Cannot install HAOS on laptop despite every method tried. Need real solutions

Installation
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I am trying to install Home Assistant OS directly onto an old Toshiba laptop. It is BIOS-only with no UEFI support. I want to use this machine because it is significantly more powerful than a Raspberry Pi and because I already own it. Buying weaker hardware for no good reason would be pointless.

Here is exactly what I have done so far:

First, I downloaded the HAOS x86-64 image from the official site. There were no checksums provided, so I had no way to verify the download properly. That in itself is poor practice for any serious project. I decompressed the .img.xz file to get the raw .img.

I flashed the decompressed image directly onto several different USB sticks using dd, ensuring the correct device path was used. When booting the laptop, the BIOS recognised the USB stick. However, on attempting to boot, the machine displayed only a black screen with a blinking cursor and became unresponsive. No error messages, no kernel output, no bootloader prompt, nothing to diagnose.

I then attempted to use Ventoy, installing it onto the USB stick and copying the decompressed .img file into it. Ventoy detected the image correctly at boot, presenting it in the boot menu. Selecting the image led to the exact same result: black screen, blinking cursor, and complete freeze.

I tried multiple USB sticks of various brands and sizes, and I tried every USB port on the laptop including USB 2.0 ports. Same outcome every time.

I repeated the process on two other laptops. One is a Packard Bell which is closer to having UEFI support. One is a second older laptop. Every machine had the same result: the BIOS recognises the stick, begins to boot, and then freezes with no output.

I attempted to boot with Secure Boot disabled (where UEFI was available) and in all cases the laptops either did not support UEFI properly or still failed in the exact same way.

It is now clear to me that the Home Assistant OS image is built expecting UEFI firmware, and does not include a fallback BIOS-compatible bootloader. This is extremely poor design for a so-called “universal” installation image and it completely cuts off a huge category of otherwise perfectly functional hardware.

My goals are simple:

I want a bare-metal Home Assistant OS install on this laptop. I do not want to run Home Assistant Core or Supervised inside another Linux installation. I do not want to waste machine resources running Home Assistant inside a virtual machine. I want the laptop to boot directly into HAOS.

At this point I am very pissed off that the developers have not provided even basic installation sanity like a checksum to verify downloads, or a BIOS-compatible ISO image for installation on legacy hardware. This is basic best practice for any serious project.

I am asking the community:

Has anyone successfully installed and booted Home Assistant OS on a BIOS-only machine, without UEFI?

Is there an unofficial method such as injecting a traditional bootloader like GRUB or isolinux into the HAOS image to allow it to boot properly?

Is there any practical method that does not require throwing away perfectly good hardware and buying something else?

I want serious technical answers only. Please do not suggest I buy a Raspberry Pi or set up Home Assistant inside Ubuntu unless you can provide a factual technical reason it is necessary.

Thank you.

2

Well… yes. Have you read the docs?

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You are right. I missed the UEFI requirement stated in the documentation. That is my mistake.

I was working under the assumption that the generic x86-64 image would support BIOS-only systems, which clearly it does not. I was thinking it was UEFI prefered, not an absolute requirement.

Apologies for the confusion and wasted time caused. I will explore alternative approaches for getting Home Assistant running on this machine, (Or more likely than not just write the whole idea off as a bad idea and forget about HA). I accept that HAOS is not compatible with BIOS-only hardware.

Thanks for clarifying.

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You might be able to run a hype visor like Proxmox on it.
Proxmox will emulate an UEFI bios for the VM and you can then install HAOS in that VM.

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Not easy, but read this

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Why are you so hell-bent on not installing Linux? From the sound of what you are saying, it is clear that you are no stranger to Linux, and can support it just fine apart from the HA side itself, which will be your major learning curve.

Your reluctance to use HA supervised comes from some idea in the back of your mind that it’s going to take away power from the core HA code. I can understand the purist attitude, because I’m of a similar mindset myself. However, step back a moment and consider two things:

  • If you do manage to run HAOS on the laptop - very doubtful, given you are using a non-UEFI machine, you have an unsupported installation and you will run into a wall every single time you try to get help from the community.
  • Everybody running HAOS on a Pi is running a full operating system plus HAOS as a managed appliance, and does not run into horsepower problems. On the laptop, installing Debian 12 and a supervised install will be more than you need, so much so that other people use an installation like that to run HA as well as a full server application such as NextCloud, and still have more horsepower available to HA than the most powerful Pi currently available. In spite of this, you now have a supported install, and you’ll be far more comfortable managing and maintaining the operating systems. I ran HAOS on a Pi. I hated it because it is so restrictive - you can’t SSH into the machine to do anything outside of the HA installation. I prefer knowing what’s happening under the hood, but HAOS is complete black box, intentionally so, because it is intended to be a managed appliance for the masses with very little computer knowledge.

Before you write it off, give supervised a try from the Community Instructions.

You can always kill it if you really don’t manage it, but once you get HA running, you’ll most likely be focusing on your home rather than your laptop.

Just be aware there’s a bug in the instructions. When you are following the instructions, in the apt get lines, do not install systemd-resolved.

Whichever way you decide to go, good luck.

Best Regards,
Richard.

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This was what I originally wanted to do. However researching HA everything I read and watched always said use either the OS or a VM and not supervisor. As the machine I want to put HA on will only be running HA and nothing else, I decided to go with the OS. It seems pointless to add a layer of abstraction putting it on a VM for no reason other than to have it on a VM.

Your reluctance to use HA supervised comes from some idea in the back of your mind that it’s going to take away power from the core HA code.

I’m completely new to HA, in fact this time last week I didn’t even know it existed, so I was just going by what people who know way more than me said about it.

Before you write it off, give supervised a try from the Community Instructions.

You can always kill it if you really don’t manage it, but once you get HA running, you’ll most likely be focusing on your home rather than your laptop.

Just be aware there’s a bug in the instructions. When you are following the instructions, in the apt get lines, do not install systemd-resolved.

Whichever way you decide to go, good luck.

Great, back to the original plan then. Thank you.

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You can try pasting your original question to Grok or Gpt and it will hopefully steer you towards loading an older Github version 7.6 or prior, that might not require UEFI.

There may be update issues or need to be done incrementally to get it to date. Assumes it loads.

There are ongoing questions to users now from the devs about deprecation of x86-32, if that’s what you’ve got.

You sound Linux fluent and installing Ubuntu in test mode will probably be involved. I’m no expert, best to ask or risk the help of an Ai.

There are supposedly some how to’s out there but I have no idea where. And you may still have issues.

Don’t give up. I use a beast overpowered HP tower workstation with Ubuntu desktop and kvm vm (built in Ubuntu). But I’m not short of resources and wanted use of the machine for other purposes. Good luck!

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Rather not. The Supervised installation method is being killed off. Either run HAOS on bare metal or virtualised, or the Docker version, if you want to enjoy continuity.

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