"Boot device not found" when turning on the laptop[solved]

[mani001]

Hi,

I'm installing Gentoo on a a new HP Pavilion laptop, and I can't get it to boot without doing "weird stuff". It came with Windows 11 pre-installed, and I got rid of it clearing the entire HD (now I'm thinking that was a bad move ). Then, I made a new ESP partition, swap, etc, and installed Gentoo. For booting I installed rEFInd following Gentoo's wiki. Running "refind-install" went smoothly, but when I restarted I got a BIOS/UEFI screen stating "Boot Device Not Found". However, if I press F9 to "select a boot device", there I can choose "Boot From EFI File", which allows me to "Select a File System" (there is only one), and that leads to a "File Explorer" in which I can navigate my ESP partition to choose the file "refind_x64.efi", which eventually starts up rEFInd and I can boot Gentoo.

Inside Gentoo, if I run efibootmgr -v I get

Code: Select all

No BootOrder is set; firmware will atempt recovery
Bot00000* Windows Boot Manager HD....

(a single entry for Windows...which is no even there anymore)

I then tried

Code: Select all

efibootmgr -c -g -d /dev/nmve0n1 -w -L "Gentoo" -l \\EFI\\refind\\refindx64.efi

following https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=151297 (which looked like a similar issue). After doing that, when I run efibootmgr -v I can see a new entry, "Boot0001* rEFInd", which should be fine. However, when I restart I still get the "Boot Device Not Found", and when I enter Gentoo again efibootmgr -v shows the exact same output as before adding the new entry (i.e., it seems the entry for rEFInd was forgotten).

Any clues?

[pietinger]

Any clues?

Is your ESP (efi system partition) your first partition ? If no you will need additionaly paramter "-p .."

Have you formated your disk with GPT ? If yes, you dont need Parm "-g"; also you dont need parm "-w"
If no, you could have a problem with your BIOS. Dont try "-g"; better format it as an GPT disk.

Do you installed the correct name of refind ? I know most UEFI BIOS drop an entry if they dont find the exact name ... So, maybe it was a typo here, or you made a typo when you did your command:

refind_x64 <=> refindx64 ?

Is your refind really in directory EFI/refind ?

[...] "refind_x64.efi"

[...]

I then tried

Code: Select all

efibootmgr -c -g -d /dev/nmve0n1 -w -L "Gentoo" -l \\EFI\\refind\\refindx64.efi

Instead of \\ you can use also: -l "\EFI\refind\ref.... "

[mani001]

Is your ESP (efi system partition) your first partition ? If no you will need additionaly paramter "-p .."

Yes

Have you formated your disk with GPT ? If yes, you dont need Parm "-g"; also you dont need parm "-w"

Yes

Do you installed the correct name of refind ? I know most UEFI BIOS drop an entry if they dont find the exact name ... So, maybe it was a typo here, or you made a typo when you did your comman

I just double checked and yes (I take it the path starts at the root of the ESP partition, right?), but that's a good point because you can pass whatever to efibootmgr and it won't complain

Is your refind really in directory EFI/refind ?

Yes (starting from the ESP partition)

Instead of \\ you can use also: -l "\EFI\refind\ref.... "

I have just tried that too and it didn't help (it's more readable, though)

From what I'm reading it might be an HP-laptop thing

https://askubuntu.com/questions/244261/ ... w-efi-file
https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook- ... -p/6687013

It seems HP is hardwiring into the firmware the path to the Windows EFI or something like that...

Anyway, I solved following this

https://askubuntu.com/a/1140458

(such a crappy workaround, but whatever )

Thanks for all the tips!!

[pietinger]

Thanks for all the tips!!

Thank you too for your detailed report ! It may help other users with a HP notebook.

Have fun with Gentoo !

[sMueggli]

Yes, HP was strange several years ago (at the beginning of the UEFI epoch). But I didn't see these kind of issues in the last few years. And if the device came with Windows 11, then it is a bit surprising that you have the same problems. I recommend you to check for newer UEFI versions and upgrade whenever possible.


Your solution is a workaround, because the bootloader is now using a fallback/hardcoded path. For single boot systems, you will probably never experience bigger problems with it. But if you have more than one bootloader installed, it is common that the hardcoded path is updated with the other binary.

By the way: grub-install has the "--removable" flag for this purpose (so you do not need to manually move files around and rename them).

[mani001]

Your solution is a workaround, because the bootloader is now using a fallback/hardcoded path. For single boot systems, you will probably never experience bigger problems with it. But if you have more than one bootloader installed, it is common that the hardcoded path is updated with the other binary.

I don't intend to dual-boot (EVER!! ), and I do not dare to touch anything

By the way: grub-install has the "--removable" flag for this purpose (so you do not need to manually move files around and rename them).

mmm...interesting, I didn't know. Anyway, I'll stick to rEFInd, which looks nice and more modern-ish

Cheers.