[SOLVED] Insyde H2O BIOS (on Sony Vaio) clears UEFI boot list on reboot

ellington · 10-18-2013, 09:04 AM

Hi,

Slackware 14.1 RC1 implements an EFI support and configures an entry in boot list using efibootmgr, besides some UEFI BIOS implementations (specifically Insyde H2O BIOS used by Sony) ignores and deletes all entries except default causing an unbootable Slackware after normal installation.

I suggest an option in eliloconfig to install elilo and kernels on default path: "/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI". With this option, all UEFI machines will work flawless.

Thanks for attention.

Ellington Santos

AlleyTrotter · 10-18-2013, 10:26 AM

If Slackware were to write its elilo.efi and elilo.conf to sony's default directory wouldn't that overwrite the default elilo.conf. I believe that's why Slack writes it's own directory.
If Insyde H2O BIOS used by Sony overwrites something that would not be a Slackware problem.
Maybe I don't understand the question.
Perhaps Slackware could just modify the default elilo.conf? That would certainly make the setup script much more complicated.

John

jtsn · 10-18-2013, 12:54 PM

You could install rEFInd into \EFI\boot\bootx64.efi. It can detect and boot ELILO and other operating systems, without relying on firmware boot menu support.

ellington · 10-19-2013, 01:29 PM

jtsn,

rEFInd works like a charm!

refind_x64.efi as /boot/efi/EFI/boot/bootx64.efi
and a /boot/efi/EFI/boot/refind.conf:

timeout 2
textonly

It detects /boot/efi/EFI/Slackware and creates an entry on boot menu.