Cannot install any OS

Firestarter49247 · February 15, 2026, 12:34am

I have a huge problem. I cannot install any OS ony my NitroPad T480s anymore. I’m not an expert, so I don’t know what to do anymore.

I tried installing Linux Mint, Fedora Silverblue and Debian - non worked (they worked before and they work on a normal ThinkPad, so the .isos are okay!).

I tried “sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/nvme0n1 bs=1M status=progress” (gave me an error message) and “sudo wipefs -a /dev/nvme0n1” (worked). Still no installation possible.

Is the disk broken (shouldn’t be, because the NitroPad T480s is pretty new)?

Is something in Coreboot/Heads broken or misconfigured? If so, how do I reset it?

Fedora Silverblue (doesn’t even get to installer):

Linux Mint:

Debian:

lyricisticwalker · February 20, 2026, 2:16pm

Have you tried using another disk? This would rule out a disk failure. You could also boot a live Distro and check the drives health. In comand line:smartctl -a /dev/nvme0n1 (it is part of smartmontools)

Firestarter49247 · February 21, 2026, 8:51pm

Hello and thanks for your answer! I feel like it’s a disk failure, but the disk looks good, I guess? Still it’s not even possible to format it..

nku · February 23, 2026, 12:15pm

Usually, issues during formatting a drive are not good. Maybe there is a hardware defect (disk or cable).

Firestarter49247 · February 23, 2026, 2:32pm

Any idea how to check for a problem with the cable?

A disk/cable failure would be weird though, because I got the same problem on both of my Nitropads (X230 and T480s) and I bought both of them not even half a year ago.

nku · February 23, 2026, 6:51pm

ISMARTvalues look fine. if you have two devices, you could swap SSDs to rule out issues. For NVMEs of course no issue with cables possible as they are socketed on the mainboard. That would only be possible with SSDs. Got confused as my Thinkpad uses still SATA SSDs