Burning OpenMandriva ISO to USB drive makes USB non-usable

Support
1

Hello Everyone,

I am a new user of OpenMandriva but have used Linux for past 11+ years. I am not a “guru” but I do some shell scripting, program in Visual Basic on Windows, and know my way around various Linux distros.

I have not thought of OpenMandriva for a while, and it came across my YouTube feed, and wanted to install it on a extra laptop I have: Thinkpad W520.

On my desktop I run Manjaro XFCE and use Popsicle if I need to burn an ISO to create a bootbale USB drive to install Linux.

I downloaded OpenMandriva ISO from the openmandriva-dot-org site and verified against the 256sha, it passed… OpenMandrivaLx.rolling-snapshot.20241225.3522-plasma6x11.x86_64.iso

I placed ISO on a Ventoy USB drive and it booted okay. Everything worked as expected, OpenMandriva booted, etc. When I attempted to install OpenMandriva from Ventoy an error like “cannot find script directory XYZ to complete the installation to the drive”… I will have to get a screenshot of the actual error but the error does not matter for this question.

I opened Popsicle and attempted to burn the ISO to a USB drive and it completed successfully - based on message from Popsicle pop-up. But now the my PC no longer recognizes the USB drive when inserted.

Two drives that have previously been working, one old USB drive and USB one just opened - both worked prior.

I even tried to attach these “dead” USB’s to my printer and it says it is a non-recognized device.

Has anybody heard of this happening… USB drives becoming inoperable after using USB software like Popsicle to create bootable USB of OpenMandriva?

I have used Popsicle without issue for more than a decade with 99% of other distros.

Ideas?

Thanks,
Dave

2

Welcome!

Please see the following post to assist with Ventoy:

3

You will probably need to repartition the USB after writing the image. It should still boot into the live environment. I have the same issue using our utility.

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4

Mine was burned with openSUSE Image Writer and it does the same thing. I cannot mount the drive, but I can boot from it. Other distro iso files are the same way for me. Give a try. See if you can boot the iso thumbdrive. I’m guessing that it will work fine.

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5

Thank you so much! I will check it out. @zeroability

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@nmpro222
welcome1

7

Thanks to you all for the kind welcome.

Sorry for the messy replies, just getting used to Quoting and commenting in a sensible manner.

Yes the second new USB did indeed boot up, the older one did not (it has had a good 19 year life). I followed the write-up and indeed have the LiveOS directory did indeed allow the distro to load from Ventoy. I booted up and all us well.

I also want to truly thank you all for being a super friendly and helpful Linux community.

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8

Open console
lsblk
whatch output

now put your usb in usb port

lsblk again observe the change
in my case this appears

sdc           8:32   1  14,4G  0 disk 
└─sdc1        8:33   1  14,4G  0 part /media/kuba/D53E-93DD

if it is damaged it may look like this

 sdc           8:32   1    0 disk`

Anyway if it is mounted unmount it
umount /dev/sdc1

Now on unmouted usb perform

sudo wipefs -a /dev/sdc

sudo fdisk /dev/sdc


m for help

o for new dos partition table g for gpt

I choose o

now n for new

p for primary

now just hit enter 3 times

When and if you see

Partition #1 contains the vfat signature.
Should I remove the signature? [Y]yes/[N]no:
Partition #1 contains the vfat signature.

Should I remove the signature? [Y]yes/[N]no:

Press y

Now press w to write changes

lsblk

now you shood see something like this

sdc           8:32   1  14,4G  0 disk 
└─sdc1        8:33   1  14,4G  0 part 

sudo mkfs.exfat /dev/sdc1
or
sudo mkfs.fat -F 32 /dev/sdc1

The first command create windows exfat file-system
the second creates fat32

That is a only way formatting a usb pen-drive ensures windows will see the drive properly.
Any Gui mambo jambo gives me more headache then i can stand.
Gui tools works, the pen-drive will be visible on any given linux, but there is no guarantee it will be visible on windows.

If you want to have iso on usb, use balena etcher or dd after wipefs -a /dev/sdx.
Nor balena or dd give rats ass about partitions geometry. They create an image of any given input on a destination device.

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