
Mar 15 '16 at 19:12










2 Answers
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Identical flash drives?
Some years ago I had a 2 gB flash drive that I could not make boot, I thought I was doing something wrong, but the identical steps on another UFD did make a bootable drive .. I tried more than 1 method,
Unetbootin and grub I think






share|improve this answer






























    0














    Eventhough the whole story sounds kind of weird (usb should be visible with fdisk -l for instance), I have come across problems trying to boot usb 3.0 pendrives in old machines. While USB 2.0 devices boot on those machines without any problem new devices doesn't. So the question is... is your USB 2.0 and his 3.0? If that is the case and your school's computers are a bit old that is most probably the answer to your question.






    share|improve this answer






















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      2 Answers
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      2 Answers
      2






      active

      oldest

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      active

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      active

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      0














      Identical flash drives?
      Some years ago I had a 2 gB flash drive that I could not make boot, I thought I was doing something wrong, but the identical steps on another UFD did make a bootable drive .. I tried more than 1 method,
      Unetbootin and grub I think






      share|improve this answer



























        0














        Identical flash drives?
        Some years ago I had a 2 gB flash drive that I could not make boot, I thought I was doing something wrong, but the identical steps on another UFD did make a bootable drive .. I tried more than 1 method,
        Unetbootin and grub I think






        share|improve this answer

























          0












          0








          0







          Identical flash drives?
          Some years ago I had a 2 gB flash drive that I could not make boot, I thought I was doing something wrong, but the identical steps on another UFD did make a bootable drive .. I tried more than 1 method,
          Unetbootin and grub I think






          share|improve this answer













          Identical flash drives?
          Some years ago I had a 2 gB flash drive that I could not make boot, I thought I was doing something wrong, but the identical steps on another UFD did make a bootable drive .. I tried more than 1 method,
          Unetbootin and grub I think







          share|improve this answer












          share|improve this answer



          share|improve this answer










          answered May 5 '15 at 6:54









          DThompsonDThompson

          1




          1























              0














              Eventhough the whole story sounds kind of weird (usb should be visible with fdisk -l for instance), I have come across problems trying to boot usb 3.0 pendrives in old machines. While USB 2.0 devices boot on those machines without any problem new devices doesn't. So the question is... is your USB 2.0 and his 3.0? If that is the case and your school's computers are a bit old that is most probably the answer to your question.






              share|improve this answer



























                0














                Eventhough the whole story sounds kind of weird (usb should be visible with fdisk -l for instance), I have come across problems trying to boot usb 3.0 pendrives in old machines. While USB 2.0 devices boot on those machines without any problem new devices doesn't. So the question is... is your USB 2.0 and his 3.0? If that is the case and your school's computers are a bit old that is most probably the answer to your question.






                share|improve this answer

























                  0












                  0








                  0







                  Eventhough the whole story sounds kind of weird (usb should be visible with fdisk -l for instance), I have come across problems trying to boot usb 3.0 pendrives in old machines. While USB 2.0 devices boot on those machines without any problem new devices doesn't. So the question is... is your USB 2.0 and his 3.0? If that is the case and your school's computers are a bit old that is most probably the answer to your question.






                  share|improve this answer













                  Eventhough the whole story sounds kind of weird (usb should be visible with fdisk -l for instance), I have come across problems trying to boot usb 3.0 pendrives in old machines. While USB 2.0 devices boot on those machines without any problem new devices doesn't. So the question is... is your USB 2.0 and his 3.0? If that is the case and your school's computers are a bit old that is most probably the answer to your question.







                  share|improve this answer












                  share|improve this answer



                  share|improve this answer










                  answered May 5 '15 at 7:17









                  YoMismoYoMismo

                  3,08611026




                  3,08611026



























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