Re: [qubes-users] Qubes4.0 rc3 install error

[awokd]

On Mon, December 4, 2017 3:57 am, Shashank wrote:

> At least 3MB more required for /boot/efi

If there is nothing on the drive you need to keep, choose the "I need to
recover space" option in the installer. Mark the top level of the tree so
EVERYTHING on the drive will be deleted. Let the Qubes/Xen installer
Auto-partition your space.

[Shashank]

Well I am trying to dual boot on my system. Would the method you mentioned delete the existing OS as well? I’ve partioned 80 gb to install Qubes and the other partition contains windows 10.

Thanks

[awokd]

Assuming you're replying to my suggestion to recover all drive space, then
yes, that would wipe Windows 10 as well.

[Shashank]

Oh no probably i didn’t mention it in my initial post, sorry about that. I am actually dual booting on my system and set a partition of 80 gb on my hard drive.

And I am getting the error that

At least 3 mb disk space required on /boot/efi

Thank you very much.

[Reg Tiangha]

You said that you were previously running R3.2 on this machine, correct?

The problem is that whenever you upgrade or remove a Qubes kernel, the
uninstallation script does *not* remove the corresponding initramfs.img
file from /boot/efi/EFI/qubes/ so if you install and remove a bunch of
kernels, then over time, that directory gets cluttered up with old files
and thus you eventually run out of space on /boot.

The answer would be to somehow mount /boot (probably using another OS)
and delete all the initramfs.img files in the /boot/efi/EFI/qubes/ that
no longer apply (which might be all of them or everything in that
directory, if you're attempting a clean install) and then retry the R4
installation again.

In fact, all Qubes users who upgrade kernels will get bitten by this
eventually (if they haven't already). If you've ever ran df -h in dom0
and wondered why /boot seemed to be slowly filling up over time, this is
why. Not sure if it's a flaw in the qubes-kernel uninstallation script
or something else. I've just gotten into the habit of manually deleting
old img files in that directory whenever the system uninstalls a kernel.

[Reg Tiangha]

Edit: Sorry, I meant vmlinuz files, not initramfs img files. Then
again, my systems use Legacy Boot rather than EFI; I'm not sure if they
get properly deleted automatically on a proper EFI system.

[Shashank]

Thank you very much for the wonderful explanation of how it works. Would all the files in /boot be deleted Incase I did a factory install on my machine? i,e go back to factory settings. Or would I have to do the way you mentioned, by mounting /boot somehow, which I am a bit skeptical about how to do it.

Thanks

[Reg Tiangha]

On 12/04/2017 02:39 PM, Shashank wrote:
> Thank you very much for the wonderful explanation of how it works. Would all the files in /boot be deleted Incase I did a factory install on my machine? i,e go back to factory settings. Or would I have to do the way you mentioned, by mounting /boot somehow, which I am a bit skeptical about how to do it.
>
> Thanks
>

If by "factory install" you mean reinstalling Windows, then maybe? I'm
not sure.

As for mounting /boot externally, you can do it with any Linux Live CD
(ex. Ubuntu). In fact, if you're lucky, some of the more modern ones
might even populate the file explorer with the various partitions on
your hard drive and you can use that instead to point and mount the
/boot partition.

Otherwise, you'll need to do it through the command line. There's lots
of examples on Google and YouTube; here's one using CentOS 6:

http://docs.intuitivetechnology.com/article/92-how-to-mount-linux-filesystem-from-a-live-cd-and-copy-a-backup

But it's essentially the same procedure no matter what distro's LiveCD
you use.

Good luck!

[Shashank]

I am going to give this a try and see how it goes meanwhile if there is anything else I could do please feel free to guide me through, i would be really grateful.

Thanks

[Shashank]

I tried legacy boot option and I was able to install the os. But I think that was a mistake I cannot boot back into windows, I have a very regretting doubt that I wiped out the windows 10 operating system.

[Unman]

In dom0 run 'sudo cfdisk' (assuming you only have one disk - if not ,use
cfdisk /dev/sda, or cfdisk /dev/sdb)
That command will show you the partitions on your disk and you should
be able to see if you still have the Windows partitions.

If you had Windows booting in UEFI mode, and you have switched to legacy
boot, that would explain why you cant now boot Windows. It IS possible
to mix boot modes - first establish exactly what position you are in and
then we may be able to help.

[Shashank]

Hi,

So if I run sudo cfdisk in dom0 it shows

/dev/sda1 EFI system
/dev/sda2 Microsoft System
/dev/sda3 Microsoft basic data
/dev/sda4 Windows recovery environment
/dev/sda5 Bios boot

In my boot menu I changed to Legacy in order to try and install qubes which did sucessfully.

After the installation I restarted the computer in Bios switched to UEFI back again and restarted

I get an error saying no bootable device

[Unman]

On which partition did you install Qubes?

[Shashank]

So in windows I created a partition on my harddrive with 80 gb space. Installed qubes on that space to dual boot.

Initially with uefi mode I wasn't able to install it, so switched to Legacy.

But falling back to uefi won't boot into windows

[Shashank]

Is there any way I could correct what has gone wrong?

[awokd]

On Tue, December 5, 2017 1:16 am, Shashank wrote:

> Is there any way I could correct what has gone wrong?

Try going back to UEFI mode, booting from your Windows CD, and choose the
Repair Boot option. That will kill Qubes, but get Windows back. Consider
getting a separate PC or notebook instead of dual booting.

[joeh...@gmail.com]

A bit late maybe, but then I just installed Qubes R4.0 on my laptop (Lenovo P70) with Windows 10 pre-installed.
Previously I had Qubes R3.2 installed and now the 200 MB EFI partition that was to be mounted on /boot/efi was too small. I followed ahint of somebody (maybe even in this thread?).
In Anaconda, for the Qubes R4.0 install, there were two entries for one 200 MB partition mounted to /boot/efi. One under 'unknown', one under 'SYSTEM' in the new to install Linux. I removed that one and created a new one, 300 MB big, probably unnecessarily big because I guess it will only contain the UEFI keys for this one instance of Qubes, but anyway, it worked.
Qubes installed, with a freeze however while configuring Qubes, but the second time configuration completed, Qubes works, and Windows still works.