Re: Do bootable USB sticks have a date of expiry?

Eli,

On Monday, 2026-08-17 21:23:04 -0400, you wrote:

> ...
> A bunch of conversation ensued about corruption. This should be easy to
> check: copy the bootable image back and see if it is intact, or, just
> re-flash last year's ISO.

I had no time to experiment.   Using another computer  I just downloaded
the most recent Gentoo ISO image and copied it to the same USB stick us-
ing "dd".  This new image was bootable.

> The computer you tried booting: is it new? Or did you previously boot
> via the same USB stick?

I've previously booted  this computer successfully  from the then up-to-
date USB stick less than a year ago.

>                         Did booting fail before or after the bootloader
> messages?

Booting the failing ISO image displayed several options in white charac-
ters on an almost black background, but selecting one of them had no ef-
fect.   Booting the newest ISO image  displayed the available options on
the new, basically light-grey default Grub background which is also used
when normally booting while pressing the ESC key.  And that worked flaw-
lessly.

Sincerely,
  Rainer