Bootable USB Errors during Installation

[cullmancyber]

Describe the bug
I am not able to install Malcolm from a USB. Copied below are the error messages that I've received. Please advise on next steps.

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:
USB Bootloader created with Balena Etcher received these error messages:
!! Partition disks
Unexpected error while creating volume group
Autopartitioning using LVM failed because an error occurred while creating the volume group.
Check /var/log/syslog or see virtual console 4 for the details

Continue
No root file system is defined
Please correct this from the partitioning menu.

USB Bootloader created with Rufus - GPT received these error messages:
!! Detect and mount installation media
Incorrect installation media detected
The detected media cannot be used for installation.
Please provide suitable media to continue with the installation.

Continue
An installation step failed. You can try to run the failing item again from the menu, or skip it and choose something else. The failing step is: Detect and mount installation media
Continue

USB Bootloader created with Rufus - MBR received these error messages:
!! Detect and mount installation media
Incorrect installation media detected
The detected media cannot be used for installation.
Please provide suitable media to continue with the installation.

Continue
An installation step failed. You can try to run the failing item again from the menu, or skip it and choose something else. The failing step is: Detect and mount installation media
Continue

Expected behavior
Install Malcolm

**Screenshots and/or Logs **
Not available

Malcolm Version:

• Version 25.06.0

How are you running Malcolm?

• ISO installed (on VM or dedicated hardware)
• via Docker on Linux
• via Docker on Microsoft Windows
• via Docker on macOS
• via Kubernetes (please provide platform details: e.g., on-prem K3s, Amazon AWS EKS, Microsoft Azure AKS, etc.)
• other (please describe)

Additional context
I am a high school cybersecurity teacher. Malcolm was recommended by my regional CISA rep. I am attempting to install and learn on the system in order to use in class.

[mmguero]

Could you double-check the SHA sum of the ISO against the one provided with the ISO? I think that's probably the issue.

$ ll
0644 1.9Gi user 2025-07-24 15:28  malcolm-25.06.0.iso.01
0644 1.9Gi user 2025-07-24 15:28  malcolm-25.06.0.iso.02
0644 1.9Gi user 2025-07-24 15:28  malcolm-25.06.0.iso.03
0644 792Mi user 2025-07-24 15:26  malcolm-25.06.0.iso.04
0644    86 user 2025-07-24 15:23  malcolm-25.06.0.iso.sha
$ release_cleaver.sh malcolm-25.06.0.iso.*
Joining...
malcolm-25.06.0.iso: OK
$ sha256sum malcolm-25.06.0.iso
3e2c2dbca7f36a1f807d1ae306f22537d445650b056b84a3742742fe3a25a8fa  malcolm-25.06.0.iso
$ cat malcolm-25.06.0.iso.sha 
File: malcolm-25.06.0.iso.sha
3e2c2dbca7f36a1f807d1ae306f22537d445650b056b84a3742742fe3a25a8fa  malcolm-25.06.0.iso

I just tested the ISO to USB (on Linux) with Balena Etcher and dd and the flash worked as well as booting from the drive and had no problems.

Either that or there's something wrong with the media you're trying to use: The detected media cannot be used for installation. seems to indicate an error on your end.

[cullmancyber]

I was able to run the commands, but I couldn't figure out how to make a screenshot. What is the best tool to use?
Also the malcolm-live screen locked - is there a default username and password?

[mmguero]

The live username should be analyst but I'm not sure about the password. Try a blank and if that doesn't work you may have to reboot (if you want to avoid it doing that in the future, you can set a passwd in the live environment with passwd).

Rather than taking a screenshot, pipe the output of those commands to a file you can share here, e.g.,

$ sudo lsblk | tee -a /tmp/output.txt
$ sudo parted -l | tee -a /tmp/output.txt
$ sudo lshw -c storage | tee -a /tmp/output.txt

then graboutput.txt and share it here.

[cullmancyber]

File attached.
output.txt
Thank you for your help.

[mmguero]

Okay from that we can see:

• /dev/sda is your thumb drive
• loop0 is the loaded-into-memory mount of the live running instance
• /dev/sr0 is probably an optical drive

But Linux doesn't see any other storage devices as being present on the system from a block device standpoint.

lshw sees a "RAID bus controller". Does that seem correct? Is the persistent storage on this machine (hard drives, solid state drives, whatever they are) part of a RAID array?

At this point we're a bit beyond what's in my control as far as the Malcolm installer goes, you'd need to do some research about getting the Debian installer to recognize your RAID device.

[cullmancyber]

This comment put me on the path to a successful install. Thank you.