[3.2rc1] Re-install boot loader

[David Hobach]

Dear all,

I tried installing /boot & /boot/efi to an external USB flash drive
which worked (after many clicks in the installer), but doesn't boot
(laptop claims that there's no boot device).

I guess the grub installer got confused by the install flash drive also
attached to the laptop during the installation?
I also noticed that my /boot/grub folder only contains a splash.xpm.gz
file and the /boot/grub2 folder only some themes folder (thought there'd
be some config file somewhere?)...

So how can I re-install the boot loader in 3.2rc1? Unfortunately I'm not
used to EFI boot yet and grub2-install does not appear to be available
in a chroot dom0 environment (tried the Qubes recovery mode).

Any other ideas why booting might not work?

Thanks in advance!

Kind Regards
David

[Marek Marczykowski-Górecki]

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If you are using EFI, there is no grub involved at all. Your USB drive
should be have appropriate layout so EFI firmware will recognize it:
1. Needs to have GPT partition table
2. Needs a partition of type "EFI System", formatted as vfat
3. Content of /boot/efi should be there (especially EFI/qubes)

Only /boot/efi is needed to boot in EFI mode, /boot may be left on your
main disk, inside encrypted root volume.

- --
Best Regards,
Marek Marczykowski-Górecki
Invisible Things Lab
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
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[David Hobach]

On 07/24/2016 02:05 PM, Marek Marczykowski-Górecki wrote:
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> Hash: SHA256
>
> On Sun, Jul 24, 2016 at 01:51:54PM +0200, David Hobach wrote:
>> Dear all,
>>
>> I tried installing /boot & /boot/efi to an external USB flash drive which
>> worked (after many clicks in the installer), but doesn't boot (laptop claims
>> that there's no boot device).
>>
>> I guess the grub installer got confused by the install flash drive also
>> attached to the laptop during the installation?
>> I also noticed that my /boot/grub folder only contains a splash.xpm.gz file
>> and the /boot/grub2 folder only some themes folder (thought there'd be some
>> config file somewhere?)...
>>
>> So how can I re-install the boot loader in 3.2rc1? Unfortunately I'm not
>> used to EFI boot yet and grub2-install does not appear to be available in a
>> chroot dom0 environment (tried the Qubes recovery mode).
>>
>> Any other ideas why booting might not work?
>
> If you are using EFI, there is no grub involved at all. Your USB drive
> should be have appropriate layout so EFI firmware will recognize it:
> 1. Needs to have GPT partition table
> 2. Needs a partition of type "EFI System", formatted as vfat
> 3. Content of /boot/efi should be there (especially EFI/qubes)
>
> Only /boot/efi is needed to boot in EFI mode, /boot may be left on your
> main disk, inside encrypted root volume.

Thanks for that last note!

Other than that my issues were caused by HP (I was testing with a
current HP Elitebook 850 G3) implementing the UEFI standard their
(incorrect) way...

So the HP "BIOS" apparently only loads the efi file
\EFI\Boot\Bootx64.efi and of course the Microsoft one automatically, cf.
http://fomori.org/blog/?p=892 (not my blog). Apparently they also
removed this "customized boot" option mentioned by the author for the
850 series (the most recent BIOS was installed, if I recall correctly).

So Qubes installed correctly, but didn't work afterwards (the installer
uses \EFI\Boot\Bootx64.efi, the Qubes installation used a custom path).

Nevertheless I was able to boot Qubes by using a "Boot from efi file"
entry in the boot menu & manually navigating to the Qubes efi file.
Quite cumbersome though...

[Marek Marczykowski-Górecki]

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You can rename /boot/efi/EFI/qubes to /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT, then inside
that directory rename xen.efi to bootx64.efi and xen.cfg to bootx64.cfg.

It should work, but you'll need to do it again after every kernel/xen update.

- --
Best Regards,
Marek Marczykowski-Górecki
Invisible Things Lab
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
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