LMDE 3 Cindy won't boot

[bugreprt]

Hi all. I have an old installation of LMDE 3 Cindy Cinnamon on a 2.5" hdd originally installed in an old legacy desktop. I need to keep it because it's full of old image files I may need. It's inconvenient to use in the old desktop so I decided to put the hdd in a much newer HP Probook 430 G3. True to form, it won't boot. I can boot the LMDE installation okay from a Super Grub2 usb but not directly from the hdd. I've tried changing everything I can find in the bios but nothing works. I'm sure it's got something to do with legacy vs UEFI but my knowledge of UEFI is zilch! The LMDE hdd boots fine in a really old Thinkpad R61 and the Probook boots fine with a new installation of LM 20.1 Cinnamon. Any ideas?

[AndyMH]

As you have said the most likely culprit is legacy versus UEFI boot, the HDD being legacy and your new laptop UEFI. Somewhere in BIOS there will be a setting for legacy boot (or CSM = compatability support mode). Some vendors make it really difficult to get at these settings. You may have to set an admin password in BIOS to get at them.

To check the laptop is booting in UEFI mode, boot your stick and in a terminal efibootmgr:

Code: Select all

andy@T432 ~ $ efibootmgr
EFI variables are not supported on this system.

this is a thinkpad booting in legacy mode, anything else will indicate UEFI.

sudo parted --list will tell you what the drive layout is:

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Model: ATA Dogfish SSD 250G (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdd: 250GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags: 

Number  Start   End     Size    Type     File system     Flags
 1      1049kB  34.0GB  34.0GB  primary  ext4            boot
 2      34.0GB  242GB   208GB   primary  ext4
 3      242GB   250GB   8000MB  primary  linux-swap(v1)

This is my system drive, msdos partition table and no EFI partition indicates (not absolute proof) that it is booting in legacy mode. If you have an EFI partition, it will be small (100-500MB), formatted fat32 with the flags esp & boot set.

[SMG]

Hi all. I have an old installation of LMDE 3 Cindy Cinnamon on a 2.5" hdd originally installed in an old legacy desktop. I need to keep it because it's full of old image files I may need.

Image files are usually data files and you would not need to have the drive boot in order to get access to the files if you need them. If you need to manipulate them in software that is on LMDE3 then you would need it to boot.

If you just need access to the files, you can attach the drive to an already booted computer and just navigate to the directory containing those image files. You might need an adapter cable or casing to attach the drive, but I have done that with old drives.

[ne0h]

viewtopic.php?t=315648

LMDE3 in on EOL!
upgrade to LMDE4!

[bugreprt]

Thanks all. I've tried all of the above with no avail. It was starting to annoy me so I set the bios to factory defaults, installed a empty hdd and did a clean install of LMDE 3 Cindy Cinnamon 64. And guess what? It doesn't boot either! I know for a fact that LM 20.1 Cinnamon 64 boots as I have successfully installed it. My next step is to try LMDE 4 to see if it boots?! BTW, the model is Probook 640 G1 not 430 G3. I might also try installing Debian Stretch to see if it boots?!

[AndyMH]

LMDE3 shipped with a 4.9 kernel, LMDE4 has 4.19 and bog standard cinnamon ships with 5.4 or the edge edition 5.11.

[ne0h]

for debian it would be better if you installed the 11 that just came out. Stretch is 9. while LMDE4 I recommend it, considering that you have already used LMDE3. i am using lmde4 and i am really into it. super stable, never a problem.