Machine Freezes

I played around with all the connections, and then it seemed Ok, until a couple of days ago.
Typical freeze.

Initially it would reboot and run for a short while.
Then I had to intervene and drop to the shell.
Then nothing.

Tried the Live Install USB used initially to setup the machine.
It would fail with "cannot mount root".

A neighbour gave me a 2020 vintage 64bit machine without HD.
Tried the Live Install US, and got the "cannot mount root.
So, perhaps the USB is faulty as well.

Back to the mill, swapped the drive/cables to the HDs.
Success, machine boots again and launches LinuxCNC.
But - after an hour it freezes again.

Don't try to unravel my story, I am also confused.

I will get a HD for the new (to me) 64 bit machine and do a new 64 bit install.

Could someone comment please on running a Live Install USB without a HD ?
I thought the live session operated entirely in RAM.

Keep well,
John.

electrosteam wrote: Could someone comment please on running a Live Install USB without a HD ?

Make two partitions on the USB so you have space for the config folder and gcode you want to run.
Boot from USB, start the machine from that folder and use the machine as usual.

tommylight,
thanks for the advice, makes sense.

Typo in the previous post - the 64 bit machine is 2010 vintage.
Got a HD for it and it seems to work great.
Mystery about the parallel printer port yet to be solved.
I will post separately with the results of installing LinuxCNC.

Keep well,
John.