My laptop is having a tantrum and seems like it needs a hard-drive replacement. Not a major issue, I’ve been thinking about switching to a SFF Desktop for a while.

But the issue is, I have a brand new Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W that I want to install PiHole on to.

So, I grab an old phone, LG G6 and install Etchdroid, download Raspberry Pi OS from the official website and the phone keeps having a tantrum and switching the SD card adapter to charging only. I try a second adapter, still no joy. So I think fuck it, maybe the phone is too old.

I grab a newer phone, Pixel 6 Pro and attempt the same thing again and encounter the same problem again. No matter what, I don’t seem to be able to flash this OS from Android.

Anyone know of a way to get me over the finish line without me having to buy new hardware?

      • @MiltownClowns
        6•7 months ago

        If your laptop is having a hard drive issue, booting from a live stick will bypass the hard drive and load the OS directly into RAM. From there you can use any Linux disk flash tool.

        If that doesn’t work you likely have a bad stick of ram. If you’ve got two sticks of ram in the laptop you can try popping out one and testing with just one and then the other.

        • @[email protected]OP
          4•7 months ago

          Hey, so I wanted to thank you.

          I was overly anxious and that was creating more problems than it fixed. For anyone in the future, here’s your fix.

          So I tried to create a disk image via an old Ubuntu stick and it just kept crashing. So I switched to a Fedora live boot and that had problems too. In the end I just used my other Raspberry Pi to create a disk image and it worked fine. No need to do anything else, except follow the on screen instructions.

          • @MiltownClowns
            3•7 months ago

            I’m happy I worked out for you. Sounds like your laptop isn’t having issues with a hard drive, but likely there is a board or ram issue. So I would try that ram swap trick just to verify as it’s super easy if you’ve got two sticks. If the ram swap trick doesn’t fix it then that’s probably a board issue and at that point it might be easier to replace than repair, depending on the model.

            • @[email protected]OP
              1•7 months ago

              Can I just say you’re bloody awesome! And just in case you’re not hearing me, YOU ARE BLOODY AMAZING!

              I’ll try the RAM thing in the morning, but there’s definitely something up with the harddrive and fan too. Honestly, I should’ve replaced it last year, but I’ve been working around it and using other devices since these days the most I do on a laptop is type.