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?
What are you using to create the boot media? Try Rufus, and make sure it’s BIOS and MBR.
Thank you, I appreciate the help.
I am using Rufus with MBR and “BIOS or UEFI”, I don’t see a BIOS-only mode.
https://imgur.com/a1rM5sR
When I burn the USB stick, I get a popup about a hybrid ISO. I’ve tried both ISO mode and dd mode, neither option lets me boot.
https://imgur.com/oySO6Vj
That should be correct. What desktop is it exactly? Are you using the current OS versions? Does it boot from USB if you try older ones, Windows 7, or even freedos?
Fedora Silverblue, I downloaded the latest image from their website. I also tried AntiX and Zorin. I just tried using Rufus to burn a FreeDOS USB stick and no luck there either. My old Windows SSD was booting, but now when I just tried again I’m getting BSOD. I think the computer is borked after sitting for too long, so time to build a new one. with blackjack and hookers.
Yeah if it doesn’t even boot something as basic as freedos it’s probably not a configuration issue. You can try resetting the BIOS and pulling the battery, and of course try a different USB stick if you haven’t already.
But if it’s not even booting a previously good OS it might be that the board died.