Linux Mint Forums

by **Dalhai** on Sat Feb 18, 2012 8:04 am

Edit: CONCLUSION: I going to buy an Asus Sabertooth motherboard.
Even after having read through the pages of "rodsbooks" over and over again, my linux system just won't boot as I wish. They won't boot at all.
When I found a page telling me that "if efibootmgr does not work, its in most cases because you try to boot a 64bit OS with a 32bit UEFI". Yay. That was enough for me.
Before my head exploded, I decided to buy a new motherboard. I surrended. I _hate_ Hybrid - EFI, because i'm too stupid to fix it on my own.

Still, thanks go to spandey and srs5694.

Original Text:

Hey there,

I'm having real big trouble with my new system setup at the moment. I'm absolutely unexperienced with (U)EFI and hope to find help here.
My new motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD7-BR3 (http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3761#ov).
This board uses Hybrid EFI. I kind of suspect this feature to be the cause of my problems. I use two 3.0TB drives at the moment.

When I installed Windows 7, it ran without further problems. When I installed Linux Mint 12 (Without Windows 7), it also ran. But the first problem came up with grub. Grub simply does not start. Or at least I can't see it starting. The system boots, a white text "Loading operating system..." appears, the screen turns black for a while and I find myself on the linux mint login screen a little later.
If I install Windows 7 and then Linux Mint 12, my system still does not boot into grub but directly starts windows 7. However, when I deleted the windows partitions, grub recovery started.

Also linux mint did not find my windows 7 installation when I tried to install it. There was no option "install linux mint alongside windows" or something like that.
I just had to chose between erasing the complete disk and setting up the partitions by myself.

I really hope someone can help me. My goal is to get my dual boot system with Win7 / LM12 running again, but I even would be happy if just grub2 ran properly

If you need any further information to help me, just ask for it, I will do what I can. I'm sorry for my bad english, it is not my native language. I hope you understand what I'm asking for.
Thank you in advance!

The following is the output of boot_info_script.sh.

Code: Select all: Boot Info Script 0.60 from 17 May 2011 ============================= Boot Info Summary: =============================== => Grub2 (v1.99) is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda and looks at sector 34 of the same hard drive for core.img. core.img is at this location and looks for ?? on this drive. => No boot loader is installed in the MBR of /dev/sdb. sda1: __________________________________________________________________________ File system: BIOS Boot partition Boot sector type: Grub2's core.img Boot sector info: sda2: __________________________________________________________________________ File system: ext4 Boot sector type: - Boot sector info: Operating System: Linux Mint 12 Lisa Boot files: /boot/grub/grub.cfg /etc/fstab /boot/grub/core.img sda3: __________________________________________________________________________ File system: swap Boot sector type: - Boot sector info: ============================ Drive/Partition Info: ============================= Drive: sda _____________________________________________________________________ Disk /dev/sda: 3000.6 GB, 3000592982016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 364801 cylinders, total 5860533168 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Partition Boot Start Sector End Sector # of Sectors Id System /dev/sda1 1 4,294,967,295 4,294,967,295 ee GPT GUID Partition Table detected. Partition Start Sector End Sector # of Sectors System /dev/sda1 34 1,987 1,954 BIOS Boot partition /dev/sda2 1,988 2,622,563,625 2,622,561,638 Data partition (Windows/Linux) /dev/sda3 2,622,563,626 2,639,307,646 16,744,021 Swap partition (Linux) Drive: sdb _____________________________________________________________________ Disk /dev/sdb: 3000.6 GB, 3000592982016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 364801 cylinders, total 5860533168 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Partition Boot Start Sector End Sector # of Sectors Id System /dev/sdb1 1 4,294,967,295 4,294,967,295 ee GPT GUID Partition Table detected. Partition Start Sector End Sector # of Sectors System "blkid" output: ________________________________________________________________ Device UUID TYPE LABEL /dev/sda2 7a59e4b2-5c89-4c32-9724-6cd97f5ef217 ext4 /dev/sda3 472b9a1c-de3e-4ac8-b7c8-b7edb16accfc swap ================================ Mount points: ================================= Device Mount_Point Type Options /dev/sda2 / ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro,commit=0) =========================== sda2/boot/grub/grub.cfg: =========================== -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- # # DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE # # It is automatically generated by grub-mkconfig using templates # from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub # ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/00_header ### if [ -s $prefix/grubenv ]; then set have_grubenv=true load_env fi set default="0" if [ "${prev_saved_entry}" ]; then set saved_entry="${prev_saved_entry}" save_env saved_entry set prev_saved_entry= save_env prev_saved_entry set boot_once=true fi function savedefault { if [ -z "${boot_once}" ]; then saved_entry="${chosen}" save_env saved_entry fi } function recordfail { set recordfail=1 if [ -n "${have_grubenv}" ]; then if [ -z "${boot_once}" ]; then save_env recordfail; fi; fi } function load_video { insmod vbe insmod vga insmod video_bochs insmod video_cirrus } insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='(hd0,gpt2)' search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 7a59e4b2-5c89-4c32-9724-6cd97f5ef217 if loadfont /usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2 ; then set gfxmode=auto load_video insmod gfxterm insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='(hd0,gpt2)' search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 7a59e4b2-5c89-4c32-9724-6cd97f5ef217 set locale_dir=($root)/boot/grub/locale set lang=en_US insmod gettext fi terminal_output gfxterm if [ "${recordfail}" = 1 ]; then set timeout=-1 else set timeout=10 fi ### END /etc/grub.d/00_header ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ### set menu_color_normal=white/black set menu_color_highlight=black/light-gray if background_color 0,0,0; then clear fi ### END /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/06_mint_theme ### set menu_color_normal=white/black set menu_color_highlight=white/light-gray ### END /etc/grub.d/06_mint_theme ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ### if [ ${recordfail} != 1 ]; then if [ -e ${prefix}/gfxblacklist.txt ]; then if hwmatch ${prefix}/gfxblacklist.txt 3; then if [ ${match} = 0 ]; then set linux_gfx_mode=keep else set linux_gfx_mode=text fi else set linux_gfx_mode=text fi else set linux_gfx_mode=keep fi else set linux_gfx_mode=text fi export linux_gfx_mode if [ "$linux_gfx_mode" != "text" ]; then load_video; fi menuentry 'Linux Mint 12 64-bit, 3.0.0-12-generic (/dev/sda2)' --class linuxmint --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os { recordfail set gfxpayload=$linux_gfx_mode insmod gzio insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='(hd0,gpt2)' search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 7a59e4b2-5c89-4c32-9724-6cd97f5ef217 linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.0.0-12-generic root=UUID=7a59e4b2-5c89-4c32-9724-6cd97f5ef217 ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7 initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.0.0-12-generic } menuentry 'Linux Mint 12 64-bit, 3.0.0-12-generic (/dev/sda2) -- recovery mode' --class linuxmint --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os { recordfail insmod gzio insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='(hd0,gpt2)' search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 7a59e4b2-5c89-4c32-9724-6cd97f5ef217 echo 'Loading Linux 3.0.0-12-generic ...' linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.0.0-12-generic root=UUID=7a59e4b2-5c89-4c32-9724-6cd97f5ef217 ro recovery nomodeset echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...' initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.0.0-12-generic } ### END /etc/grub.d/10_linux ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_lupin ### ### END /etc/grub.d/10_lupin ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/20_linux_xen ### ### END /etc/grub.d/20_linux_xen ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ### menuentry "Memory test (memtest86+)" { insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='(hd0,gpt2)' search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 7a59e4b2-5c89-4c32-9724-6cd97f5ef217 linux16 /boot/memtest86+.bin } menuentry "Memory test (memtest86+, serial console 115200)" { insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='(hd0,gpt2)' search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 7a59e4b2-5c89-4c32-9724-6cd97f5ef217 linux16 /boot/memtest86+.bin console=ttyS0,115200n8 } ### END /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ### if [ "x${timeout}" != "x-1" ]; then if keystatus; then if keystatus --shift; then set timeout=-1 else set timeout=0 fi else if sleep --interruptible 3 ; then set timeout=0 fi fi fi ### END /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/40_custom ### # This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries. Simply type the # menu entries you want to add after this comment. Be careful not to change # the 'exec tail' line above. ### END /etc/grub.d/40_custom ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/41_custom ### if [ -f $prefix/custom.cfg ]; then source $prefix/custom.cfg; fi ### END /etc/grub.d/41_custom ### -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- =============================== sda2/etc/fstab: ================================ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- # /etc/fstab: static file system information. # # Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a # device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices # that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5). # # <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass> proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0 # / was on /dev/sda2 during installation UUID=7a59e4b2-5c89-4c32-9724-6cd97f5ef217 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1 # swap was on /dev/sda3 during installation UUID=472b9a1c-de3e-4ac8-b7c8-b7edb16accfc none swap sw 0 0 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- =================== sda2: Location of files loaded by Grub: ==================== GiB - GB File Fragment(s) 1532.247186661 = 1645.237889024 boot/grub/core.img 1 1188.276468277 = 1275.902142464 boot/grub/grub.cfg 1 2.505933762 = 2.690725888 boot/initrd.img-3.0.0-12-generic 1 1892.133947372 = 2031.663355904 boot/vmlinuz-3.0.0-12-generic 1 2.505933762 = 2.690725888 initrd.img 1 1892.133947372 = 2031.663355904 vmlinuz 1 ========= Devices which don't seem to have a corresponding hard drive: ========= sdc sdd sde sdf sdg sdh =============================== StdErr Messages: =============================== To be able to see for which directory Grub2 (v1.99) looks for, install "unlzma".

by **remoulder** on Sat Feb 18, 2012 8:31 am

For information on uefi booting see https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFIBooting#UEFI%20Shell

by **Dalhai** on Sat Feb 18, 2012 9:24 am

I tried that right now but failed when it came to using "efibootmgr". Is there a simple way to check if the live-dvd is booted in EFI mode?

mint grub-core # efibootmgr
The program 'efibootmgr' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing apt-get install efibootmgr.

The EFI boot manager should be available if the system has been booted in EFI mode, right?
That's my problem. I don't really understand how this gigabyte hybrid EFI works. According to what I read in other forums before creating this thread, the hybrid EFI is not a full (U)EFI.

Anyway, thank you for your advice, remoulder!

by **spandey** on Sat Feb 18, 2012 9:53 am

For EFI to work decently 3 things are required. An EFI boot partition, GRUB-EFI instead of normal GRUB, a 64bit Linux.

by **Dalhai** on Sat Feb 18, 2012 11:13 am

Okay. What I did by now is:

1. Installed Windows 7
-> /dev/sda1 (100mb)
-> /dev/sda2 (100mb microsoft reserved space)
-> /dev/sda3 (500'000mb, system)
2. Newest BIOS is installed. (Again, I have no clue about EFI. I didn't even think much about that Hybrid - EFI stuff when I bought the board.)
3. The rest of /dev/sda and complete /dev/sdb are unallocated at that point.
4. Restart, booting into Linux Mint 12 live dvd.
5. GRUB shows up when booting from the dvd, has NO entry for Windows 7.
6. Linux Mint live dvd is now booted. When I start the installer, it shows me the requirements and then shows me the different options i can chose.
7. There is NO "Install alongside Windows 7" option available.
8. If I do the partitions myself, grub is not working properly later.
-> /dev/sda4 (4GB swap file)
-> /dev/sda5 (Mount point /boot, 256MB)
-> /dev/sda6 (Mount point /, 500GB)
-> /dev/sda7 (Mount point /home, remainders of /dev/sda)

Grub does not show up, windows is booted without any further question.

What I did before that is a clean install of Linux Mint 12, i.e. all drives were completely unallocated and I let the installer do all the partitioning / work for me.
However grub 2 still did not show up on rebooting.

Regards, Dalhai

by **spandey** on Sat Feb 18, 2012 12:32 pm

You have 7 partitions so which are primary ones and logical ones. If all are primary then you might have GPT partitions. What is there in sda1?

by **Dalhai** on Sat Feb 18, 2012 1:25 pm

According to parted, sda1 is a fat32 partition named "EFI system partition". The boot flag is set on that partition.
It appeared when I created the windows system partition (/dev/sda3).

In sda1:

/EFI/Boot
/EFI/Microsoft

And yes, you're right. Its a GPT table, i'm sorry I did not tell that in the first post.

So what's the problem?
- grub2 not compatible with GPT?
- Windows running in EFI mode, while Linux Mint is not?

And thank you for helping me

by **spandey** on Sat Feb 18, 2012 8:15 pm

Please do a proper backup of all your data. In case things are messed up you can restore it back. All the things point to EFI being used, hope the following will work in Hybrid:

1. Boot from Mint LiveDVD
2. In a command line

Code: Select all: sudo apt-get install gdisk

3. Make a directory in EFI partition

Code: Select all: sudo mkdir /boot/efi sudo mount /dev/sda1 /boot/efi sudo mkdir -p /boot/efi/efi

4. Install grub efi

Code: Select all: sudo apt-get install grub-efi-amd64

5. Setup grub on the EFI system partition

Code: Select all: modprobe dm-mod sudo grub-install --boot-directory=/boot/efi/efi --bootloader-id=GRUB2 --no-floppy --recheck

6. Reboot without Livedvd

by **Dalhai** on Sun Feb 19, 2012 10:52 am

Did not work!

In step 5:

mint efi # grub-install --boot-directory=/boot/efi/EFI --bootloader-id=GRUB2 --no-floppy --recheck
grub-probe: error: cannot find a device for /boot (is /dev mounted?).
Installation finished. No error reported.

/dev/sda1 is mounted.
When I restarted without doing anything against that error, grub2 did not appear and windows 7 got booted directly.

At the moment /dev/sda1 looks like this:

/EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi
/EFI/grub/*
/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/*

Edit: I'm getting more and more confused. Seems like on every other motherboard with EFI / UEFI support things seem to work.
I get the feeling like if the Gigabyte board was a big mistake... They added support for GPT and called that hybrid EFI, at least that's what it seems to be like -.-

by **spandey** on Sun Feb 19, 2012 1:22 pm

Ok boot from LiveDVD and try this (I feel sda5 is your linux root partition, if not change accordingly):

Code: Select all: sudo mount /dev/sda5 /mnt sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot/efi for i in /dev /dev/pts /proc /sys; do sudo mount -B $i /mnt$i; done sudo cp /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/etc/ sudo chroot /mnt sudo apt-get install --reinstall grub-efi-amd64 sudo update-grub

Now press CTRL + D to then

Code: Select all: for i in /sys /proc /dev/pts /dev; do sudo umount /mnt$i; done sudo umount /mnt/boot/efi sudo umount /mnt sudo reboot

by **Dalhai** on Sun Feb 19, 2012 1:26 pm

I will try that now

)

Spandey, thank you very much for your help! I will post again soon.

Edit:

mint / # update-grub
Generating grub.cfg ...
cat: /boot/grub/video.lst: No such file or directory
done

Okay. Did not work either. Still the same when i reboot.
Post Screen
Loading Operating System...
...
Black screen for 2 - 3 seconds
.............
Windows

Setup at the moment:

Code: Select all: Model: ATA ST33000651AS (scsi) Disk /dev/sda: 3001GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: gpt Number Start End Size File system Name Flags 1 1049kB 106MB 105MB fat32 EFI system partition boot 2 106MB 240MB 134MB Microsoft reserved partition msftres 3 240MB 524GB 524GB ntfs Basic data partition 4 524GB 525GB 1000MB ext4 Linux/boot 5 525GB 529GB 4096MB linux-swap(v1) Linux/swap 6 529GB 3001GB 2471GB ext4 Linux/ Model: ATA ST33000651AS (scsi) Disk /dev/sdb: 3001GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: gpt Number Start End Size File system Name Flags 1 1049kB 1049GB 1049GB ntfs Basic data partition 2 1049GB 3001GB 1952GB ext4 Linux/home Warning: Unable to open /dev/sr0 read-write (Read-only file system). /dev/sr0 has been opened read-only. Error: /dev/sr0: unrecognised disk label

Contents of /dev/sda1:

Code: Select all: mint mnt # ls -R .: EFI ./EFI: Boot grub Microsoft ./EFI/Boot: bootx64.efi ./EFI/grub: acpi.mod cat.mod elf.mod gcry_rfc2268.mod halt.mod locale moddep.lst parttool.lst search_fs_file.mod trig.mod video.mod affs.mod chain.mod example_functional_test.mod gcry_rijndael.mod hashsum.mod loopback.mod msdospart.mod parttool.mod search_fs_uuid.mod true.mod videotest.mod afs_be.mod cmp.mod ext2.mod gcry_rmd160.mod hdparm.mod lsacpi.mod multiboot2.mod password.mod search_label.mod udf.mod xfs.mod afs.mod command.lst extcmd.mod gcry_seed.mod hello.mod lsefimmap.mod multiboot.mod password_pbkdf2.mod search.mod ufs1.mod xnu.mod aout.mod configfile.mod fat.mod gcry_serpent.mod help.mod lsefisystab.mod nilfs2.mod pbkdf2.mod serial.mod ufs2.mod xnu_uuid.mod appleldr.mod core.efi fixvideo.mod gcry_sha1.mod hexdump.mod lsmmap.mod normal.mod pci.mod setjmp.mod uhci.mod xzio.mod ata.mod cpio.mod font.mod gcry_sha256.mod hfs.mod ls.mod ntfscomp.mod play.mod setpci.mod usb_keyboard.mod zfsinfo.mod ata_pthru.mod cpuid.mod fshelp.mod gcry_sha512.mod hfsplus.mod lspci.mod ntfs.mod png.mod sfs.mod usb.mod zfs.mod at_keyboard.mod crypto.lst fs.lst gcry_tiger.mod iorw.mod lssal.mod ohci.mod probe.mod sleep.mod usbms.mod befs_be.mod crypto.mod functional_test.mod gcry_twofish.mod iso9660.mod lvm.mod part_acorn.mod raid5rec.mod squash4.mod usbserial_common.mod befs.mod cs5536.mod gcry_arcfour.mod gcry_whirlpool.mod jfs.mod mdraid09.mod part_amiga.mod raid6rec.mod tar.mod usbserial_ftdi.mod bitmap.mod datehook.mod gcry_blowfish.mod gettext.mod jpeg.mod mdraid1x.mod part_apple.mod raid.mod terminal.lst usbserial_pl2303.mod bitmap_scale.mod date.mod gcry_camellia.mod gfxmenu.mod keylayouts.mod memdisk.mod part_bsd.mod read.mod terminal.mod usbtest.mod blocklist.mod datetime.mod gcry_cast5.mod gfxterm.mod keystatus.mod memrw.mod part_gpt.mod reboot.mod terminfo.mod video_bochs.mod boot.mod dm_nv.mod gcry_crc.mod gptsync.mod linux.mod minicmd.mod partmap.lst regexp.mod test_blockarg.mod video_cirrus.mod bsd.mod echo.mod gcry_des.mod grub.efi loadbios.mod minix2.mod part_msdos.mod reiserfs.mod testload.mod video_fb.mod btrfs.mod efi_gop.mod gcry_md4.mod grubenv load.cfg minix.mod part_sun.mod relocator.mod test.mod videoinfo.mod bufio.mod efi_uga.mod gcry_md5.mod gzio.mod loadenv.mod mmap.mod part_sunpc.mod scsi.mod tga.mod video.lst ./EFI/grub/locale: ast.mo ca.mo da.mo de.mo en_AU.mo en_CA.mo en_GB.mo fi.mo fr.mo hu.mo id.mo it.mo ko.mo nl.mo pl.mo ru.mo sv.mo uk.mo vi.mo zh_CN.mo ./EFI/Microsoft: Boot ./EFI/Microsoft/Boot: BCD BCD.LOG1 bootmgfw.efi BOOTSTAT.DAT da-DK el-GR es-ES Fonts hu-HU ja-JP memtest.efi nl-NL pt-BR ru-RU tr-TR zh-HK BCD.LOG BCD.LOG2 bootmgr.efi cs-CZ de-DE en-US fi-FI fr-FR it-IT ko-KR nb-NO pl-PL pt-PT sv-SE zh-CN zh-TW ./EFI/Microsoft/Boot/cs-CZ: bootmgfw.efi.mui bootmgr.efi.mui ./EFI/Microsoft/Boot/da-DK: bootmgfw.efi.mui bootmgr.efi.mui ./EFI/Microsoft/Boot/de-DE: bootmgfw.efi.mui bootmgr.efi.mui ./EFI/Microsoft/Boot/el-GR: bootmgfw.efi.mui bootmgr.efi.mui ./EFI/Microsoft/Boot/en-US: bootmgfw.efi.mui bootmgr.efi.mui memtest.efi.mui ./EFI/Microsoft/Boot/es-ES: bootmgfw.efi.mui bootmgr.efi.mui ./EFI/Microsoft/Boot/fi-FI: bootmgfw.efi.mui bootmgr.efi.mui ./EFI/Microsoft/Boot/Fonts: chs_boot.ttf cht_boot.ttf jpn_boot.ttf kor_boot.ttf wgl4_boot.ttf ./EFI/Microsoft/Boot/fr-FR: bootmgfw.efi.mui bootmgr.efi.mui ./EFI/Microsoft/Boot/hu-HU: bootmgfw.efi.mui bootmgr.efi.mui ./EFI/Microsoft/Boot/it-IT: bootmgfw.efi.mui bootmgr.efi.mui ./EFI/Microsoft/Boot/ja-JP: bootmgfw.efi.mui bootmgr.efi.mui ./EFI/Microsoft/Boot/ko-KR: bootmgfw.efi.mui bootmgr.efi.mui ./EFI/Microsoft/Boot/nb-NO: bootmgfw.efi.mui bootmgr.efi.mui ./EFI/Microsoft/Boot/nl-NL: bootmgfw.efi.mui bootmgr.efi.mui ./EFI/Microsoft/Boot/pl-PL: bootmgfw.efi.mui bootmgr.efi.mui ./EFI/Microsoft/Boot/pt-BR: bootmgfw.efi.mui bootmgr.efi.mui ./EFI/Microsoft/Boot/pt-PT: bootmgfw.efi.mui bootmgr.efi.mui ./EFI/Microsoft/Boot/ru-RU: bootmgfw.efi.mui bootmgr.efi.mui ./EFI/Microsoft/Boot/sv-SE: bootmgfw.efi.mui bootmgr.efi.mui ./EFI/Microsoft/Boot/tr-TR: bootmgfw.efi.mui bootmgr.efi.mui ./EFI/Microsoft/Boot/zh-CN: bootmgfw.efi.mui bootmgr.efi.mui ./EFI/Microsoft/Boot/zh-HK: bootmgfw.efi.mui bootmgr.efi.mui ./EFI/Microsoft/Boot/zh-TW: bootmgfw.efi.mui bootmgr.efi.mui

by **Lumikki** on Sun Feb 19, 2012 1:46 pm

I don't know anything about EFI, but I think operating systems boot partitions should be near start of the disks.
(This is about how far boot loaders can reach to boot OS up. If you have really big disk)

Every disk can have 4 primary partions. So, I recomment to make 3 primary and 1 extended.
Windows C: and Linux /boot should be in primary partitions. Rest of the Linux or Windows can be inside the extended.
(Yes, I know that Linux /boot works also inside the extended partitions, but this is about getting /boot near start of disks)

I have at the moment

80GB SSD /dev/sda
/dev/sda1 Windows boot (active)
/dev/sda2 Windows C:
/dev/sda3 Linux /boot
/dev/sda4 Extended
- /dev/sda5 Linux /
- /dev/sda6 Linux /home
(I don't have the swap, but it could be /dev/sda7)

500GB HDD /dev/sdb
/dev/sdb1 Windows D:
/dev/sdb2 Windows E:

My disk partition design mistake is that /dev/sda2 and /dev/sda3 should be other way around. Linux /boot before Windows C:, because Windows C: can be big in size. But my disks are so small that this will never come issue.

by **spandey** on Mon Feb 20, 2012 1:54 am

@Lum, what you are describing is about MBR partitioning. Here the disk is GPT.

@Dallhai, Please go to your BIOS advanced option there should be something like booting option AUTO/EFI. Select EFI and boot. You should get a EFI menu before booting.

by **Dalhai** on Mon Feb 20, 2012 6:14 pm

That's my dilemma. I do have a hybrid EFI board. In the Advanced Bios settings, I can set a "Default Boot Mode" to either AUTO, EFI or NON - EFI. But even if I set it to EFI, there won't be an EFI menu. As far as i've read in several other forums, this is working as intended. I.e. gigabyte did not add an EFI menu, but just support for gpt tables (?). The "Default Boot Mode" option just seems to specify how a CD / DVD should be booted (which works just fine with Windows 7, but does not seem to be working with Mint). Also I can't select grub2 because, as I said, I do not have an EFI menu.

:-/

Thanks for taking time to help me again! I don't want to be annoying or something like that. Im looking for a solution in every thread / article I find, but nothing worked yet. That's why I opened a thread here :-)

If you can't imagine what's going wrong here, I will not be able to figure it out aswell. If thats the case, I'll just stick with a single boot Windows 7 and do the 'good' stuff on my notebook.

by **spandey** on Tue Feb 21, 2012 12:50 am

If you have patience we can nail this down. There are utilities to create menu in EFI, we will go that route if need be. Have tried F6, F11 or F12 key while booting, sometimes these give the UEFI Menu.

If those don't work,in BIOS change the setting to EFI, then boot with LiveDVD. Once booted in a terminal

Code: Select all: sudo modprobe efivars

If you get no such device found error for this command, that means you have not booted in UEFI mode or due to some reason the kernel is unable to access UEFI Runtime Variables (noefi?).

by **Dalhai** on Tue Feb 21, 2012 10:40 am

I have patience, i'm just glad someone wants to help me

F11 Does Nothing, as does F6.
F12 gets me into the boot menu. No option to chose between UEFI / EFI and non EFI mode here. Just a list with all my devices listed up, as with every motherboard i had so far.

When I boot the LiveDVD with the option set to EFI and do

Code: Select all: sudo modprobe efivars

there is no output.

(However efibootmgr does not work at all. It is not installed by default and if I install it it will give me an error. I don't know if this helps.)

by **spandey** on Tue Feb 21, 2012 12:53 pm

That's not good. Can you please boot from LiveDVD and Under Nautilus check the content of Filesystem (/sys/firmware/efi/vars/) the Live one not from disk.

by **Dalhai** on Tue Feb 21, 2012 3:02 pm

Huh, whatever I did, now I get an error message when doing

Code: Select all: sudo modprobe efivars

I changed nothing as far as I know, I just restarted my pc (and i'm 100% sure it was in EFI mode the last time aswell). Seems like directly after rebooting from windows into the live dvd, modprobe efivars yields an error.
After another restart it does not again.

Now no error comes up.

Code: Select all: mint@mint ~ $ sudo modprobe efivars mint@mint ~ $ sudo modprobe efivars mint@mint ~ $ sudo su mint mint # modprobe efivars mint mint #

Still no error message:
However there is no /sys/firmware/efi.

/sys/firmware/acpi
/sys/firmware/memmap

show up.

How can I interpret that? modprobe efivars yields no output -> efivars available and thus efi available?
No /sys/firmware/efi -> no efi available?

by **spandey** on Tue Feb 21, 2012 9:42 pm

Power down your PC and boot from LiveDVD. Once there in terminal

Code: Select all: sudo dmesg | grep EFI

Let's see what's there.

by **Dalhai** on Wed Feb 22, 2012 8:45 am

Just to try it again, I did sudo modprobe efivars again after booting.
Again, no output.

Doing

Code: Select all: sudo dmesg | grep EFI

yields

Code: Select all: mint@mint ~ $ sudo dmesg | grep EFI [ 1.332568] EFI Variables Facility v0.08 2004-May-17

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