(Possible double-post as TT has eaten my first after editing it)
Hi folks, posting this in case it helps anyone in future with a Chuwi Hi8…
If you’re having problems booting Parted Magic in future you’ll need to do the following;
- Get hold of a Parted Magic image – I’m testing with the latest release as of this post (pmagic_2020_05_20.iso)
- Write the ISO to a known-good USB stick with Rufus (I’m using v2.5) in DD Mode rather than ISO mode
- Make sure your Hi8 is fully charged
- Connect the USB stick, a keyboard and a mouse to a USB hub and then the hub to the USB port on the Hi8 using an OTG cable
- Turn on the Hi8 and press ESC when prompted and when the GUI appears select Boot Manager
- Select the EFI USB Device… option (oddly mine mentions it’s a Gigabit Ethernet Controller)(¹)
- Chances are you will then get a GRUB> prompt (if you didn’t and it boots immediately, consider yourself lucky!), type in the following to boot;
linux (hd0)/pmagic/bzImage
initrd (hd0)/pmagic/initrd.img (hd0)/pmagic/fu.img (hd0)/pmagic/m32.img
boot
When typing the above paths you can tab-autocomplete but make sure you select the correct files (²).
Hopefully by this point Parted Magic should boot, enjoy!
Notes:
- If you are unable to see the EFI USB Device… option in the Boot Manager, go through the SCU / BIOS options and disable Secure Boot enforcement.
- You may need to change (hd0) to match where the USB stick is mounted, you can find this by using ls (hd1)/pmagic and increase the number until you see a list of files such as bzImage, fu.img, initrd.img etc.
