SOLVED: Cannot boot after installing Linux Mint Cinnamon

[athi]

Well, that last screenshot is the problem. To save anyone having to jump back, it says, "When Legacy Support is enabled, UEFI boot order and Legacy boot order are both available and UEFI boot order has higher priority than Legacy boot order." FWIW, I have a more recent HP with Insyde v.45 and it says the same thing on this screen, so I doubt there's anything to be gained by updating the firmware (v.45 is the latest available for mine).

Frankly, I'm stumped. And wonder how anyone ever installed Mint in legacy mode on an HP. Or did they? Throwing the floor open for suggestions.

This is my take on that statement. If all O/S is installed in legacy mode, you will be good to go since there will be no UEFI device to boot from. If a UEFI O/S is installed, you cannot boot legacy O/S at all without a boot manager that can see and boot both UEFI and legacy O/S. So, installing both Win7 and Mint in UEFI would work or installing both Win7 and Mint in legacy mode will also work.

Did some testing and found that with firmware set to UEFI with CSM, booting Mint 64bits in compatibility mode get Mint to boot in legacy mode on my HP laptop. Legacy support mode is enabled per second picture of firmware (System Configuration).

[pbear]

Don't agree with your interpretation of the priority language, athi, but maybe you're right. Let's pass that for now.

More to the point, plainly wannabe should try your suggestion about booting in compatibility mode. First, though, wannabe, let's reburn the ISO to USB drive. Please use Rufus. And do this on the HP, so if there's any tailoring to the BIOS/UEFI environment, the app is using the same one as you will be when booting. Insert the USB and boot. If you see a countdown timer, hit Esc (any key will do). Now you will see the menu listing Compatibility Mode. Select and enter. Open Terminal, test boot mode using the command given earlier and report the result. Good luck.

ETA: Have now had a chance to test this myself. Alas, didn't work on my machine. Booted but still in UEFI mode. OTOH, might be I got one of the steps wrong, so definitely give it a shot wannabe and let us know how it goes.

ETA2: i wonder whether my Mint USB booted in UEFI because I have an EFI partition for my Win10 system. Wannabe, if you get the same result, delete the Mint partitions (including your EFI partition) while booted in the live session. (Indeed, go ahead and do this even if you boot in legacy mode.) Open GParted. Start by deleting the logical partitions. Before you'll be able to delete the swap partition, you need to right-click and select swapoff. Once all the logical partitions are gone, delete the extended partition. Leave the space unallocated. Now, try the boot test again.

[athi]

Did some more testing on how to boot Mint in legacy BIOS mode on my HP Elitebook 840 G1 and 840 G3. Found that with machine in UEFI with CSM setting and Mint live USB created with Rufus in GPT/UEFI with CSM settings:
a) On the 840 G1, Mint live USB boot directly into legacy mode.
b) On the 840 G3, boot menu shows Mint live USB as both UEFI boot device and legacy boot device.
c) Booting Mint in compatibility mode does not change if Mint boot into UEFI or legacy. My failure was checking only in compatibility mode and not both normal and compatibility mode.

A bit of an aside, there was a question if installed Win7 is 32bits or 64bits from the results of the boot-repair log Partitions & Disks output. To check, boot into Win7, right click on Computer icon and select Properties from context menu to open System information window. "System type:" line will show this information. Been awhile since I ran Win7, I used this often to confirm Win7 version and activation status.

[pbear]

Did some more testing on how to boot Mint in legacy BIOS mode on my HP Elitebook 840 G1 and 840 G3.

Which firmware is that? For comparison, both wannabe and I have Insyde, v.12 and v.45 respectively.

[athi]

Which firmware is that? For comparison, both wannabe and I have Insyde, v.12 and v.45 respectively.

Don't know Insyde version, I use the HP firmware build-in flash tool. Anyway, here are inxi -Fxz output for both:

Code: Select all

aa@840G1a:~$ inxi -Fxz
System:
  Host: 840G1a Kernel: 4.15.0-64-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc 
  v: 7.4.0 Desktop: MATE 1.22.0 Distro: Linux Mint 19.2 Tina 
  base: Ubuntu 18.04 bionic 
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: Hewlett-Packard product: HP EliteBook 840 G1 
  v: A3009DD10203 serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: Hewlett-Packard model: 198F v: KBC Version 15.59 serial: <filter> 
  UEFI: Hewlett-Packard v: L71 Ver. 01.46 date: 07/20/2018 
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 42.5 Wh condition: 44.1/44.1 Wh (100%) 
  model: Hewlett-Packard Primary status: Unknown 
CPU:
  Topology: Dual Core model: Intel Core i5-4300U bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
  arch: Haswell rev: 1 L2 cache: 3072 KiB 
  flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 19954 
  Speed: 1198 MHz min/max: 800/2900 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1197 2: 1198 
  3: 1200 4: 1197 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics vendor: Hewlett-Packard 
  driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 
  Device-2: AMD Mars [Radeon HD 8730M] driver: radeon v: kernel 
  bus ID: 03:00.0 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.19.6 driver: ati,modesetting,radeon 
  unloaded: fbdev,vesa resolution: 1600x900~60Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Haswell Mobile v: 4.5 Mesa 19.0.8 
  direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Haswell-ULT HD Audio vendor: Hewlett-Packard 
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:03.0 
  Device-2: Intel 8 Series HD Audio vendor: Hewlett-Packard 
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1b.0 
  Device-3: AMD Cape Verde/Pitcairn HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 7700/7800 Series] 
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 03:00.1 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.15.0-64-generic 
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Ethernet I218-LM vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: e1000e 
  v: 3.2.6-k port: 4080 bus ID: 00:19.0 
  IF: enp0s25 state: down mac: <filter> 
  Device-2: Intel Wireless 7260 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel port: ef80 
  bus ID: 02:00.0 
  IF: wlo1 state: up mac: <filter> 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 167.68 GiB used: 22.29 GiB (13.3%) 
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Intel model: SSDSC2BF180A4H size: 167.68 GiB 
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 54.57 GiB used: 22.26 GiB (40.8%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda5 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 40.0 C mobo: 0.0 C gpu: radeon temp: 36 C 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Info:
  Processes: 195 Uptime: N/A Memory: 7.69 GiB used: 541.4 MiB (6.9%) 
  Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 7.4.0 Shell: bash v: 4.4.20 
  inxi: 3.0.32 

Code: Select all

aa@840G3:~$ inxi -Fxz
System:
  Host: 840G3 Kernel: 4.15.0-60-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc 
  v: 7.4.0 Desktop: MATE 1.22.0 Distro: Linux Mint 19.2 Tina 
  base: Ubuntu 18.04 bionic 
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: HP product: HP EliteBook 840 G3 v: N/A 
  serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: HP model: 8079 v: KBC Version 85.77 serial: <filter> UEFI: HP 
  v: N75 Ver. 01.38 date: 01/20/2019 
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 42.2 Wh condition: 43.9/43.9 Wh (100%) 
  model: Hewlett-Packard Primary status: Unknown 
CPU:
  Topology: Dual Core model: Intel Core i5-6300U bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
  arch: Skylake rev: 3 L2 cache: 3072 KiB 
  flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 19968 
  Speed: 900 MHz min/max: 400/3000 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 864 2: 805 
  3: 896 4: 855 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Skylake GT2 [HD Graphics 520] vendor: Hewlett-Packard 
  driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.19.6 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
  resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 520 (Skylake GT2) 
  v: 4.5 Mesa 19.0.8 direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio vendor: Hewlett-Packard 
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1f.3 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.15.0-60-generic 
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Ethernet I219-LM vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: e1000e 
  v: 3.2.6-k port: efa0 bus ID: 00:1f.6 
  IF: enp0s31f6 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter> 
  Device-2: Intel Wireless 8260 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel port: efa0 
  bus ID: 02:00.0 
  IF: wlp2s0 state: up mac: <filter> 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 238.47 GiB used: 29.40 GiB (12.3%) 
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: LITE-ON model: CV5-8Q256-HP size: 238.47 GiB 
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 116.57 GiB used: 29.37 GiB (25.2%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda6 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 39.0 C mobo: 0.0 C 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Info:
  Processes: 195 Uptime: 2m Memory: 15.55 GiB used: 538.9 MiB (3.4%) 
  Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 7.4.0 Shell: bash v: 4.4.20 
  inxi: 3.0.32 

[pbear]

Don't know Insyde version, I use the HP firmware build-in flash tool.

To quote a famous swashbuckling Star Wars hero, "I've got a bad feeling about this." That difference probably is critical.

[pbear]

Found it, thanks mostly to athi's tip about boot menu. Pretty sure this will work for you, wannabe.

Attach your USB drive with the Mint ISO. Hit power button. Hit Esc to get into UEFI/BIOS. Hit F9 for Boot Device Options. You should see the USB device listed twice, once with UEFI in the description and the other without. Arrow key down to the one without. Hit Enter. You'll get the timer. Let it go (as athi has clarified, no need for compatibility mode), and then you''ll see the familiar Mint desktop. Open Terminal. Type ls /sys/firmware. Report the result (will be just one line). If "efi" isn't listed, you're in legacy mode. I'm actually very sure this will work. Good luck.

As mentioned before, do please reburn the USB drive using Rufus for this test. Also, as mentioned, go ahead and delete the old Mint partitions.
Next stop, installation, which probably will seem anti-climactic at this point.

[wannabelinuxguy]

Found it, thanks mostly to athi's tip about boot menu. Pretty sure this will work for you, wannabe.

Attach your USB drive with the Mint ISO. Hit power button. Hit Esc to get into UEFI/BIOS. Hit F9 for Boot Device Options. You should see the USB device listed twice, once with UEFI in the description and the other without. Arrow key down to the one without. Hit Enter. You'll get the timer. Let it go (as athi has clarified, no need for compatibility mode), and then you''ll see the familiar Mint desktop. Open Terminal. Type ls /sys/firmware. Report the result (will be just one line). If "efi" isn't listed, you're in legacy mode. I'm actually very sure this will work. Good luck.

As mentioned before, do please reburn the USB drive using Rufus for this test. Also, as mentioned, go ahead and delete the old Mint partitions.
Next stop, installation, which probably will seem anti-climactic at this point.

Hi. Sorry I haven't been around.
Am on the verge of a landslide in my front yard... so that kinda took precedence the past few days. Heavy rains here and we'll be lucky to get through it without a landslide, but I think we will.

So...
As someone said above, "I don't have a good feeling about this", LOL. It does seem my computer is a rare case... just my luck!

Anyway I will probably try your suggestion(s) tomorrow or Friday and if I have any success, or questions or issues I'll be posting.
THANKS FOR ALL THE HELP!

[pbear]

You're welcome. That someone was me. On the bright side, we're both using Insyde UEFI, so there's a sound basis for my confidence. Only trying it, though, will confirm whether the same steps work on your system. At your convenience. And thanks for checking in.

[wannabelinuxguy]

Hi, I think I am now ready to try the steps you give, now that you are confident it will work.
I have a couple questions though. First, referring to my partitions I currently have (see jpg inserted below).
So the 3 NTFS partions are for W7 and I don't touch those.

Can I delete the other 4 partitions from W7 before even starting the Linux install or will i use these same ones the same way?
I do need to delete the EFI partition or is that needed for Windows? I did create that myself as part of the previous Linux install right, so I can just kill it ?
I ask because I recall someone in the thread stating that this HP used EFI. But in fact it does not, correct? I created that? (I am pretty sure I did; at least I thought I did.)

1. So please clarify that I need to kill the 14.2gb, the 7.45gb, the 1.86gb and the 74.5gb partitions? Do I just DELETE each one and by doing that, those 4 then become ONE unformatted partition?

So... then my next question is,
2. Might it be better to use a brand new CD to burn the Linux Mint 64-bit to? Or should I erase the USB I used before and re-use that? 2A. When re-formatting the USB (if I go that route) do I format it a particular way (FAT 32)?

3. Then I use RUFUS to add the Linux Mint 64-bit to either the USB or CD.

4. Then I boot into the Linux cd or USB . Once in, to the "live" version of the Linux, I go to the Terminal and type in ls /sys/firmware.
4A. If EFI is NOT listed when I do this then I continue with the INSTALL.
If EFI IS LISTED then I come back here and report it after taking a photo of it... right?
5. When I INSTALL Linux will I create the 3 partitions ,for ROOT, SWAP and HOME?

Looks like I have 98 gigs available.

So do I click SOMETHING ELSE on the INSTALL?

Then how big do I make each of the 3 partitions?

I make root ? (size?) and use EXT4 and choose Mount Point as ROOT?
Then I make the SWAP 8 gigs (?) because I have 8 gigs of RAM? And choose SWAP area from the drop-down list?
Then use the rest of the space for HOME, choose EXT4 and Choose /HOME from the drop down list?

NOW: WHAT IF I get that same warning message about needing an EFI partition?
Do I then:
*Bail out of the install? OR:
* Ignore the warning and go ahead without an EFI partition?
OR
*create an EFI partition of ?how big?

Thanks.
I need a written out "map" like this to make sure I don't screw up and forget a step...

If I get an answer to these by tomorrow which is Sunday then I'll try the Install tomorrow. If not, no problem I can try it another day.

disc mgmt w7_Medium.jpg

[wannabelinuxguy]

One more thing. I don't have a USB available now and if I have to get one it may take a few days.
So hopefully it's a "yes" on my being able to put the Mint 64-bit ISO on a DVD. (I said CD earlier; I realize it is going to have to be a DVD.)
If I go this route I don't use RUFUS right? I just use ImgBurn to burn the iso to disc? Or does RUFUS work with DVD discs too?

Also as to making the DVD to install Mint, the instructions at https://easylinuxtipsproject.blogspot.c ... -mint.html say:
"To use the downloaded iso, you have to burn it on a DVD in a special way. Namely as a raw image, not directly as .iso file. "

This is confusing because later in that same page it says to use ImgBurn to burn the ISO image to the DVD disc... ??
The part about burning it as a raw image, not as .iso file is confusing to me.

[pbear]

Roadmap:

1. Burn a fresh USB or DVD, using the ISO you already have (which you said earlier you have verified, especially the checksum).

2. Boot the USB/DVD per the procedures I described on Sept 22nd.

3. Open Terminal and run ls /sys/firmware. If "efi" is listed, stop and report back. If it's not listed, you're good to go.

4. Open GParted. Delete all the current Mint partitions, including the EFI partition. This should leave you with 98 GB unallocated space.

5. Double-click Installer icon on Desktop. Choose language, keyboard, etc. At Installation type screen, select "install alongside." The installer will automatically use the unallocated space, set up a single root partition (with a swap file) and install the bootloader. Fill out user info when prompted.

6. When installer finishes, select Continue Testing, then shutdown and remove the USB/DVD. Don't use the Reboot option.

7. Boot computer. Should boot into Mint. Might not list Windows in Grub menu. If not, first thing in Mint, open Terminal and run sudo update-grub. Reboot to make sure Windows has now been added to the menu.

---------

Comments:

A. To refresh your recollection, I'm having you reburn the ISO because your prior installation didn't run correctly. This suggests an error in the burning processs, given you had verified the ISO checksum.

B. It doesn't matter whether you burn the ISO to USB or DVD. Do whichever you find easier. Rufus is only for burning to USB. For a DVD, the tool which used to be recommended for Win7 was InfraRecorder. I'm not familiar with ImgBurn. Raw image vs ISO means you can't just copy the ISO to the DVD. Been too long since I did it that way for me to recall exactly what the burn option is called in the app.

C. You won't be prompted for an EFI partition if the boot mode test in #3 comes back clean.

D. I'm having you do an "install alongside" because it's easier and more reliable.

E. I'm having you do a root-only installation because 98 GB isn't enough space to be splitting it up, IMHO. You're not missing much. I did my first Mint install as root-only and it ran fine for two years.

F. It's your machine, so you're free to overrule D & E. Then you would use Something Else. Partitions can be set up in the installer, but easier to do it first with GParted. In any event, you don't need and don't want a swap partition.

G. Steps 1 to 4 are safe. You should not do the installation, though, unless you are prepared to repair the Windows bootloader again if necessary.

[wannabelinuxguy]

If I was superstitious, I would believe that some higher power (devil, god?) does not want me to put Linux on my computer!

So, I went to install Linux today, and when I burnt the iso it would not verify.

Then I could not get the cd out of the tray.

Then I got it out, put in a new one.
Now I can't get either program (imgburn or the other one you recommended) to "see" that I have an empty disc waiting to write to.

Now I can't get the disc out again. Seems my dvd is not working... THOUGH I have never ever had problems with it UNTIL now...

So... I'll have to wait til I can get my hands on a blank usb drive, which I may be able to do tomorrow, or Tue.
Unbelievable how much trouble I'm having loading Linux!

My friend who has installed Linux on about 8 different computers (he's no expert at all yet has had success 7 out of 8 times), can't believe I'm having so much trouble.

So once again I go into "wait" mode. At least now, once I do get a media to work, I am ready to try.
Seems the main problem may be my old W7 computer that I'm installing on.

But then again, I've heard installing on a new Lenovo with W10 can be difficult as well!

[wannabelinuxguy]

Roadmap:

1. Burn a fresh USB or DVD, using the ISO you already have (which you said earlier you have verified, especially the checksum).

2. Boot the USB/DVD per the procedures I described on Sept 22nd.

3. Open Terminal and run ls /sys/firmware. If "efi" is listed, stop and report back. If it's not listed, you're good to go.

4. Open GParted. Delete all the current Mint partitions, including the EFI partition. This should leave you with 98 GB unallocated space.

5. Double-click Installer icon on Desktop. Choose language, keyboard, etc. At Installation type screen, select "install alongside." The installer will automatically use the unallocated space, set up a single root partition (with a swap file) and install the bootloader. Fill out user info when prompted.

6. When installer finishes, select Continue Testing, then shutdown and remove the USB/DVD. Don't use the Reboot option.

7. Boot computer. Should boot into Mint. Might not list Windows in Grub menu. If not, first thing in Mint, open Terminal and run sudo update-grub. Reboot to make sure Windows has now been added to the menu.

---------

Comments:

A. To refresh your recollection, I'm having you reburn the ISO because your prior installation didn't run correctly. This suggests an error in the burning processs, given you had verified the ISO checksum.

B. It doesn't matter whether you burn the ISO to USB or DVD. Do whichever you find easier. Rufus is only for burning to USB. For a DVD, the tool which used to be recommended for Win7 was InfraRecorder. I'm not familiar with ImgBurn. Raw image vs ISO means you can't just copy the ISO to the DVD. Been too long since I did it that way for me to recall exactly what the burn option is called in the app.

C. You won't be prompted for an EFI partition if the boot mode test in #3 comes back clean.

D. I'm having you do an "install alongside" because it's easier and more reliable.

E. I'm having you do a root-only installation because 98 GB isn't enough space to be splitting it up, IMHO. You're not missing much. I did my first Mint install as root-only and it ran fine for two years.

F. It's your machine, so you're free to overrule D & E. Then you would use Something Else. Partitions can be set up in the installer, but easier to do it first with GParted. In any event, you don't need and don't want a swap partition.

G. Steps 1 to 4 are safe. You should not do the installation, though, unless you are prepared to repair the Windows bootloader again if necessary.

toast pic.jpg

The installation and dual boot was a success!
At least so far...
I have installed Mint successfully, been able to choose to Boot into "notebook" and/or into Linux Mint!

I have not yet used Mint to do anything so that's the only reason I am tentative in my saying it's a success. But it would seem that it is working and now it's just a matter of me learning how to use it and ? resolving any issues I may have?...

Thanks much to all of you who had the patience and determination and knowledge and willingness to see me through this ordeal, LOL. Admittedly it was frustrating for me and I'm assuming it may have been for you as well.

Has anyone ever had such a hard time accomplishing a dual boot with Linux? I can't say it was fun. Just glad that - hopefully - the worst part is over.

Again thanks to all, especially pbear, for such a clear road-map!

[RIH]

Congratulations wannabelinuxguy.
Can you mark the topic as SOLVED by adding that word to the original post title.
That helps future viewers in a search to resolve a similar issue.

Well done, pbear - you got him there in the end!!

[wannabelinuxguy]

There was one "almost" snag. I tell you guys this only in case you give directions to someone else in a similar manner, you can help them avoid the guesswork.

When I used Gparted to delete my partitions it would not delete the Swap file.

I took a leap of faith and looked at what options there were in drop down menus and chose one that said "unswap". Intuitively I figured that might work, but I gotta tell you I was sweating bullets there for a minute!
So "unswap" did allow me to then delete that swap file! While it seemed "logical" I gotta admit I really wasn't sure and after I clicked "Unswap" I was thinking, "... I don't know if should have done that!" ...

Then, when I began to try to delete the other partitions that had been for Linux previously it gave me the error message that I had to delete the files bigger higher than #4 first )as in #5, #6....

I have a few questions re going through the motions of setting up Linux via those "Launch" options. Should I post those here or in a new thread?

And I will be happy to mark this case SOLVED.
I hope in the coming days I don't have to post anything about it not working right... But in this case I do have a good feeling about it, that things are "on track" now.

[RIH]

I have a few questions re going through the motions of setting up Linux via those "Launch" options. Should I post those here or in a new thread?

Yes, I think that a new thread is the correct approach.

[pbear]

Oh, I do like a happy ending. Good team effort, with athi providing the crucial clue (imho) to cracking a very tough nut.

Good luck moving forward. And, for sure, we're done with this thread. Open a new one for further questions.