I have run into a strange problem recently installing Parrot OS and was wondering if anyone could offer any guidance to help me figure out what is going on. I appear to be having a problem very similar to this issue . I hope I can provide more information related to that issue here that may lead to a solution.
I have two ASUS Q503ua laptops. I tried installing Parrot OS to one of them but get the same error message every time.
I am using an ISO downloaded last week and have verified it using sha256sum
The following command was used to flash the ISO onto a 16 GB SanDisk Cruzer Glide:
sudo dd if=ISO of=/devlsdb bs=16M status=progress
The following error was received on the last stages of the installation process through the Calamares Installer:
Error (as superuser)
Installation Failed: External command finished with errors.
Command /usr/sbin/bootloader-config finished with exit code 100.
E: Package âgrub-efi-amd64â has no installation candidate
The thing I find strange is that I have been able to install Parrot OS to the first laptop several times, which is identical in virtually every way to the second one where the installation fails.
I have tried reformatting the partition table, zeroing the first few gigabytes of the hard disk, resetting the BIOS settings, and several other things but havenât had any luck so far.
Any solutions you may be able to provide would be greatly appreciated, thank you!
[quote=âNick_0189, post:1, topic:26604â]
The thing I find strange is that I have been able to install Parrot OS to the first laptop several times, which is identical in virtually every way to the second one where the installation fails.
I have tried reformatting the partition table, zeroing the first few gigabytes of the hard disk, resetting the BIOS settings, and several other things but havenât had any luck so far.[/quote]
OK so a couple of questions.
Are you trying to install the same version/build number of Parrot on the second machine, as you used on the first? And are you using the same installation medium [pen-drive]?
Did you check windows quick-start [fast-boot] was disabled. in the second machine?
if it was parrotsec you are trying to install, then if you have sufficient spare HDD space try the home edition, itâs a bit bulky, but you can still run all the âtools from itâ
I used the same flash drive on both machines. Windows is not installed on either machine, but I did disable the fast boot setting in the BIOS menu. As far as I can tell, the BIOS settings are the same for both machines.
I tried to install Parrot Sec and Parrot home, but both had the same result. I have 1 TB of hard disk space.
I was able to successfully install a Manjaro flavor to the problematic computer, but still Parrot doesnât want to work.
Even though the hard drive seems to be functioning normally, is it possible that it is going bad and that is the reason that the installer fails to install GRUB? Is there a way you recommend to test if the hard disk is nearing end of life? The Arch Wiki mentions a utility called smartmontools, so I might try to use that.
it is possible, ok,
I assume you can run your Linux in the âliveâ trial mode
so as if you were running it to test before installing
install smartcl from the repository [you have plenty of ram to run from] and run the test tools
instructions hereâŚ
smartctl gives a lot of output, but as far as I can tell it doesnât show any obvious problems. Running smartctl -H to get the drive health after testing the drive with smartctl -t long /dev/sda says that the drive passed. I am not sure what the next steps are here. I might try installing Arch to see if I have any problems there since the installation process will be much more transparent and I can see exactly what is happening. Do you have any other suggestions?
I have another couple of thoughts, but for not so common problems,
on your second machine, check the Bios/UEFI settings for the Hard-drive, IF it has RAID on for the HDD then disable it,
Or you could try [if you havenât already] installing in legacy mode instead of UEFI.
The next I should not be mentioning on this forum, is another distribution, one that I have had success when others have failed and that is Download MX-21.3_x64.iso (MX-Linux) ,and give it a try, If it works you can install the tools to it for pentesting or just keep it as a general home computer and the other for your pentesting
Sorry for the late reply. I have tried enabling CMS on the UEFI settings, but that also didnât work (it did change the error message slightly though). I am also not using RAID.
Boost.Python error in job âbootloaderâ.
Command âgrub-install --target=i386-pc --recheck --force /dev/sdaâ returned non-zero exit status 127.
/usr/sbin/chroot: failed to run command âgrub-installâ: No such file or directory
Traceback:
File â/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/calamares/modules/bootloader/main.pyâ, line 477, in prepare_bootloader (fw_type)
File â/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/calamares/modules/bootloader/main.pyâ, line 449, in install_grub(efi_directory, fw_type)
File ââ, line 4, in
It appears as if the Live ISO isnât able to find the GRUB install program.
I was able to eventually fix the issue. Running dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sda bs=16M fixed the issue for some reason beyond my understanding. Parrot was able to install without any issues after that. Any idea why that worked but reformatting the disk with gparted didnât?
why making a duplicate of your non-working boot partition worked is beyond me, unless the original partition had a minor fault on that segment of the HDD.
but well done.