18.1 Serena Cinnamon Won't Boot From External Hard Drive

[bootmint]

INSTLLATION
18.1 Serena Cinnamon,
from a verified and checked LiveDVD,
to a new and exmpty WD Elements 2TB USB hard drive.

PROBLEM
laptop won't boot from Mint on the WD 2TB.

THINGS I DID
tried both "erase" and "something else" options at installing,
tried both msdos and gpt partition tables, plus just left the Linux Mint installing process with an "unallocated" disk without a partition table. all failed to boot, although in a LiveDVD session these partitions showed up on desktop as devices when partitioned manually.

partitions made: "/boot" "/" "/home" and "swap area".
checked these partitions in Gparted, all mounting point "symbols", as in the above line, showed up as actual path names with a long number at the end, which is the device name mint gave to these partitions, similar to the red circle in the photo below.

p.jpg

"check" command, when right clicked on the FAT32 partition in the above photo, returned nothing. something ran, and then nothing, no messages or anything.
the same on the Ext4 partition was grayed out.

disabled "secure boot" in BIOS, booting still failed.
tried UEFI boot mode, booting failed as above stated.
tried CSM boot mode, got a black screen, saying "no bootable device found", but the WB 2TB was certainly connected without doubt, BIOS recognized it.
there was no option as "UEFI and CSM" in the BIOS menu, only either or.

could not create folder in /home, had to "open as root" in order to do that. then dragging documents into this new folder was no problem.

HELP!
it almost feels like Mint recognises the WD 2TB USB drive, but couldn't get to the boot files. i don't know much about computers and don't know what to do now.
wuold appreciate all helps, tks a lot!

[michael louwe]

@ bootmint

To install Linux on an external USB HDD, users must use the "Something else" manual install method.

For modern post-2012/Win 8 OEM UEFI/GPT computers, the users have to manually create an EFI Boot Partition = eg 550MB/fat32, at the beginning of the disk. Ensure that the "Device for boot loader installation" is the EFI Boot Partition, eg /sdb1 of the external USB HDD. For some guidance, please refer to .......
http://www.tecmint.com/install-linux-mint-17/
....... Omit the bios-grub partition because it is no longer needed for GPT disk in LM 18 or newer.

[bootmint]

@ bootmint

To install Linux on an external USB HDD, users must use the "Something else" manual install method.
.......
Omit the bios-grub partition because it is no longer needed for GPT disk in LM 18 or newer.

wow, just beautiful, tks a lot Michael!
you and the Guide author got right to the root of a multitude of symptoms, very professional indeed!

oop, i overlooked the "omit the bios-grub" part, can i just delete that partition with Gparted now, after the successful installation?

[austin.texas]

"Something Else" would be the best option.
If you are installing to a GPT partitioned drive in UEFI mode, you will need a ESP (EFI System Partition)
If you are installing to a GPT partitioned drive in Legacy mode, you will need a bios_grub partition.
The statement: " Omit the bios-grub partition because it is no longer needed for GPT disk in LM 18 or newer." is not completely accurate. It is needed for a Legacy installation. It is not needed for a UEFI installation.
So my questions are:
Is your drive partitioned GPT? Or msdos? To find out run the command:

Code: Select all

sudo parted -list

Do you want to install in Legacy mode or UEFI? A Legacy installation could be booted on any computer. A UEFI installation would have to be tweaked to boot it on a different computer.

You can refer to my tutorial on installing Mint in Legacy mode to a GPT drive, if that option interests you.

Next, I had the problem with an external hard drive, that after installing Mint, it would not boot Mint. It turned out that Mint boots fine on that hard drive if it is connected to a USB 3 port, but will not boot when connected to a USB 2 port.

[michael louwe]

@ bootmint

oop, i overlooked the "omit the bios-grub" part, can i just delete that partition with Gparted now, after the successful installation?

If LM is running without any problems on your computer, just leave the bios-grub partition alone. If it is giving problems, delete it or reinstall LM.
....... Like they say, "If it ain't broken, don't fix it."

[bootmint]

thank you Michael and Austin for your great help!
LM is booting and working beautifully now, plus... erh... a few symptoms i don't understand.

INFORMATION
internal HDD, Toshiba, with Win8,
external USB HDD, WD Elements 2TB, with LM,
both with GPT partition table.

gpt1.jpg

the Bios-Grub partition is as shown, with a warning icon. in red circle.

part1.jpg

double click on the warning icon gives this info.

warn1.jpg

SYMPTOMS/QUESTIONS
is this setup alright? is the warning about the Bios_Grub partition a problem that needs to be solved?

as such and as of now, i have available to me 2 boot modes plus 2 booting orders, 4 combinations.

what i get is this:
1) in EFEI mode, win8/internal-HDD, always gets booted up, even with USB in front of internal-HDD in Bios settings, that is, booting order doesn't matter, or, the LM/external-HDD is not seen as a bootable device.
2) in CSM mode, LM/external-HDD, always gets booted up, even with internal-HDD in front of USB in Bios settings, that is, booting order doesn't make any difference, or, the win8/internal-HDD is not seen as a bootable device.

is there a way to choose which OS gets booted up by just switching them with the booting order in Bios settings?

compatible with legacy machines would be nice, but i'm willing to accept a "stand alone" setup, on my only machine, that's without "logical contradictions" and working smoothly.

thanks a lot guys!

p.s. Austin: reading your tutorial now... tks a lot!

[michael louwe]

@ bootmint

You can ignore the warning about the bios-grub partition as long as LM is running OK.

For your setup, you should set your UEFI/BIOS to boot the computer first from the external USB HDD where LM resides. After boot-up, you are presented with a Grub menu where you can select to boot into LM or Win 8 within 10 seconds. If nothing is selected within 10 seconds, the computer will automatically boot into LM by default.
....... In your case, please refer to Step 17 & 18 at .......
http://www.tecmint.com/install-linux-mi ... uefi-mode/

If you disconnect the external USB HDD, the computer will boot into Win 8. If you intend to boot a Live Linux DVD, you will have to change the UEFI/BIOS Boot Order, ie put CD/DVD as the first boot device.

Most computers have a one-time Boot menu for users to temporarily change the Boot Order, ie for one-time use only, eg by pressing a different F-key.

[austin.texas]

I get the same information on my bios_grub partition - it is unformatted, so that would be expected. If you have installed Mint in Legacy mode, that bios_grub partition is used by grub, so it can't be deleted.

GpartedInfo.jpg

With Windows installed in UEFI mode, and Mint installed in Legacy (CSM) mode, there is no alternative but to switch between UEFI and CSM in your BIOS. That is not an elegant solution, but it works.
You could chose to install MInt in UEFI mode, but you might run into a problem with that. When you install any OS in UEFI mode, some of the boot information is stored in the NVRAM. If the computer is then booted without the external hard drive connected, the NVRAM information is deleted (on many computers). So the next time you try to boot the external drive, it fails. One way around that would be to use Gparted to copy the ESP from the internal drive to the external drive, then install Mint to the external drive. The boot information for Mint will be recorded on the ESP on the internal drive, by default. You would then replace the ESP on the external drive with the one from the internal drive (containing the Mint information), so that you have 2 identical ESP's. Then you would have to modify the external hard drive's ESP according to these instructions:

by srs5694 » Fri Nov 13, 2015 8:30 pm
A normal installation of Mint will store GRUB as EFI/ubuntu/grubx64.efi on the EFI System Partition (ESP). This filename is not hard-coded on most PCs, though; it's stored in NVRAM as part of the installation process. If you move the disk to another computer, it will of course have different NVRAM than the original, so that entry won't work. To boot on any random computer, you must use the "fallback filename" -- EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi. Thus, you need to rename EFI/ubuntu to EFI/BOOT and rename either grubx64.efi or shimx64.efi in that directory to bootx64.efi. (Renaming grubx64.efi will work with Secure Boot disabled, whereas renaming shimx64.efi will work on most computers with or without Secure Boot.)

viewtopic.php?t=219915#p1153621
Then if you remove the external hard drive, causing the Mint boot to fail, you can still boot Mint by chosing to boot the external hard drive first.

All that sort of reminds me of the comment on UEFI by Linus Torvalds (who created the linux kernel). He said, " - the problem with EFI is that it actually superficially looks much better than the BIOS, but in practice it ends up being one of those things where it has few real advantages, and often just a lot of extra complexity because of the 'new and improved' interfaces that were largely defined by a committee." He went on, "so EFI has this cool shell, a loadable driver framework, and other nice features. Where 'nice' obviously means 'much more complex than the simple things they designed in the late seventies back when people were stupid and just wanted things to work'."

[Sgthawker]

All that sort of reminds me of the comment on UEFI by Linus Torvalds (who created the linux kernel). He said, " - the problem with EFI is that it actually superficially looks much better than the BIOS, but in practice it ends up being one of those things where it has few real advantages, and often just a lot of extra complexity because of the 'new and improved' interfaces that were largely defined by a committee." He went on, "so EFI has this cool shell, a loadable driver framework, and other nice features. Where 'nice' obviously means 'much more complex than the simple things they designed in the late seventies back when people were stupid and just wanted things to work'."

Hey austin.texas, I laughed out loud at that quote. You and I have had some discussion on UEFI, I got lucky and mine worked pretty well. The issue I have had lately has been to boot a USB thumbdrive that is not UEFI, I had to change boot to legacy. Afterward to boot my internal SSD, I changed boot back to UEFI, but the distro that controlled grub bounced around, LM, or Fedora, or openSUSE, or Peppermint, etc. in a random pattern. I reinstalled multiple OS to my laptop in GPT legacy mode, and it works great, with none of those headaches. I will do the same for my desktop installs as time permits. But for this thread I would also suggest a GPT legacy install if at all possible due to the unusual issues with UEFI.

[bootmint]

UEFI/BIOS to boot the computer first from the external USB HDD where LM resides. After boot-up, you are presented with a Grub menu where you can select to boot into LM or Win 8 within 10 seconds.

this setup of mine now only boots LM in CSM mode, and boot order doesn't matter, so l left boot mode in CSM and boot order with LM/external before Win8/internal, since i'd like to use LM as my main OS. the problem here is that i don't know anyway of booting into LM in UEFI boot mode.

i tried LM/CSM for a Grub Menu anyway. when i got a Grub Menu, it only had one option LM, no Win8 option given, which is consistent with the fact that LM will only boot in CSM mode, and Win8 will only boot in UEFI mode.

If you disconnect the external USB HDD, the computer will boot into Win 8.

i have tried this earlier, since i left the Bios in CSM mode, doing so will end up with a black screen, saying "no bootable device", regardless of whether USB HDD is connected or not, and regardless of boot order. and once i get a black screen, there's no way to back up a step, that means a hard shutdown and try again. i heard this is not good, so i try to avoid hard shutdowns.

so having USB HDD always connected and switching between CSM/UEFI in my Bios is how i get to LM/Win8 now.

too bad that this seems to be the way my setup works. am i missing something or misunderstanding something in your post? if so, that'd be really good. Austin said this CSM/UEFI switching is not elegant, but i'm thinking more in terms of "time bombs", because i'd like to run commercial/professional softwares, with LM, which would probably run for an hour or two on normal jobs, plus very likely these softwares would need to be run through a layer of Wine or the like. who knows what would happen then. am i asking for trouble here?

[bootmint]

I get the same information on my bios_grub partition - it is unformatted, so that would be expected. If you have installed Mint in Legacy mode, that bios_grub partition is used by grub, so it can't be deleted.

thank you Austin!
read your tutorial on Legacy To GPT installation.
"legacy" here means msdos v.s. GPT?

With Windows installed in UEFI mode, and Mint installed in Legacy (CSM) mode, there is no alternative but to switch between UEFI and CSM in your BIOS. That is not an elegant solution, but it works.

that's definitely what i'm seeing with my LM install, too bad.

my installing steps are almost the same if not exactly the same as you described in your Legacy To GPT Tutorial.
and here "legacy" means CSM v.s. UEFI?
or msdos/GPT and CSM/UEFI are tied together somehow where picking one will necessarily pin down the other?
what makes an LM install legacy or not? partition table? the bios_grub partition?
maybe not be actually doing a non-legacy install, just wondering.

"...when people were stupid and just wanted things to work."

haha, that's a good one. it's now the "fractal and recursive" state of the onion huh. maybe one day Mr. Godel would sentence all you earthlings to incompleteness! but again, whatever, Linux must stay.

many thanks for explaining things on the level of machine behavior, most helpful approach of explaining!
also read your pointer link. since i wouldn't know how to undo a mis-step in a process like that, i figured it'd be better to remain stupid and just want things to work, and at the same time ready myself for peacefully accepting a possible surprise time bomb some day. well, many thanks all the same for including that part in your reply. for now, i'll make peace with switching between CSM/UFEI, no problemo.

[bootmint]

Hey austin.texas, I laughed out loud at that quote.

i laughed as well, really a good one.

I will do the same for my desktop installs as time permits. But for this thread I would also suggest a GPT legacy install if at all possible due to the unusual issues with UEFI.

thanks a lot for confirming this, it allows me to feel more certain about what i'm doing.
pursuing what "a GPT legacy install" means now, although that's probably what i have on my USB HDD by following the step by step Guides posted in this thread. many thanks all!

[michael louwe]

@ bootmint

I posted this earlier ...

....... In your case, please refer to Step 17 & 18 at ....... http://www.tecmint.com/install-linux-mi ... uefi-mode/

Did you apply those steps to update grub.?

If unsuccessful, try a boot repair or the ReFind program or a reinstall.

[austin.texas]

thank you Austin!
read your tutorial on Legacy To GPT installation.
"legacy" here means msdos v.s. GPT?

Legacy refers to the old process of installing the bootloader (Grub) to the MBR of the drive, on a drive partitioned with msdos partitioning. With UEFI, the bootloader is installed to the ESP.
A GPT partitioned drive does not have a traditional MBR where the bootloader can be installed for Legacy installations, so you create a bios_grub partition which serves as a suitable location.

[bootmint]

I posted this earlier ...

....... In your case, please refer to Step 17 & 18 at ....... http://www.tecmint.com/install-linux-mi ... uefi-mode/

i did read Step 17 and 18.

"17. After reboot, the system will first boot-up in Grub, with Linux Mint as the first boot option which will be automatically started after 10 seconds. Form here you can further instruct the computer to boot in Windows or Linux.

i took it by "boot-up in Grub" you meant LM. i tried the following earlier. started to boot up with LM, (but only in CSM mode). then i pressed a special function key and brought up the Grub Menu hoping i could choose Win8 to boot up with. but there was no Win8 option to choose from, there was only one option and that was LM.

On computers with newer UEFI firmware the Grub boot loader won’t be displayed by default and the machine will automatically boot-up in Windows.

In order to boot into Linux you must press the special function boot key after restart and from there to further select what OS you wish to start.

In order to change the default boot order enter UEFI settings, select your default OS and save the changes. Review the vendor’s manual in order to detect the special function keys used for boot or for entering UEFI settings."

i'm guessing what you meant here is to change boot order in Bios. that was tried earlier as well, what i found out is boot order doen't make a difference, it seemed to be "over ridden" by boot mode.

by the way, i don't know what "UEFI settings" are. is there such a thing as an UEFI Menu where OS setting can be changed, and how do i get to it (i'm using Win8) ? the only UEFI related settings in my Bios are "security mode on/off" and "UEFI/CSM toggle".

Did you apply those steps to update grub.?

i don't understand this at all, how does all the above have anything to do with updating Grub? updating to a newer Grub version? or should i somehow make edits to the exiting Grub? am i supposed to do that?

if all these is getting too much, i have no problem with making it easy, i'll settle with switching between UEFI/CSM in choosing which OS to boot with. thanks a lot for helping!

[austin.texas]

Windows is never going to boot until you switch to UEFI mode in your BIOS, and Mint is not going to boot without switching to Legacy/CSM in the BIOS.
Trying to make those things work differently is just wasting time and effort.

NOTE: the word "BIOS" is not really accurate, on your computer it would be correctly referred to as UEFI settings.

[bootmint]

Windows is never going to boot until you switch to UEFI mode in your BIOS, and Mint is not going to boot without switching to Legacy/CSM in the BIOS.
Trying to make those things work differently is just wasting time and effort.

i have already settled for switching between UEFI/CSM. i'm still pursuing it because i'd like to understand it, well, as much as possible. for example you made the above conclusion with much conviction, but i couldn't even conclude. that's why.

NOTE: the word "BIOS" is not really accurate, on your computer it would be correctly referred to as UEFI settings.

thank you for the note, i didn't know that before. so on my computer, the fuction of changing UEFI settings, i.e. the changing of boot order, is put under a thing called Bios? talking about legacy man! in practical sense, UEFI led me to think in UEFI related things as opposed to Bios related, for i heard that on some computers UEFI settings are done in a different place, not in Bios, if we ignore the inaccuracy in the use of such terms.

but anyway, who cares, i do have way to boot both, and that's good enough.

thank you all guys for helping!

[Sgthawker]

@bootmint

The thing here is the mode of installation. UEFI and Legacy(CSM). They operate differently. They don't interact at all. So expecting to see a boot menu including Win 8 installed in UEFI mode and LM installed in CSM is never coming to fruition. So with these differing installs, the boot order selection in firmware (BIOS or UEFI) will mean nothing with only one UEFI install and one CSM install. If you had two of either, on separate partitions or hard drives, then the similar install mode operating systems would show on one grub boot menu list, or boot order selection and your priority settings would take place, BUT only when the mode in firmware is selected to the OSs in question.

I cheated this a little bit. I installed Win 7 in UEFI mode to a single disk sda in my desktop with no other drives. Win installed it's ESP on sda. I then installed another SSD (nvme) with the Win sda removed, and installed LM in UEFI mode with it installing it's own ESP on nvme0np1. Both being UEFI, I can set boot priority in my firmware and Win will boot if I select it's drive, or LM will boot if I select it's drive. Now I can boot LM and run sudo update-grub and LM's grub will add Win 7 to it's grub boot menu. I can now set LM's drive in boot order and still select LM or Win 7. This wouldn't work with two disks of the same interface, because the sda would be used twice on each single SATA drive, so if I connected the second drive one would become sdb and confuse the works. But I did this in my early Linux days as a way to assure I could boot into Win 7 at least, if I totally botched my Linux installs somehow.

Maybe not the clearest explanation, but hopefully this might shed some light on what you are seeing.

[michael louwe]

@ bootmint

About modern UEFI/GPT computers, please refer to .......
viewtopic.php?f=42&t=163126
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinux ... ct/windows
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinux ... nt-install

Seems, by fully following the Tutorial at ... http://www.tecmint.com/install-linux-mint-17/ ...., you have inadvertently installed LM in Legacy/BIOS/MBR/MS-DOS mode, and not in UEFI mode.

This tutorial will focus on performing a single-boot fresh installation of Linux Mint 17 Qiana Mate on GPT disks (only for 64-bit OS versions) but the settings can be applied on Cinnamon version also.

There is likely a few modifications needed to be made in that Tutorial when applied to your setup ...

#1. Omit creating the bios-grub partition with GParted.
#2. The EFI Boot Partition should be 550MB in size and in fat32 format.
#3. The Root or / partition should be 40GB or 50GB in size and in ext4 format.
#4. The Home partition should be 100GB or larger in size and in ext4 format.
#5. The flag for the EFI Boot Partition should be 'boot', and not 'Legacy boot'.

#6. During the actual install process, highlight the EFI Boot Partition(= 550MB/fat32) and select mount point as boot/efi, and not as boot.
#7. Ensure that the "Device for boot loader installation" is the EFI Boot Partition.

Likely, you need to reinstall LM on your external USB HDD, in order to install in UEFI mode, and not Legacy mode, so that you have a proper Linux Grub menu to boot either into LM or Win 8.
....... Or you can just leave things as they are.

[Jeffex]

@ bootmint

To install Linux on an external USB HDD, users must use the "Something else" manual install method.

For modern post-2012/Win 8 OEM UEFI/GPT computers, the users have to manually create an EFI Boot Partition = eg 550MB/fat32, at the beginning of the disk. Ensure that the "Device for boot loader installation" is the EFI Boot Partition, eg /sdb1 of the external USB HDD. For some guidance, please refer to .......
http://www.tecmint.com/install-linux-mint-17/
....... Omit the bios-grub partition because it is no longer needed for GPT disk in LM 18 or newer.

OMG!! Thank you so much michael louwe, I had the same problem and I was tearing my hear out, I spent two days trying to install to a WD 1TB internal drive in my pc. I had a boot partition, swap, root and home but it just would not boot. I searched for ages until I found your post here.
I was so elated when it booted haha, thanks again mate.