[SOLVED] Getting Acer ES1-132-C2JZ to boot xubuntu from HDD using rEFInd (and not just from USB)

Simon1 · 11-21-2017, 07:54 AM

Hi guys,

My tiny new laptop is making me go insane. After fixing lots of smaller problems I've finally managed to get xubuntu installed. However, it won't boot from HDD (gives "No bootable devices" screen). So far I've only managed to boot into my rEFInd usb stick and launch xubuntu (from vmlinuz-4.10.0.40-generic I think?) from there. Please tell me if the following looks correct:

df /boot/efi

Code:

Filesystem: /dev/mcblk0p1 
Mounted on /boot/efi

If I sudo thunar I can see File System, Filesystem root and efi. Clicking efi puts me in /boot/efi.

I've tried installing rEFInd's boot manager here in several ways. First by running the refind-install script, which installs to /boot/efi/EFI/refind. I have no idea whether or not that's correct and should already run or not. Does that path look right? After running this script and running the refind-mkdefault script, efibootmgr prints:

Code:

BootCurrent: 0000
Timeout: 0 seconds
BootOrder: 0001,2001,2002,2003
Boot0000*: USB HDD: SanDisk
Boot0001*: rEFInd Boot Manager
Boot2001*: EFI USB Device
Boot2002*: EFI DVD/CDROM
Boot2003*: EFI Network

To my knowledge, this should be fine. But if I restart my laptop, the bootorder no longer contains 0001. Safeboot is turned off. I'm not sure what else to do. I also don't know if I've done things properly so far so it's hard to know for sure what the problem is. I've found several other issues that may or may not be part of the problem. Some people state here that a similar (but not exactly the same) acer laptop has hardcoded uefi paths, so I should possibly install a boot manager there instead of where I installed it, in some way (the post by spektro37):

https://community.acer.com/en/discus...ptions-missing

Another potential issue is that, although I have the newest bios (1.15), there is no option to set trusted .efi files in the bios. I don't know if that's what's causing my NVRAM boot order to reset. Can I trick my bios into accepting the refind_x64.efi file somehow?

Here's efibootmgr -v output if that helps:

Code:

BootCurrent: 0000
Timeout: 0 seconds
BootOrder: 0001,2001,2002,2003
Boot0000* USB HDD: SanDisk    PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x15,0x0)/USB(3,0)/HD(1,GPT,308ad3a2-7357-4753-b1ff-86646c467b40,0x800,0x309f)RC
Boot0001* rEFInd Boot Manager    HD(1,GPT,6882d767-e8ac-4fe3-a0e1-c196ebaccf15,0x800,0x100000)/File(\EFI\refind\refind_x64.efi)
Boot2001* EFI USB Device    RC
Boot2002* EFI DVD/CDROM    RC
Boot2003* EFI Network    RC

Simon1 · 11-24-2017, 11:14 AM

Changing NVRAM persistently turns out to be impossible. I ended up fixing/getting around this issue by tricking my stupid Windows Boot Manager, which was at /boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/ into launching xubuntu, after a LOT of fiddling about with refind. I eventually moved my refind installation into /boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/ and replaced bootmgfw.efi with refind's efi file (renaming it to bootmgfw.efi). That worked, booted the refind loader which automagically found my vmlinuz file and managed to launch it.

I understand maybe 50% of what happened in total, but hey, got it to work!