Unable to boot Debian OS from USB

[brezelmrz]

Hi there

I bought a HP Elite Mini 800 G9 Desktop PC in order to run Proxmox on it. 
For this I want to use a Corsair Flash Voyager GTX USB 3.1 512GB premium flash drive to run the OS itself and then use the internal disks for my virtual machines.
I successfully installed Debian on the flash drive, but the HP will not boot from it. It will always complain no operating system found on the hard disk even if I manually specify the USB drive to boot from.

I already tried reinstalling Debian several times and also tried a different Corsair Flash drive without success.

Somehow one time I was able to boot from the flash drive, but after installing Proxmox on top of the Debian installation it did not reboot successfully anymore and showed the same error message as mentioned before.

Is there anything special that needs to be set for those machines?

Other steps I have tried are using a different USB port, disabling secure boot and reimaging my source Debian installation medium.

I also downloaded and installed the latest BIOS (02.16.00 Rev.A) from the HP Website, but it still says 02.16.00 in the BIOS settings.

If any other details are missing, please let me know so I can add them.

Thank you in advance!

[BeemerBiker]

Your system is supported at HP only with Windows

That being said, possibly the following might help

Make sure your USB is configured to  boot UEFI

I suspect that your Linus OS can boot but not install unless the OS asks for missing Intel drivers.

You may be lucky and your distribution includes the Intel drivers needed to enable the NVME controller.

If not then look in to installing the nvme drivers

There are other option such as installing Proxmox in VirtualBox

Your 800 G9 has client recovery to restore win10/11

[brezelmrz]

Thank you very much for your reply and suggestions.

The installation medium has been created with dd on an Apple Macintosh computer and it will boot UEFI.

When I install Debian 12 (as a UEFI install) to the USB SSD (Corsair GTX), it installs successfully, but the HP will not boot from it.

If I install Debian to the internal NVMe or SATA SSD, it boots just fine. The issue only occurs when I install it to the USB SSD and try to boot from it. In this case, it will not boot and complains about not being able to find an operating system on the hard disk. Which is technically true, because it is a USB medium and there is no operating system on the NVMe or SATA SSD.

I am pretty sure the mentioned drivers are not an issue, as the Debian installer can see all my disks just fine.

I suspect it must be either a setting in the HP BIOS that I need to set or an odd bug in the Debian installer.

The Proxmox Wiki suggests setting netcfg/disable_autoconfig=true for Debian installations that will be complemented with a Proxmox installation afterwards. Once, I did not set that parameter and the HP was able to boot Debian successfully. However, when I added Proxmox, the initial issue reappeared. I do not see any relation between my boot issue and the network parameter, but somehow it made a difference. Unfortunately, I was not able to replicate this on a second try. Because of these findings, I replaced the destination USB SSD and also reflashed my Debian installation medium to be sure, but it made no difference.

So I do not think running Debian or Proxmox on the HP Elite Mini is an issue here (while not officially supported), but rather booting from a USB drive is the problem. Are there any other settings "hidden" in the BIOS that I need to set in order to make it able to boot from my Corsair GTX drive?

I would rather not run Windows on it and then install VirtualBox in order to run Proxmox, which would then be used to host virtualized systems.

[BeemerBiker]

I have no experience with Debian nor Promox.  I do run Ubuntu had a Hackintosh for a while.

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@brezelmrz wrote:

If I install Debian to the internal NVMe or SATA SSD, it boots just fine. The issue only occurs when I install it to the USB SSD and try to boot from it. In this case, it will not boot and complains about not being able to find an operating system on the hard disk

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if you have Debian running on the NVMe then it has all the Intel drivers and you have a working Debian system correct?

When I boot Ubuntu it runs from the USB and there is an option to install.  Usually the install works.   On occasion I  need to go into the bios and make adjustments.

If you have Debian on the NVMe that should be half the problem solved.  You then need to install Promox correct?

You may need to go to Debian and/or Promox community for better help.  Sorry.

[brezelmrz]

Thank you for your continued support and suggestions.

Perhaps I should clarify my situation. I have no issues installing Debian on the HP Elite Mini G9 800, whether installing to the internal NVMe/SATA SSD or the USB SSD. The only problem arises when trying to boot Debian from the USB SSD after installing it there.

I was hoping there might be a specific BIOS setting I'm missing that would allow booting from the USB SSD drive.

Since it did work once during my many attempts, I suspect the Debian installation routine might be at fault, possibly not writing the necessary boot information to the correct locations.

If no one has any other suggestions, I'll need to try my luck elsewhere.