Can't get live EOS USB to boot up (on 2011 MacBookPro )

General system Kernel, boot, graphics & hardware
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Sorry there’s context below that matters, but in a nutshell TLDR:

I get a blank screen repeatedly when trying to boot from the latest EOS Live download.

Background: Somehow my MacBookPro laptop (on which I’m happily running Linux 6.15.3-zen-1-zen), just choked this morning after deleting some /tmp files.

Afterwards, I couldn’t reboot under Zen, LTS or fallbacks… More specifically, the laptop would run a seemingly normal bootup routine until:

[OK] Reached target Graphical Interface message appears and then booting up would stop with no further progress. (Perhaps of interest: somewhat further above, firewalld fails to start, but things proceed nicely for a bit further from there until the Graphical Interface message and then, as noted, further progress freezes up).

Okay, no worries since I’ve got current timeshift system backups… so I’ll just boot from a live EOS USB drive and, install timeshift and then reinstall from this morning’s system backup, right?

So I download EndeavourOS_Mercury-Neo-2025.03.19.iso and successfully confirm using sha512sum that it’s a good file (“OK” confirmation).

I first tried to burn a thumb drive drive with balena etcher but without success (i.e., blank screen after selecting the UEFI Default version of EOS from the bootup menu). However, I then read on our beloved forum that balena has been misbehaving. Ditch it.

So then I install imagewriter and burn the ISO file using this handy utility instead.

Same result: I get the various boot up screen choices (EOS UEFI Default, EOS UEFI NVIDIA version - not relevant here, EOS UEFI Fallback nomodeset, etc.) but none of them produce anything other than that same dark blank screen.

And to clarify, I don’t even get some progress with a stall on the Graphical Interface message. I get nothing whatsoever.

I must be doing something wrong at my end - or perhaps there’s the chance that my vintage mid-2011 MBPro Laptop is finally dying after 14 years. Yet I can still boot up in OSX so it’s clear both the hardware (and even the SSD drive) seem to be working.

My challenge remains getting the EOS distro to boot up. Very odd.

Any suggestions, given what I’ve shared above, would be appreciated.

EDIT: I just tested this same USB thumb drive on an old Dell Optiplex and the EOS Live version booted up perfectly, so my issue is not with the USB drive. Something about the MBPro isn’t reading things properly. Will try an SD card next.

EDIT#2 - Tried SD card: Same outcome. It works perfectly on that vintage Dell, but screen goes blank after selecting UEFI EOS on the mid-2011 MacBookPro. :thinking:

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honestly I have always used dd to make bootable usb drives and I have been using ventoy the past couple of years as well.

First I would check that the checksum is correct and that you don’t have a corrupt ISO, choose your method to burn and try so on a clean usb

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Thanks for the prompt reply.

I did use checksum and confirmed the USB was good. Moreover, it booted up perfectly on a different (old Dell Optiplex) box.

Also just tried an SD card instead of USB thumbdrive with the same ISO image and - although it also worked perfectly on the Dell - it too fails to do anything but show a blank screen after making the UEFI choice from that initial screen when tried on the MacBookPro.

I am left suspecting perhaps there’s something about the recent March 2025 EOS Live version ISO that no longer seems to like working with a mid-2011 MBPro.

Since I’ve been using this laptop as a daily driver on Linux 6.15.3-zen, and have used EOS Live ISOs on it before I know from experience that it’s otherwise up to the task. :man_shrugging:

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Try another Distro Live USB and see if it boots up on that system.

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Awesome suggestion. Just burned a Manjaro Live USB stick. Booted right up.

Now my challenge is seeing how I can get back to EOS using my Timeshift backup(s) … will keep you posted…

UPDATE: @thefrog You saved my bacon. Took some doing but after launching a Manjaro Live USB stick and a lengthy pacman -Syu followed by a timeshift install, I was able to restore from last night’s EOS system backup.

By all accounts, things are back to where they were before I screwed them over.

Still don’t know why the latest EOS ISO does not work on my MacBookPro while it worked on another machine in the house. This might become an issue for others, too?

Anyhow, superb idea. Thanks!

(In fairness, I would likely have thought of it too, after 3 or 4 days of wandering the house and crying.)

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You can use Linux Mint Live on a USB stick, it has Timeshift installed by default and you can access your Timeshift backups very easily. Good luck.

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Thank you, @controller … Just managed to pull the same trick using a Manjaro ISO - a suggestion just a bit earlier from @thefrog. I appreciate your reply and winning approach. :purple_heart:

BTW - Welcome to the forum!

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My Ezarcher system (all six ISOs) has Timeshift installed in the live system.

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Ouch, I’ve tried to use Timeshift with a Manjaro ISO but it didn’t have it installed by default at that time! Thanks a lot for the info!!! Better with an arch based distro :grin:

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Be very cautious doing this. Even though the update can complete it really isn’t updated. Not all Run time files cannot be updated while in memory. In this case it worked out but a much better access approach would be to arch-chroot into the installed system and try to fix from there when possible.

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Awesome!! I didn’t know anything about Ezarcher ISO. I’m gonna try it today. Thanks a lot :purple_heart:

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To clarify: timeshift was not included in the Manjaro ISO… I couldn’t even install it until I did a sudo pacman -Syu first. I think I said this above but perhaps not as clearly as helpful. Sorry for any confusion.

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The concern makes sense. In this case I wasn’t planning to reboot, but simply to restore my EOS system from a timeshift of my latest backup. Never intended to install Manjaro beyond leveraging its live ISO.

Not sure what could go wrong in this situation, but given my track record I’m sure something could go wonkers :wink:

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UPDATE: I’m sharing this as an alert that there might be some kind of incompatibility between the current EOS ISO image and mid-2011 MacBookPro laptop hardware.

Even having successfully reinstalled my EOS system (through timeshift) as described above, I still cannot get this MacBookPro laptop to boot up using the latest live EOS ISO.

A thumbdrive ISO copy and an SD card ISO copy both boot up perfectly on other hardware - so both the file image and media are shown to be functional.

Also, the latest Manjaro live ISO (and also ezarcher) booted up no problem on this same MBPro laptop (that’s how I managed to subsequently restore my EOS system via a timeshift backup). So one can conclude that the MBP hardware remains functional.

All of this leads me to conclude that there’s something about the latest EOS live ISO that will not boot up on (this particular?) mid-2011 MacBookPro laptop. :man_shrugging:

Note: Edited a clarified heading for this thread based on conclusions noted above.

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