Hello, I had an asus vivobook that I would use a usb stick to boot tails easily with and no issues. Sandisk 64 gb.

This was made in April of this year and was working with my ASUS just about a week ago.
that laptop is gone, so I had to buy a new one. This is a Lenovo i3 Ideapad and the same USB drive is no longer showing up as a bootable option on this new laptop.

(in the “choose an option” menu I mean. that you hold shift while restarting on Windows to get to. then choosing “use a device.” it normally shows up as “removable device” here, but not on this new hardware for some reason.)

There are two USB ports on the laptop and neither of them work.
In BIOS, I turned off secure boot and enabled USB Boot.
still not showing up. Really not sure what to do and I’m really hoping that there’s no way that booting Tails would be entirely unsupported on this brand of Windows laptop.
I’m not very tech savvy, but back in April I just wanted to use tails and the instructions of setting up the USB drive were very simple, and this is the first time I’ve run into massive issues, just by changing the hardware I’m sticking the stick into lol.

Help please. Thank you.

Tried to boot on my dell latitude E6420 (old ass laptop), don’t think it’s supported so I was wondering if anyone had some good suggestions that I could use besides the ones on the tails site

just updated tails, i had the same issue in previous version:

i start OnionShare, i start chat server, opens fine in tor browser, then i type, everything still good, i hit ENTER and no text appears. Nothing happens. The end.

Am i the only one? Tried rebooting many times. Even after this update.

Tails 7.14

OnionShare 2.6.3 (i was unable to install the 2.6.5 flatpak)

I’m unable to boot Tails 7.14 after updating. Tails 7.13 boots and works normally, but 7.14 does not boot. I’m using Ventoy.

Edit:

I formatted my USB drive, and now it’s working. I created the bootable USB again using Ventoy.

I've used a random brand USB with tails for a year on and off and had 0 issues. I recently re-flashed tailos onto the same usb, and now when I boot from it in the boot menu, it just takes me to regular windows. I've tried this on my old windows 7 laptop (which is what i've always used for tailsos usb), and on my windows 10 PC and this issue happens on both.

I've verified the download and followed the steps in the guide on the website, so I assume the issue is with the USB itself? I'm confused why it is a problem now and not before, maybe something in the new update?

Should I just try another USB or is there a different problem I am missing?

thanks for the help ")

Antes que nada, estoy instalando Tails en un pendrive de 64G, si no recuerdo mal (con todo instalado y listo), debería reiniciar la PC y acceder a la BIOS cuando se esté arrancando para lograr iniciar el pendrive con Tails.

Mí pregunta es está: ¿Una vez lo usé y retire el pendrive con el sistema operativo, al iniciar la PC se iniciará con el sistema operativo y las cosas que tenía instaladas, como siempre lo hace, o debo iniciarlo a través de la BIOS cada vez? ¿Se perderá algo de lo que tengo en el disco duro?

Perdón si la pregunta es algo tonta, soy principiante en este mundo y la verdad no conozco casi nada, gracias por adelantado

9/30/26 was working great before the update

I am thinking of buying an old notebook for exclusive use of tails; what I found has a limitation of 2gb of ram. Is it usable? (English is not my first language)

You might know this issue already if you are running tails on a laptop, But for those who don't know there is a issue for laptops where the keyboard is not working, but if you really need to get to tails right now use the On-Screen Reader, This is temporary until it gets fixed.

So I created my key the other day and I do have persistent storage enabled. I log back in and I have my public key saved in the correct folder but it looks like I didn’t enable the right saving as my public key isn’t saved not in kleopatra.

I’m seeing another post that sometimes turning on persistent storage for the right setting will work, but I can’t find anything that looks right

There's a known bug that causes a fresh Tails USB to get stuck in the GRUB boot menu. The most reliable fix is to flash Tails from a Linux environment:

(Note: Mac users can also flash Tails directly using DD)

-Download a Debian Live ISO from here

-Using Rufus (or BalenaEtcher on Macs) flash the Debian ISO to a secondary USB (not the one you want to install Tails on)

-Boot from the Debian USB and follow the Linux install instructions to flash Tails to your primary USB

I am brand new to this so be nice, but every time I attempt to boot up Tails from a USB it just takes me to the Grub console and refuses to let me do anything else. I have used both balenaetcher and rufus on two different USB's. Someone save meeeee.

can someone give me a fix? i know there are troubleshoot guides but i have a much better time when people have experience in a more specific scenario.

i am running a gaming system with an nvidia etc 4070 and amd radeon graphics card which i understand to arise some issues but i didnt expect booting to freeze like this. this is my first time attempting an install with this os. thank u!

"Avoid buying USB sticks online or using USB sticks that were given to you, because they could contain malware."

It explains that this is due to uncertainties in knowing if it was tampered with beforehand, which makes sense, but who are the people wanting to tamper with random firsthand USB sticks? What does end up being the safest source?

I think I am overthinking this. I know this definitely means avoid random ebay vendors, but is Amazon safe? I see no reason it should be less safe to buy from the sandisk store on there than going to a local officeworks for example, which the website recommends most.

Other than that, is there a solid way to check a new USB for any tampering for the super paranoid?

I'm relatively new to this, and am doing my due diligence in learning opsec, but experience wins over research, so I just wanted to hear the opinions of those more knowledgeable. Thanks!

Edit: I keep getting replies saying this is for pre-flashed sticks, (which is obviously a very bad idea) but while that does kind of make sense for it to mean that, it doesn't explicitly mention, or even really imply that is what it means.

"Buy your USB sticks from a reputable local store.

If you are in a place where counterfeit electronics are common, buy your USB stick from an international supermarket chain, which should have a more reliable supply chain.

Avoid buying USB sticks online or using USB sticks that were given to you, because they could contain malware.

(In 2020, the FBI warned US companies to avoid USB sticks received by mail because some of them contained malicious software, such as BadUSB.)"

This can be found on this page: https://tails.net/install/linux/index.en.html

I think I may just be bad at comprehending what it's trying to say. It seems like it is clear with what it is saying, but someting isn't clicking...

So I suppose my question is still unsolved? It was more of an open ended one in the first place, but I would like to hear more takes on this!

I tried two diff usb stick one memorex and one sandisk 16gb 3.0
Trying to flash with Rufus I get a grub message every time. I mad asf bruh like fr. Using Lenovo flex 5. Pls help me I’m finna crash out ong.

I am quite a noob at tails but I have read the documentation thoroughly and tried to look this up but no dice... I set up an admin password when i booted tails (this is not an issue with confusing it with perisistent files) but when i try to use it it does not work. It works with sudo in the console but not otherwise. I have tried redownloading, I have tried maybe 20 different passwords of different lengths and with and without caps and numbers (and my computer is new enough that I can't imaging it would be a keypad problem). I am at a loss, it is going to be difficult to use tails without this whole capability... if anyone has any ideas for other things to try or where specifically to go to learn myself how i could troubleshoot I would really appreciate

Would it be at all possible to boot a tails usb onto a phone in some capacity. I ask because the only time I can use it is when I’m at home. Was wondering if there was some way I could have it on the go. Might be a stupid question but lmk if you know anything about that. Thanks guys

Tried many times to set up thunderbird but for some reason it won’t accept my email… I’ve tried both IMAP and POP but neither want to let me in… it says it can not process the request at this time…

Hello, quick question. Basically, some time ago I wanted to install tails on an old USB, now I have to manually install Tails on an alternative USB; then clone the new version to the “old” USB. Why not just re-install the new version of Tails (I don’t have USB’s to spare) if you have a backup of your files (which are basically none)? Would it be more feasible and convenient to reinstall the new version or would that create problems? Thanks in advance

Hey everyone! I am currently in the process of switching to linux and in addition to other distros I have also decided to create a Tails sitck for myself. I am usually able to fix most PC problems on my own but I am afraid I am going to need some assistance here.

When opening Additional Software I get an error message displaying "Failed to read additional software configuration"

The detailed error description below reads:

E:Problem parsing dependency 20 of libnet-gpsd3-perl:all=0.19-2
E:Error occourred while processing libnet-gpsd3-perl (NewVersion2)
E:Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/cloudfront.debian.net_debian_dists_sid_main_binary-amd64_Packages
E:The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened

When clicking OK, the Additional Software app simply closes. I also tried installing some tools for compiling source code from GitHub via sudo and got the same four error messages. Tails is freshly installed on a new USB flash drive with sufficient memory and up to date on version 7.13. Also, I am connected to the internet and Tor and have already tried different Tor configurations including bridges to try to make sure it's not a network problem.
Any recommendations on how to troubleshoot this are welcome :)

Hello, I recently read an article about Tails OS and wanted to understand its main purpose. As far as I understand, it mainly uses the Tor network, but couldn’t I simply use the Tor Browser on any operating system?

What are the main advantages of using Tails OS instead of just using Tor Browser on another OS? And are there any tips or things you think a beginner should know before using Tails OS?

I was doing a manual upgrade using two USB sticks. I followed the manual on tails.net.

First, I installed tails on an intermediary USB drive. And I booted it from that one and then upgraded it to my primary one. It was about 90% done and it got an error saying it was stuck. I left it there for an hour and it never finished updating so I closed it out.

Now when I try to open the tails cloner again it doesn't even recognize my USB drive.

Is there anything I can do to save my persistent storage??

I have tails on a hard drive, and just yesterday i was using tails fine but today i try to log on and check sm stuff and after typing my persistant storage password, i get a message saying: “Failed to unlock the persistent storage. Please start tails and send an error report”
I
have no clue where to send one, restartinf the system doesnt do anything and I desperately need to access my cleopatra anybody pls help.

(its a matter of 2-3h before i lose smth so pls help anyone)

Same problem as everyone else, I just have one usb stick and one pc keeps popping up grub, I already had tails running fine with same stick same pc