[SOLVED] new Fedora22 install; grub screen blank; only boots to win10 HP Pavilion 17-g161us

tnandy · 03-07-2016, 06:33 AM

Thanks Yancek and Syg00 for all your help.

The pickle I'm in is my house caught fire about a month ago. All my desktops, laptop, tablets, fileserver, router, modem, backup computers, and spare parts were on the second floor. What bits I can find are crispy toast. Everything else was utterly destroyed. My parents came up from Florida to help and Mom left her laptop for me to use. That's what I'm using to write this. (It is windows only, and I'm not touching it.) And by the way, my real loss is not the computers, it's the DATA. I never dreamed I might need off-site backup of home computer stuff. I'll never make that mistake again. I've got a friend on the other end of the state and we've already planned to mirror our fileservers.

Fortunately, we have replacement of contents insurance coverage. (CHECK YOUR POLICY! Without this coverage they only pay you the depreciated value of your old stuff. My computers were a few to several generations old, so at least I'll be able to replace them quickly without resorting to eBay.) I replaced my laptop with the HP 17-g161us model that is being difficult and the subject of these posts. A full install is my only choice. (It sure would be cool if some enterprising company would start selling pre-installed dual-boot computers. [heavy sigh])

Anyway, I'm staying in a facility that has wi-fi only--no wired access. I'll ask if I can get access to the router in the front office. We'll see how that goes over. Hmmmm, I just realized I don't even have any CAT-5 cable.

tnandy · 03-07-2016, 11:29 AM

I'm going back through the earlier posts to make sure I didn't miss anything.

Quote:

Originally Posted by yancek

Boot the Fedora DVD, open a terminal and copy/paste the command below which will either output efi or Legacy.

Code:

 [ -d /sys/firmware/efi ] && echo "EFI boot on HDD" || echo "Legacy boot on HDD"

You should also have a small FAT32 EFI partition near the beginning of the drive. If your windows 10 was pre-installed, it is almost certainly using UEFI so you would need to boot Fedora and install it UEFI. More details at the Fedora site below.

https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US...ide/index.html

The answer was "EFI boot".
Yes, there is a small partition near the beginning of the hard drive. I could be wrong, but I think it was part of the windows installation, and replaced whatever was there. That's more of a feeling based upon its placement in the various partitions than knowledge.

Quote:

Originally Posted by yancek

You might take a look at the fedoraproject site at the link below. If you don't have a windows option, try running the grub-mkconfig command as root in a terminal on Fedora. I've never used Fedora on a regular basis but have tried it on a number of versions since Fedora 6 and it always detected windows and as far as I remember, it never detected any other Linux so it's surprising to me it didn't detect windows. Try the command and watch the output.

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/GRUB_2?rd=Grub2

It isn't actually "needlessly complicated". There are things involved in the new boot process including UEFI that are much easier to handle with Grub2 and from what I remember, the Grub developers decided it would be more practical and/or less time consuming to start from scratch with what became Grub2 than to modify Grub Legacy. I actually still use Grub Legacy to boot all the systems I have installed.

Scroll down the page at the link below for instructions on getting Mate on Fedora.

http://wiki.mate-desktop.org/download

Since I don't use Fedora, I really have no idea about your network problem. If Fedora uses inxi, use that from a terminal to output information on your network interface and configuration:

Code:

inxi -ni

I added the following code to /etc/grub.d/custom_40 with no effect

Code:

menuentry 'Windows 10' {
  set boot='(hd0,msdos3)'
  chainloader +1
  }

Then I ran grub2-mkconfig...no dice.

I also tried "msdos2" just in case it's counting starting with zero. Again, no windows.

# inxi -ni
bummer. Bash says inxi not found, and I can't download anyting until I get wired internet.

Quote:

Originally Posted by syg00

Despite the U in UEFI, it ain't - in fact it's a dogs breakfast. I was in another thread recently where the OP had all sorts of issues with a HP and UEFI. All the vendors seem to want to do it their own way. Don't blame Linux/Fedora.

From a terminal, run these and post the output (install efibootmgr in need)

Code:

sudo efibootmgr
lsblk -f

Broadcom are a PITA, simple as that. They don't play well with a free world. A quick search of that Broadcom chip will show the solution for your wifi. You will of course need a cable connection to get to rpmfusion.
As for grub, amongst other short-comings, the legacy grub doesn't know about UEFI, and nobody was prepared to maintain it. To accommodate the new world, grub2 was designed along Debian/Ubuntu lines - lots of scripts, and lots of comments.
For the missing Win10 try simply running the mkconfig mentioned in the wiki article - if that doesn't work you may have to select it manually from a UEFI boot list (like the old BIOS list to boot a USB/CD), but let's see what efibootmgr shows.

Code:

# lsblk
NAME          MAJ:MIN  RM  SIZE  RO  TYPE  MOUNTPOINT
sda             0:0     0  931g  0   disk
+-sda1          0:1     0  260m  0   part  /boot/efi
+-sda2          0:2     0  128m  0   part
+-sda3          0:3     0  400g  0   part  /windows
+-sda4          0:4     0  731m  0   part  
+-sda5          0:5     0  25.6g 0   part
+-sda6          0:6     0  500m  0   part  /boot
+-sda7          0:7     0  504g  0   part
  +-fedora-root 253:0   0  50g   0   lvm   /
  +-fedora-swap 253:1   0  5.9g  0   lvm   [swap]
  +-fedora-home 253:2   0  448g  0   lvm   /home
sr0             11:0    1  1024m 0   rom

I typed this rather than copied and pasted, so the capitalization and special characters may not be exactly the same. But I'm pretty sure I typed it correctly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by yancek

Agreed. It was/is much easier to configure Grub Legacy. Modify one file. In fact, for years I tested different Linux systems with a single menu entry to chainload to the new test systems I tested.

The primary system I use is PCLinuxOS which still uses a patched Grub Legacy and works fine to boot the other systems. Grub2 is also available. I haven't done a full new install for years since it is a rolling release and I update it regularly.

When Grub2 first came into use, a number of systems I tried offered Grub Legacy as well as Grub2 with Grub2 the default. Some systems posted documentation on how to revert to Grub Legacy. I don't know if Fedora does this. And yes, all my systems are BIOS not UEFI. You might take a look at the link below which discusses using Grub Legacy with UEFI. Reading the first few paragraphs, Grub Legacy doesn't look good with Fedora.

http://www.rodsbooks.com/efi-bootloa...ub_legacy.html

Thanks again for your help.

EDDY1 · 03-07-2016, 01:02 PM

I just installed debian on a gateway efi computer & it wouldn't boot to debian.
The bootloader installed, but wouldn't boot debian.
I installed it 3x with same results
The solution was in bios.

Not gonna keep you in suspense, I have 2 bootloaders, so I moved Debian to top of list in bios.
I will take a picture & add it to this post in 5 mins

yancek · 03-07-2016, 03:17 PM

Your output from the lsblk command shows that sda1 is your efi partition. If you had windows 10 pre-installed, it almost certainly was installed using UEFI. There should be several efi files for windows which I believe are in that partition in a directory named microsoft. When you install a Linux systm UEFI, it should put its own efi files in that same directory and NOT overwrite anything. As a starting point, you could mount /dev/sda1 and take a look to see if you have both windows and Linux files there.

You can also get the bootinfoscript from the site below and run it and post the output here as it will show details on your system and your boot files.

https://github.com/arvidjaar/bootinfoscript

tnandy · 03-08-2016, 06:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yancek

Your output from the lsblk command shows that sda1 is your efi partition. If you had windows 10 pre-installed, it almost certainly was installed using UEFI.

Agreed.

Quote:

There should be several efi files for windows which I believe are in that partition in a directory named microsoft. When you install a Linux systm UEFI, it should put its own efi files in that same directory and NOT overwrite anything.

I just assumed it overwrote. I'm still stuck in the MBR paradigm. I have no idea what Fedora install programs do nowadays.

Quote:

As a starting point, you could mount /dev/sda1 and take a look to see if you have both windows and Linux files there.

I don't remember how to do that and my Linux Bible was consumed in the fire. Could you please be a little more specific?

Quote:

You can also get the bootinfoscript from the site below and run it and post the output here as it will show details on your system and your boot files.

https://github.com/arvidjaar/bootinfoscript

I'll give that a shot as soon as I either get the wi-fi working or buy a replacement thumb drive.

tnandy · 03-08-2016, 07:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EDDY1

I just installed debian on a gateway efi computer & it wouldn't boot to debian.
The bootloader installed, but wouldn't boot debian.
I installed it 3x with same results
The solution was in bios.

Not gonna keep you in suspense, I have 2 bootloaders, so I moved Debian to top of list in bios.
I will take a picture & add it to this post in 5 mins

Hmmmm. My boot order list doesn't look anything like yours.

Code:

UEFI Boot Order
  Internal CD/DVD ROM Drive
> OS boot Manager
  USB Diskette on Key/USB Hard Disk
  USB CD/DVD ROM Drive
  ! Network Adapter

Legacy Boot Order
  Notebook Hard Drive
  Internal CD/DVD ROM Drive
  USB Diskette on Key/USB Hard Disk
  USB CD/DVD ROM Drive
  ! Network Adapter

Right now, Legacy Support is disabled. FYI, I had to disable Secure Boot as well in order to place the optical drive ahead of the OS boot Manager, and I have not re-enabled it yet.

">" means Submenu. When I hit enter on the OS boot Manager, the only choice is "Fedora <WDC WD10JPVX-60JC3TO>"
"!" means Disabled. Network Adapter was disabled as a boot device by default.

aragorn2101 · 03-08-2016, 07:25 AM

Hello,

Grub seems to have a problem to add entries for Windows in UEFI mode. But it does not mean you cannot boot the Windows.

Switch to command line inside the GRUB menu itself and try these:

set root='hd0,gpt2'
chainloader /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
boot

(I have assumed that the EFI partition is the GPT partition gpt2 on the first hard drive,
and that the Windows 10 efi binary is found at the above path)

You can also automate these three lines by adding them to an entry in your grub.cfg.

yancek · 03-08-2016, 07:48 AM

If you want to check the EFI partition for windows files mount it with the commands below from the Fedora install medium as root:

mkdir /mnt/sda1
mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1

Found the link below which suggests a command similar to that posted above by aragorn2101, the last post. The link below has an "insmod ntfs" line but the poster states it worked? The EFI partitions are always vfat. You might try each, it needs to point to the EFI partition which in your case is sda1.

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=169328

If one of these commands above work, post back please.

EDDY1 · 03-08-2016, 11:21 AM

Debian created it's own efi partition on my system on sda7. I would say get gparted-live & change the boot flag to your boot partition

tnandy · 03-08-2016, 11:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yancek

If you want to check the EFI partition for windows files mount it with the commands below from the Fedora install medium as root:

mkdir /mnt/sda1
mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1

Found the link below which suggests a command similar to that posted above by aragorn2101, the last post. The link below has an "insmod ntfs" line but the poster states it worked? The EFI partitions are always vfat. You might try each, it needs to point to the EFI partition which in your case is sda1.

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=169328

If one of these commands above work, post back please.

I mounted sda1 successfully. Let me traverse the tree thoroughly:

Code:

/mnt/sda1 contains the directories EFI and System and the file mach_kernel
/mnt/sda1/EFI contains the directories BOOT and fedora
/mnt/sda1/EFI/BOOT contains the files BOOTX64.EFI and fallback.efi
/mnt/sda1/EFI/fedora contains the directory fonts and the files BOOT.CSV gcdx64.efi, grub.cfg, grubenv, grubx64.efi, MokManager.efi, shim.efi and shim-fedora.efi
/mnt/sda1/EFI/fedora/fonts contains the file unicode.pf2
/mnt/sda1/System contains the directory Library
/mnt/sda1/System/Library contains the directory CoreServices
/mnt/sda1/System/Library/CoreServices contains the file SystemVersion.plist

Uh-oh. Shouldn't there be a "Microsoft" directory in /mnt/sda1/EFI along with "BOOT" and "fedora"?

By the way, sda2 won't mount in either vfat or ntfs.

tnandy · 03-08-2016, 11:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aragorn2101

Hello,

Grub seems to have a problem to add entries for Windows in UEFI mode. But it does not mean you cannot boot the Windows.

Switch to command line inside the GRUB menu itself and try these:

set root='hd0,gpt2'
chainloader /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
boot

(I have assumed that the EFI partition is the GPT partition gpt2 on the first hard drive,
and that the Windows 10 efi binary is found at the above path)

You can also automate these three lines by adding them to an entry in your grub.cfg.

I added the above lines (except for "boot") to /etc/grub.d/40_custom but no joy. There is still no entry for Windows 10 on the grub2 menu.

On the grub2 screen, I hit "c" to get a prompt.
set root='hd0,gpt2' - seemed to work OK.
chainloader /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi - resulted in:
error: unknown filesystem

Please let me know if you have further suggestions. Thanks.

tnandy · 03-08-2016, 12:41 PM

If you remember, I said I reinstalled Fedora. That's when I started seeing grub2 menuentries for fedora and lost access to windows. I believe it is highly likely I formatted the /boot/efi partition along with all the other linux partitions. That is why there is no /EFI/Microsoft/boot directory on the EFI partition.

Now the question is, how do I regenerate it?

I sure wish I had install media for Windows 10. I wonder if it's not in already in that 25GB partition on the hard drive.

EDDY1 · 03-08-2016, 02:14 PM

U still have your recovery partition.
there should be a hotkey, if not mark it bootable with gparted

yancek · 03-08-2016, 04:07 PM

All of the sites discussing reinstalling windows EFI files seem to require the installation media. You might be able to use the Repair option of your Recovery CD for windows if you have that.

aragorn2101 · 03-09-2016, 01:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tnandy

On the grub2 screen, I hit "c" to get a prompt.
set root='hd0,gpt2' - seemed to work OK.
chainloader /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi - resulted in:
error: unknown filesystem
...

Hi,

Firstly, your EFI partition is on /dev/sda1, it means you have to "set root" using gpt1. However, your EFI tree which you posted above does not seem to contain the directory Microsoft. Sorry I'm not very expert in Windows, but I guess you will have to reinstall the Windows boot manager using some kind of Windows repair disk or your recovery partition itself.

Secondly, you should be prepared that Windows boot repair will probably erase your Fedora efi binaries from the EFI partition.

All the best dude.