On 12/13/2015 05:00 PM, Frank Cox wrote: > On Sun, 13 Dec 2015 16:48:25 -0500 ken wrote: > >> So far I've created on this new laptop a big, empty partition; in >> the BIOS enabled legacy booting and disabled UEFI; also in BIOS >> under Legacy Boot Order set "USB diskette on key/USB hard disk" on >> second priority. I've tried to boot from a usb thumbdrive three >> times and it failed all three times. I'm not understanding what's >> wrong. > > I install Centos on pretty much everything by setting the bios to use > USB as the primary boot device, then booting the Centos Live Image > from a flash drive, then hitting the "install to hard drive" icon on > the Live Desktop. After the installation is complete, set the bios > back to use the hard drive as the primary boot device and you're all > set. Aha! The problem was that, despite legacy was enabled and uefi was disabled, the bios followed 'uefi boot order' and disregarded 'legacy boot order'. Once I changed uefi boot order appropriately, the bios booted the thumbdrive. However, when the centos menu came up, i.e.: Install CentOS 7 Test this media & install CentOS 7 Troubleshooting --> [use 'e' or 'c' keys] regardless of which of the above three I selected via right-arrow, I was prompted by: error: invalid magic number. error: you need to load the kernel first. Press any key to continue... I tried also using the 'e' and 'c' keys off this menu; this brought into other menus (which are too much to type up) and on another menu where ^E and ^X can be used to 'edit' and 'execute' boot statements, none of which works correctly or is obvious what to alter or enter. I also got into an interface with a 'grub>' prompt. I tried some of the grub commands, but had little clue what to do with that. E.g., "linuxefi /isolinux/isolinux.bin" returned "error: invalid magic number." Interesting, but not getting CentOS 7 booted. Any know what else is possible?