Trouble Reinstalling Qubes After NVMe Secure Erase

User Support
1

Hey Qubesfam,

I have a laptop that’s previously had Qubes installed, so I know the hardware is compatible. I made a lot of (probably not secure) changes while playing around and learning the OS, so I decided to perform a fresh install now that I’m more familiar with it. I used Parted Magic (2024-02-06) to run an NVMe Secure Erase on my M.2 SSD. Afterwords, I generated a new partition table on the drive using msdos. The Qubes media check failed, so I went back into Parted Magic and generated the table as gpt (figuring that might be the issue). I’m still failing the media check when choosing “Test media and install Qubes OS” for the same reason:

Failed to start checkisomd5@dev-sda.service – Media check on /dev/sda.

Installing using kernel-latest results in a blackscreen. Interestingly, running the installer in verbose/troubleshooting mode didn’t seem to cause any issues, and got me to the Qubes OS installer gui.

Any thoughts on whats going on with this? Given that the media test failed, is it safe to install in verbose/troubleshooting mode? Lastly, if the “systemctl status checkisomd5@dev-sda.service” and “journalctl -xeu checkisomd5@dev-sda.service” mentioned in the media test fail message are of value in answering this, whats the easiest way for me to access and provide that information?

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How did you create your Qubes OS installation media?
Did you use Rufus on Windows or dd on some Linux OS to write the ISO? Or something else?

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I used Rufus 4.4 on Windows 10 and created in DD mode.

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Then “Test media and install Qubes OS” won’t work for you:

Note: Using Rufus to create the installation medium means that you won’t be able to choose the “Test this media and install Qubes OS” option mentioned in the example below. Instead, choose the “Install Qubes OS” option.

I guess you can only verify the ISO after downloading to check that it’s not corrupted and you can’t re-verify the installation media after writing the ISO on it.

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Huh… I could have sworn we used “Test media and install Qubes OS” when installing on this device last time, though that was a slightly earlier version of Qubes… Or perhaps I’m just mistaken.

Either way, thank you for the input. The OS is now up and running :slight_smile:

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