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Usjes

Member

Registered: Yesterday

Posts: 1  

How to boot Devuan from a USB drive on a HP Elitebook 850 G6 ?

Hi,

I just got a new HP Elitebook (well its new to me at any rate). It has Windows on it but I would like to install Linux. I have a full Devuan install on a Philips USB key which I have been using for a few years to boot an old Acer laptop which has no hard drive in it. The Devuan identifies itself as "Devuan GNU/Linux 4 (chimaera)" | kernel: 5.10.0-22-amd64 | Arch: x86_64). The Acer machine I use it on is an Aspire S3 Q3ZMC.
I Powered up the HP and hit F8 to enter the BIOS and then I
(i) Went to the Advanced tab and changed the Secure Boot config to "Legacy support Enable and Secure Boot Disable"
(ii) In the Boot Config, ticked the "USB Storage Boot" option and promoted the Philps USB Flash Drive to the first entry in the boot sequence.

I then power cycled the machine but it didn't boot from USB, it just ended up asking for a bit locker key as Secure Boot had been disabled. As a sanity check I power cycled and hit Escape to get to the Boot menu, hit F9 and explicitly selected the Philps USB drive, but again it didn't boot Devuan I just ended up with windows looking for the bitlocker key.

I further tried booting another Dell Latitude E6410 to Devuan from the Philips USB drive and again it worked fine. So it seems that the Devuan install on the Philips drive is fine, I can boot from it on the Dell and the Acer, it is just the HP that refuses. The HP is much newer and I think it is the only one with UEFI. Does anyone know what I have to do to allow me to boot Devuan on the HP ?

Thanks,

Usjes.

Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 1,949  

Re: How to boot Devuan from a USB drive on a HP Elitebook 850 G6 ?

Hello:

Welcome to Devuan.

... the Devuan install on the Philips drive is fine ...
... it is just the HP that refuses.

Right.

The problem you have is a BIOS related hardware / Windows installation problem.
If you don't need it, you may be able to fix it by clearing out the Windows installation.
ie: full HDD format.

Or maybe boot the machine without the HDD, if possible.
Otherwise. you need the key if you want access to the Elitebook/HDD as it is.

The previous owner of the Elitebook may have the key.
Or you may be able to recover it from the Windows installation.

See here:
https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/i … 6600360-16

The Devuan install on the USB is not at fault.
The problem is the MS/HP arranged protection racket in the HDD. 8^°

Best,

A.

Last edited by Altoid (Today 02:15:25)