[Bug 1899308] Re: failure to boot groovy daily (again)

[sudodus]

@ Thomas,

1. I know that it can improve things to start from a wiped drive, but I
don't know why. I know that before you got involved and started to
improve the booting, the systems could not create the ext4 partition in
my computers, unless the USB drive was wiped, and I *think* this was
independent of what was at the end of the drive. Maybe I am wrong there.
Anyway see

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/casper/+bug/1895329

and for example comment #4.

Earlier today I tested drives *with 'nopersistent' without prior
wiping*, and if I understood correctly it made a difference when booting
the HP Elitebook 8560p. But the behaviour of cloned drives was flaky, so
it is not easy to be sure what happens by chance and what is really
reproducible.

I think we should do some more tests before we can be sure of what
happens. That way we can find out if the backup partition table at the
end of the drive makes a difference in this case.

2. I think USB pendrives are not well standardized. They are tested to
work as data storage devices with Windows and MacOS. Booting is not
important enough for the manufacturers of USB pendrives to do thorough
tests. Maybe the same is true for the USB systems in computers. Anyway
most computers can be booted by most USB pendrives, but I have seen and
read about many exceptions.

I had an own case when a USB drive did not boot when connected directly
to the computer, but was happy to boot the same computer when connected
via an external USB hub. It is also my experience that booting is more
likely to succeed via USB2 ports than via USB3 ports, and it was a trial
and error adventure to find a USB3 hub, that works well with booting.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1899308

Title:
  failure to boot groovy daily  (again)

Status in Ubuntu CD Images:
  Fix Released
Status in cd-boot-images-amd64 package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  This is either a duplicate or return of
  - https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-cdimage/+bug/1883040
  - https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-cdimage/+bug/1886148

  Most probably "groovy daily won't boot anymore on some older BIOS
  boxes" or the 1883040 bug, as it's impacting only my older slow boxes
  (but it's also different).

  thumb-drive has been successfully used in QA live & install tests,
  however it won't boot on

  hp dc7700 (c2d-e6320, 5gb, nvidia quadro nvs 290)
  hp dc7900 (c2d-e8400, 4gb, intel 4 series integrated i915)

  The last timing issue also impacted d755-5 (older dell optiplex 755)
  when dc7700 was impacted, but that booted successfully this ISO.

  I see thumb-drive flash as it tries to boot, eventually it stops
  flashing, but no boot. At least 6 attempts made to boot, thumb-drive
  being tested on another 2x d755 boxes..

  (ISO written by mkusb/dus & gnome-disks [#11] is identical)

  ** Expected result

  It boots & is usable

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