Bootable USB key only works once for each ISO burn

[peterzay]

When I burn Ubuntu 12.04 beta (any version) to a USB key, I can boot my Lenovo SL500 only once.

On second boot, the USB key is not recognized as bootable. To make it work, I must reburn the ISO file.

The USB key is a Sandisk Cruzer Micro 4 GB.

This problem is reproducible.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: gedit 3.3.3-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-15.24-generic-pae 3.2.5
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-15-generic-pae i686
ApportVersion: 1.91-0ubuntu1
Architecture: i386
CasperVersion: 1.304
Date: Sun Feb 12 22:12:01 2012
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Alpha i386 (20120211)
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gedit
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

What steps do you take to create the bootable usb key?

[peterzay (peterzay)]

I used the default menu /System/Administration/Startup Disk Creator.

[abgalphabet (abgalphabet)]

I have created a usb boot disk using the mentioned Startup Disk Creator. But i can't even boot into setup menu since it's not recognized as a boot device. My usb device is Imation 8GB.

[Stéphane Graber (stgraber)]

I'm unable to reproduce the bug. I've been doing a dozen boot from USB stick yesterday using yesterday's daily put on a USB disk using an up to date 12.04 system.

Can you maybe compare "fdisk -l /dev/<device>" after creating the stick and then after the first boot to see if something happens to the partition table?
Also, trying with a different USB stick or on a different computer would help ruling out hardware issues.

[peterzay (peterzay)]

The problem occurs on my Lenovo SL500 which has Ubuntu 10.04 LTS installed on the hard drive.

Ubuntu 12.04 beta is burned to the USB key.

Boot the Lenovo, holding down F12, get boot menu, select USB key device.

On second, third, ..., boot, the boot menu has one entry missing. That missing entry is USB.

This is systematically reproducible.

I have tried another USB key, also Sandisk, and got the same result.

My test machine on whose hard drive I have Ubuntu 12.04 beta installed unfortunately does not support USB key boots. The machine is too old.

[peterzay (peterzay)]

For "fdisk -l /dev/sdb1", I get the following error: Cannot open /dev/sdb1 both before and after boot #1.

[Simon Quigley (tsimonq2)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. We are sorry that we do not always have the capacity to look at all reported bugs in a timely manner. There have been many changes in Ubuntu since that time you reported the bug and your problem may have been fixed with some of the updates. It would help us a lot if you could test it on a currently supported Ubuntu version. When you test it and it is still an issue, kindly upload the updated logs by running only once:
apport-collect 931165

and any other logs that are relevant for this particular issue.

[peterzay (peterzay)]

I burned to USB the current daily build of 18.04 and booted successfully 3 times.

The machine that was booted had 18.04 beta installed on the hard drive.

Grub (and everything else) has changed in the 6 years since this bug report.

This bug has been fixed.