boot problem

Thu, 04 Jun 2020 05:12:11 -0400

Installing Debian on a Win7 laptop. Install goes fine, but reboot takes me too:

Image/photo

Thoughts.

show all 25 comments

Thu, 04 Jun 2020 05:17:35 -0400

Note greyed-out settings in BIOS:

Image/photo

Thu, 04 Jun 2020 05:28:31 -0400

@elmussol Do you have a bootable partition somewhere? What does fdisk -l say?

Thu, 04 Jun 2020 05:33:27 -0400

Turned off network boot option, now just get "No bootable device" message.

Thu, 04 Jun 2020 05:42:55 -0400

This was a complete wipe of Win7 in replace with Deb stable, so in theory there should be a grub config on there.

Thu, 04 Jun 2020 05:46:59 -0400 last edited: Thu, 04 Jun 2020 05:47:37 -0400

Reboot in Rescue Mode off install USB shows me that the LVM volumes are there. Try to grub install to EFI volume fails, as does doing a grub update.

Thu, 04 Jun 2020 05:50:03 -0400 last edited: Sun, 07 Jun 2020 05:25:45 -0400

@Harald Eilertsen fdisk output flys by (no less in busybox), but seems OK as far as I can see.

Thu, 04 Jun 2020 05:55:24 -0400 last edited: Thu, 04 Jun 2020 05:55:50 -0400

I think the EFI partition is the problem. Here is the end of the fdisk output:

Image/photo

Thu, 04 Jun 2020 05:55:58 -0400

From the initial top screenshot it looks like the boot order is set to something else than the bootable partition you want, and so the BIOS complains it cannot find a bootable partition or image. What is the boot order?

Thu, 04 Jun 2020 05:59:43 -0400

@elmussol Some option in the BIOS that's blocking the grub install or modifying the EFI?

Thu, 04 Jun 2020 06:00:00 -0400 last edited: Thu, 04 Jun 2020 06:03:16 -0400

In pic 1, netboot was on, so on finding no boot medium it tried that. Now off I just get no boot medium. I think grub info needs to be on sda1 and the EFI partition.

Thu, 04 Jun 2020 06:12:38 -0400

@elmussol Your 336M empty partition is set as bootable, you probably want the EFI partition as bootable instead. Afaicr you have to enable expert mode (x) in fdisk and use the 'A' option to toggle the bootable flag on the correct partition.

Thu, 04 Jun 2020 10:41:23 -0400

There is a bit about EFI in #^https://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub/grub.html#BIOS-installation and maybe you will something useful. Best of luck, @elmussol !

Thu, 04 Jun 2020 10:46:37 -0400

https://opensocial.at/profile/subca

@elmussol Sorry, i cant help, but I had exactly the same issue, and currently am trying to solve it...

Thu, 04 Jun 2020 14:20:24 -0400

So I got on with the other install I had to do, but I'm back at this one now.

@Harald Eilertsen man fdisk gives me nothing on expert mode.

Thu, 04 Jun 2020 14:28:42 -0400

Can you write Grub to the MBR?

Thu, 04 Jun 2020 14:34:34 -0400

I didn't see a way to in rescue mode. As I mentioned above, both options failed.

Thu, 04 Jun 2020 14:39:00 -0400

You might try turning off "Secure Boot Mode" in the bios

Thu, 04 Jun 2020 14:44:22 -0400 last edited: Thu, 04 Jun 2020 14:48:41 -0400

@Adam Robertson Greyed out and not selectable.

[edit] I am going to poke there more though.

Thu, 04 Jun 2020 14:49:46 -0400

@elmussol Just run fdisk /dev/sdb, then type x and hit enter. You're now in expert mode. Type m and hit enter to see available commands. A toggles the boot flag for legacy BIOS boot, if I remember correctly it will ask you for which partition you want to toggle. When happy, press r and hit enter to go back to normal mode, then w and enter to write the partition table to disk and exit.

Thu, 04 Jun 2020 14:59:14 -0400

I see...it was difficult to see what was greyed out from the photo.

Can you post a screenshot of the BIOS section "boot"?

Thu, 04 Jun 2020 15:13:41 -0400

Paying customer can't meet till Sunday. The pressure is off. Enough for today. Thanks all, I will pick up the threads tomorrow.

Sat, 06 Jun 2020 18:20:04 -0400

novidades?

Sat, 06 Jun 2020 20:25:46 -0400

I messed around with fdisk expert mode trying to get the boot recognized, but failed. Redid the install and it booted properly. Go figure.

Sat, 06 Jun 2020 20:34:15 -0400

debian wins in overtime \o/

Sun, 07 Jun 2020 04:42:14 -0400

Thanks to everyone who helped.