USB boot issues on a Soekris net6501-70

After 5 years of great service it was time to replace my Soekris net5501-70 by a new net6501-70.

I tried to install Ubuntu 14.04 via USB, but the Soekris wouldn’t boot from my Kingston Datatraveler USB stick.

It seems the Soekris is rather picky on the USB stick. This is what you don’t want to see:

comBIOS ver. 1.41c  20121115  Copyright (C) 2000-2011 Soekris Engineering.

net6501

2048 Mbyte Memory                        CPU Atom E6xx 1600 Mhz 


SATA AHCI BIOS ver. 0.61 20121115  Copyright (C) 2003-2011 Intel Corporation

Controller Bus#02, Device#06, Function#00: 02 Ports, 02 Devices
  Port-00: Hard Disk, INTEL SSDMCEAC060B3            
  Port-01: Hard Disk, WDC WD10JPVX-80JC3T0           

Soekris USB Expansion ROM ver. 1.01  20111203

82: USB 01                          Xlt -2-32   Mbyte

At 82 you see the USB stick isn’t properly discovered. This is what it should look like:

Soekris USB Expansion ROM ver. 1.01  20111203

82: USB 01  General UDisk           Xlt 994-255-63  7988 Mbyte

That shows t he USB stick is detected properly and you can now install Ubuntu! Simply dd a ISO to the USB stick.

Last Updated on 10-07-2014 by Wido den Hollander