Boot problem

Debian6to11 · 03-24-2022, 11:58 AM

My system does not boot, seems to be a BIOS problem after deciding to add another disk.
My initial setup was with a single disk (nvme Crucial), and after the install of Debian I added another nvme and another disk (HDD). So far everything worked okay.

Today I decided to add another disk (HDD) and could not boot. I was getting in the BIOS setup, no boot at all.

Looking in the bios the disks (all four) where listed in the storage page but in the boot page I could only see the HDDs (which are not bootable, only storage).

In order for the nvmes to show up at the bios boot page I had to turn on the CSM. Then I could choose the Crucial disk for boot option. Upon trying to boot though I get this message:
Reboot and select proper boot device
or insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key

What are my options apart from reinstalling?

I can boot to a USB based system for any fixes if they are any.

Also I have tried removing the HDDs but the problem remained the same, this is strange.

camorri · 03-24-2022, 12:21 PM

From what you describe, I suspect nvram is not set up correctly; any more.

I suggest you boot the system with what ever you can, it will need efibootmgr installed. efibootmgr controls what hardware the system will boot from. When you start plugging in more hardware, UEFI makes entries, and possibly changes the boot next option.

Here is what mine looks like when I display nvram with efibootmgr.

Code:

root@duelie:~# efibootmgr
BootCurrent: 0001
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0001,0000,000A,000E,0008,0009,000B,0007,0005,0006,0002,0003,0004
Boot0000* Slackware     HD(1,GPT,b2ebd023-9462-4851-b11a-ce338b85ed1d,0x800,0x32000)/File(\EFI\Slackware\elilo.efi)
Boot0001* rEFInd Boot Manager   HD(1,GPT,b2ebd023-9462-4851-b11a-ce338b85ed1d,0x800,0x32000)/File(\EFI\refind\refind_x64.efi)
Boot0002* Slack-current VenHw(99e275e7-75a0-4b37-a2e6-c5385e6c00cb)
Boot0003* Realtek PXE B03 D00   BBS(Network,Realtek PXE B03 D00,0x0).......................................................................
Boot0004* P1: HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH24NSC0  BBS(CDROM,P1: HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH24NSC0,0x0)........................C..............................................
Boot0005* P3: Samsung SSD 750 EVO 250GB BBS(HD,P3: Samsung SSD 750 EVO 250GB,0x0)........................g+..(..........................................
Boot0006* WDS100T3XHC-00SJG0    BBS(HD,WDS100T3XHC-00SJG0,0x500)................p~...........{........................................
Boot0007* Generic-MS/MS-Pro 1.03        BBS(HD,Generic-MS/MS-Pro 1.03,0x500)................`l........m..g.................................w..... .
Boot0008* Generic-SD/MMC 1.00   BBS(HD,Generic-SD/MMC 1.00,0x500)................`l........m..f.........................................
Boot0009* Generic-Compact Flash 1.01    BBS(HD,Generic-Compact Flash 1.01,0x500)................`l........m.Bg.........................................
Boot000A* UEFI: PXE IP4 Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller      PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1,0x3)/Pci(0x0,0x2)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/MAC(b42e994eb18b,0)/IPv4(0.0.0.00.0.0.0,0,0)..BO
Boot000B* Generic-SM/xD-Picture 1.02    BBS(HD,Generic-SM/xD-Picture 1.02,0x500)................`l........m..g.........................................
Boot000E* UEFI: HTTP IP4 Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller     PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1,0x3)/Pci(0x0,0x2)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/MAC(b42e994eb18b,0)/IPv4(0.0.0.00.0.0.0,0,0)/Uri()..BO

You run efibootmgr as root. On mine, boot current is set to 0001. As you can see 0001 is refind. 0000 is Slackware, my main system.

Note the Boot Order. You can change this with efibootmgr. You need it to point to the drive with your efi boot partition. If it does not, it won't boot.

Debian6to11 · 03-24-2022, 12:43 PM

Before post #1, I did a BIOS reset with no changes.

The partitions on the Crucial disk are: /(root) 100G, swap 20G, and the rest /home. Three partitions without a /boot (EFI) partition.

Code:

aris@DebianKey:~$ sudo efibootmgr
BootCurrent: 0000
Timeout: 5 seconds
BootOrder: 0000,0003,0001,0002
Boot0000* debian
Boot0001* Hard Drive
Boot0002* USB
Boot0003* UEFI: SanDisk, Partition 1

At the moment I boot to the USB SanDisk flash drive, the code above is from it.

Mounting the / partition of Crucial and chroot into it, I get this output:

Code:

root@DebianKey:/# efibootmgr
EFI variables are not supported on this system.

camorri · 03-24-2022, 01:05 PM

Quote:

Before post #1, I did a BIOS reset with no changes.

Make sure Fast Boot is still disabled. Most systems this is enabled for windbloze convienience.

Use a real root login with efibootmgr. Sudo is oftern dumbed down, and may be hiding useful information. Once again, have a look at what mine looks like. The information after the name is critical.

More questions. How are your disks partitioned? Did you set them up as GPT, or the old mbr? What disk in the efi partition on?

Can you post the output of lsblk -f. Here is mine, just so you have an idea what it looks like.

Quote:

lsblk -f
NAME FSTYPE FSVER LABEL UUID FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
sda
├─sda1 vfat FAT32 ESP BBB0-C902
├─sda2 swap 1 ceb3b670-a40b-4200-90c3-4b3cbd71774b
├─sda3 ext4 1.0 9a5baeaa-09b7-45f5-b740-ffabb6e0e95b
└─sda4 ext4 1.0 22e3795f-ee7b-45c8-b05a-f21b19882ddb
sdb
├─sdb1 ext4 1.0 b929cff0-e4ca-465f-8eae-1894473f2801
├─sdb2 swap 1 835347a9-0ef8-4c07-b8e4-177fdb8814a6
└─sdb3 ext4 1.0 54607404-17f5-4d97-9ba9-efe213a7b0ff
sdc
sdd
sde
sdf
sr0
nvme0n1
├─nvme0n1p1 vfat FAT32 0280-786C 41.5M 58% /boot/efi
├─nvme0n1p2 swap 1 f0256f8b-7a1d-46e0-b8cd-228182c84bfc [SWAP]
├─nvme0n1p3 ext4 1.0 e9b17834-e581-4b77-a16c-a71083a9d484 24.1G 46% /
├─nvme0n1p4 ext4 1.0 512487a2-323b-433c-9cbd-721cbb575500 123G 32% /home
└─nvme0n1p5 ext4 1.0 data 6741792f-ada3-443b-ba78-8280a76e7524 81.7G 41% /home/cliff/data

Debian6to11 · 03-24-2022, 01:21 PM

Fast boot is disabled.

The output of efibootmgr was the same. Remember that right now I boot with a USB stick.

All my disks are GPT. Three disks as storage and one disk (Crucial) as described above, no EFI partition. See below the output you requested.

Code:

aris@DebianKey:~$ lsblk -f
NAME FSTYPE FSVER LABEL UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINT
sda                                                                         
└─sda1
     ext4   1.0   Seagate2Tc
                        0210e844-3411-425e-9963-0e13ed623729                
sdb                                                                         
└─sdb1
     ext4   1.0   Hitachi2T
                        a21c16df-15d0-40ca-82a3-dca74dbd68a3                
sdc                                                                         
├─sdc1
│    vfat   FAT32       74F0-247E                             945.1M     1% /boot/efi
├─sdc2
│    ext4   1.0         96768d80-c721-4ca4-a1b7-92a24cb7fd65   41.6G    14% /
└─sdc3
     swap   1           e6be2be7-be30-40d8-b4da-684fb2f3cc2f                [SWAP]
nvme1n1
│                                                                           
└─nvme1n1p1
     ext4   1.0   Intel1T
                        daa2d0e1-37ea-418b-9f4a-593e9c4fd56f                
nvme0n1
│                                                                           
├─nvme0n1p1
│    ext4   1.0         8bee9794-8d12-43fe-9496-2be5bf4ebc9e   70.9G    20% /mnt
├─nvme0n1p2
│    ext4   1.0         3ac9bc53-e833-4223-863b-5b572252dbb6    184G    72% /media/ari
└─nvme0n1p3
     swap   1           09d870d5-df2b-4d9c-8c4f-246e3e7be752

sda and sdb are HDDs for storage.
sdc is the USB stick.
nvme1n1 is storage.
nvme0n1 is the system disk. The partitions are actually 105G (/(root)), 875G(/home) and 20G(swap).

camorri · 03-24-2022, 01:38 PM

You have an efi partition on sdc, and only 1. That is fine.

I'm not sure why efibootmgr is not telling us the entire story. It could be using sudo instead of logging as root.

You should be able to display nvram and modify it. When you boot, there should be a key on the keyboard that gives you a listing of boot devices. On my system its F12, however this varies with board manufacturers. I have to tap that key just agter the American Megatrents logo shows up, and I get the list of possible boot devices.

Have you tried that? If you do not know which key it is, some UEFI system do show a promt during boot, or post the board and model and we can find out online.

If that fails, the next step I would suggest is to remove all drives except the drive with the efi partition.

Debian6to11 · 03-24-2022, 02:03 PM

There is something that you keep missing, I think.
At the very beginning when I installed the system on nvme0n1, which was the only disk in the computer, the installer did not create an efi partition. The system was booting without one.
The efi partition that you see now is from the USB flash disk, which is a different operating system.

I have tried the Boot key from the Bios but it does not pick up the nvme disks. In order for the nvme disks to show up as boot options in the Bios, I had to turn the CSM on (this is the problem I think). And then the nvme would not boot, with the message in post #1.

I think I would go with another installation, I have a separate /home partition and backups.

camorri · 03-24-2022, 03:22 PM

Hmm. From what is posted, it is difficult to know exactly what the status of each drive is.

So, sdc is the boot stick. All the other drives have never had an efi partition. The nvme drive was set up as mbr dirve, and csm mode booted there.

I was under the impression when I installed an nvme drive they would only boot from an efi setup. I think its time to do some more research.

At this point sda and sdb are spinners, and are gpt partitioned.

You want the two nvme drives in the system, one being the boot drive, and the other a data drive.

I suspect the nvme drive you want as the boot drive, if it were set up with a efi partition, your problems would go away.

Are you willing to unplug the two spinners, and remove the nvme data drive?

On my system, my nvme drive has a efi partition. I'm also using refind. Refind can do all kinds of magic, boot windows, and allows me to chose what I want to boot. My ssd is from my old system, its an mbr setup. Refind is a boot manager mostly. I can select the mbr drive and boot, the efi nvme drive, and from the efi partition I can select a system on a spinner. Lots of choice. Refind took some time to set up, since there are so many possibilities.

I still think adding in the extra drives caused the UEFI code to mess up nvram. BTW, nvram is on your system board and its entries are set up by UEFI code. For the user, efibootmgr is the took the use gets to edit and modify the entries.

I will see if I can find out more information on the config you are trying to get working.

Arnulf · 03-24-2022, 03:24 PM

Generally boot from NVMe drive and CSM are mutually excluded!
A few mainboards support this, but this is out of standard.

Create an EFI partition on nvme0n1. If any space is left on device start a live linux and shrink /home about 100 MB e.g. with gparted to create an EFI partition in this space. Afterwards start your installed Linux – not a live system! – with your installation medium and install GRUB2.

OT Hint: If your machine has enough RAM delete all SWAP partitions. SWAP is a holdover from ancient times.

camorri · 03-24-2022, 03:29 PM

Arnulf, thank-you, that is my understanding also.

colorpurple21859 · 03-24-2022, 03:32 PM

Quote:

At the very beginning when I installed the system on nvme0n1, which was the only disk in the computer, the installer did not create an efi partition.

Debian was installed in csm/legacy mode if Debian is booting with no efi partition.

Quote:

All my disks are GPT.

Most distros require a 1M bios-boot for grub to install to a gpt drive in csm/legacy mode. Post the output of

Code:

parted -l

The addition of the other drives probably changed the boot order in the bios and depending on the system implementation of uefi firmware/bios the mixing of nvme and hdd drives may be the problem. May have to convert debian booting to uefi mode.

Debian6to11 · 03-24-2022, 05:15 PM

Actually the nvme was setup as GPT and CSM was disabled. How? I do not know, but those were the settings.

Because I have just finished setting up a new system I had another look at the installer (I tried installing twice). There is a point which it asks whether you want to use an EFI partition or not. The first time I said no and could not boot, the second time I installed it booted, therefore it needed the EFI partition. The question is, how it was booting before?
And why did it stop? The only thing I changed was to install a new HDD which is a dump thing, meaning there were no changes to the Bios setup from my side.

I guess this thread is over now since I reinstalled which was quick, thank you for your time and answers.
Trying KDE from Cinnamon for a change as well, still need to set things as they were before, will leave that for tomorrow.

camorri · 03-24-2022, 06:30 PM

Quote:

The only thing I changed was to install a new HDD which is a dump thing, meaning there were no changes to the Bios setup from my side.

This I can answer. Your system is UEFI not BIOS. UEFI firmware does in fact add things in nvram any time you add hardware that is potentioally bootable. I have observed this on my desktop system. If you look at my post #2, this is the nvram settings on my system. Iupgraded the mother board and the only drive I had in it at first was a sata ssd. It was set to CSM mode and booted just fine.

I added a NVME PCIe ssd. Once added the first ssd would only boot if I selected it to boot from the UEFI boot list, accessed by pressing F12 during the boot process. It worked, and I install a system on the NVME drive.

To find a way around having to press F12, I installed reFind. Refind is a boot manager. It gave me a gui interface that I select the ssd drive in CSM mode or the NVME drive in efi mode. When I added the NVME drive, the UEFI firmare changes the boot order, I did not do it. You have now experienced the same kind issue here.

I later added a spinning rust drive, and GPT partitioned it. I did put a efi partition on the HD, however, UEFI only allows one efi partition. I have edited the entry for the HD, so it oculd boot directly, without useing the efi partition on the NVME drive. Next boot, UEFI firmware wrote orver my entry. That is UEFI firmware for you. It will, without you knowing it write entries.

Quote:

Actually the nvme was setup as GPT and CSM was disabled. How?

This doesn't make sense. This should not work as you have stated it.

Just a wild guess, there are NVME SSD drives. They are not NVME PCIe drives. Do you know for sure which you have? Do a little searching, these are 2 different animals. NVME SSD's are run through a sata controller. NVME PCIe drives run on the PCI bus, direct to and from your cpu, no controller required. They are alost a lot faster.

If you have a NVME ssd, without a EFI partition, and CSM is enabled, it should boot. This is my guess as to what could explain the events you describe.

Hope this helps.

Debian6to11 · 03-25-2022, 05:07 AM

Let's hope it helps someone bumping into this. It is useful information and I did not know that the entries in Bios could change like that, I thought it was more robust.

My nvme disks are PCIe btw. Overall the break did not bother me much, the system was up and running again in a few hours and I could do it in less than hour if I went straight to another install. The only problem I see with the new install, is with my gpg key, it wants a passphrase which I do not remember telling me in the first place. I have a screenshot of the key generation but it does not help, maybe I should just create another one.

mrmazda · 03-25-2022, 06:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Debian6to11

The question is, how it was booting before?

/etc/fstab should provide the answer, likely an entry for the ESP partition on /dev/sdc1.

Quote:

My nvme disks are PCIe btw.

I don't think there is such a thing as nvme that is not PCIe. You may be confusing form factor with bus type. M.2 form factor sockets, which are where most nvme devices install, come in various types that can support nvme or sata or both.

Quote:

# efibootmgr
EFI variables are not supported on this system.

Quote:

Originally Posted by camorri

I'm not sure why efibootmgr is not telling us the entire story.

The expected response isn't there to fetch when not booted in UEFI mode.