Live USB not loading

Hi everyone,

I’m currently using Qubes on a Thinkpad X1 Gen2 but have upgraded to a Thinkpad W541 Workstation Laptop. When trying to load the Qubes Live System, the loading bar gets to a few milimeters of progress and then hangs without any message. It just stays there forever.

The installer itself loads without problems,but I’m now wondering if I’ll run into problems after installation if the live version from the USB won’t load. Does anyone have experience with an issue like this?

Hi. Have you checked on the Hardware Compatibility List to see someone has already tested your system?

I had checked the list before buying and the predecessor model W540 is on there. But not the 541 (the model was sold as 540 by the seller)

I just want to prevent to put the laptop in a state where neither stock windows nor Qubes will boot and I’m stuck in full repair Mode

Edit: well I just checked again and the machine is actually on the list…

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Does it say something if you press “Esc”?

Unfortunately no, it’s stuck at the loading screen and no input is recognized.

Followup, as I got this working.
I cannot say which change finally made this work but what I did was the following:

Format the USB as FAT32 before flashing
Flashing with Win32DiskImager instead of Etcher
– got the Check Media Process running
Flashing with Rufus DD mode, as I did not do this the first time(s) and had some problems with getting Qubes to boot after installing and tried reinstalling with this new USB. But this might also have worked without the reinstall / Rufus flash

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