[Solved] Need Help: UEFI install won't boot

[gilxa1226]

I'm trying to get Gentoo installed on a Dell Power Edge T30 I picked up a few days ago. System has the most up-to-date bios, and I know UEFI boot works with linux because I've booted the LiveCD and SystemRescueCD from USB devices, and to make sure I wasn't trying something impossible, I successfully installed Ubuntu and was able to boot with no issues. Gentoo however, is giving me fits, and I've tried about everything. It doesn't matter if the grubx64.efi is in /EFI/boot, or /EFI/gentoo. I've followed all the install instructions and whenever I try to boot, I end up with a screen that says unable to find OS, press F2 to try again, F12 to enter setup, and one other choice that eludes me.

Here is the parted output:

Code: Select all

Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted) print
Model: ATA TOSHIBA DT01ACA1 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 1000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags: 

Number  Start   End     Size    File system     Name                  Flags
 1      1049kB  538MB   537MB   fat32           EFI System Partition  boot, esp
 2      538MB   17.7GB  17.2GB  linux-swap(v1)  swap
 3      17.7GB  1000GB  982GB   btrfs

here is gdisk output:

Code: Select all

Disk /dev/sda: 1953525168 sectors, 931.5 GiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): E23C07E1-11BC-42F8-9039-3D320F0A278A
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 1953525134
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 3437 sectors (1.7 MiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1            2048         1050623   512.0 MiB   EF00  EFI System Partition
   2         1050624        34605055   16.0 GiB    8200  swap
   3        34605056      1953523711   915.0 GiB   8300  

I've tried all I can think of, the current partition scheme is left over from when I got Ubuntu to boot, so I'm fairly confident that is not the issue. Any thoughts or things to try?

[Naib]

with /boot mounted, my grubx64 are in:

/boot/EFI/efi/boot/grubx64.efi
/boot/EFI/gentoo/grubx64.efi

also from sysrescueCD & within a chroot, with /boot mounted, I execute the command: grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot


every bios update I have todo that.


So... what exactly have you done?.

[gilxa1226]

with /boot mounted, my grubx64 are in:

/boot/EFI/efi/boot/grubx64.efi
/boot/EFI/gentoo/grubx64.efi

also from sysrescueCD & within a chroot, with /boot mounted, I execute the command: grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot


every bios update I have todo that.


So... what exactly have you done?.

with boot mounted my grubx64 was in:

/boot/EFI/boot/grubx64.efi
/boot/EFI/gentoo/grubx64.efi

I used the same command you posted to perform the grub install.

Based on what you posed I also added /boot/EFI/efi/boot/grubx64.efi and re-ran grub-install. No dice there. What is frustrating is that when I load up the UEFI setup, I can browse to each and every location grubx64.efi is found, however when I try to boot to it I get nothing. Secure boot is off. It's almost like it's not executing or not finding it when actually booting.

[Hieronymus Bosch]

When you run those commands, any message appears?

You can try sys-boot/refind, if you want.

[gentoo_ram]

My setup looks a little different but works on my ASUS UEFI motherboard. I have an extra directory level in the EFI directory.

Code: Select all

gateway gentoo # df -T
Filesystem                Type      1K-blocks       Used  Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/nvme1n1p2            ext2         126931      58458      61920  49% /boot
/dev/nvme1n1p1            vfat         129039        121     128918   1% /boot/efi

gateway gentoo # gdisk -l /dev/nvme1n1
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.1

Partition table scan:
  MBR: protective
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.
Disk /dev/nvme1n1: 1000215216 sectors, 476.9 GiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 15E223FD-8A43-4187-AA08-F66C74462DD7
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 1000215182
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 4029 sectors (2.0 MiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1            2048          264191   128.0 MiB   EF00  EFI
   2          264192          526335   128.0 MiB   8300  Boot
   3          526336      1000213167   476.7 GiB   8E00  Linux

gateway gentoo # tree /boot
/boot
├── config-4.12.1-gentoo
├── efi
│   └── EFI
│       └── gentoo
│           └── grubx64.efi
├── grub
│   ├── fonts
│   │   └── unicode.pf2
│   ├── grub.cfg
│   ├── grubenv
│   ├── locale
│   │   ├── ast.mo
...
│   │   └── zh_TW.mo
│   ├── themes
│   │   └── starfield
│   │       ├── blob_w.png
...
│   │       └── theme.txt
│   └── x86_64-efi
│       ├── acpi.mod
...
│       ├── zfsinfo.mod
│       └── zfs.mod

├── initramfs-genkernel-x86_64-4.12.1-gentoo
...
├── System.map-4.12.1-gentoo
...
└── vmlinuz-4.12.1-gentoo

[charles17]

... Gentoo however, is giving me fits, and I've tried about everything. It doesn't matter if the grubx64.efi is in /EFI/boot, or /EFI/gentoo. I've followed all the install instructions and whenever I try to boot, I end up with a screen that says unable to find OS, press F2 to try again, F12 to enter setup, and one other choice that eludes me.

Are you at all getting the grub selection screen?

• If so, please adjust the topic because you are having a grub problem
• If not, what do you have in efibootmgr -v?

[albright]

lazy method: if you have ubuntu installed just put your gentoo
kernel in ubuntu's /boot and let ubuntu's grub2 update find
it (you might have to edit grub.cfg a bit afterwards).

this worked for me when I did not want to struggle with gentoo
and uefi plus wanted to triple boot windows, ubuntu and gentoo
in any case

[gilxa1226]

When you run those commands, any message appears?

You can try sys-boot/refind, if you want.

I get no errors. Grub tells me everything went fine.

[gilxa1226]

My setup looks a little different but works on my ASUS UEFI motherboard. I have an extra directory level in the EFI directory.

My setup now has the extra level in the EFI directory. One thing I notice, is you have a vmlinuz named, I don't, my kernel is 'kernel-genkernel-x86_64-4.12.4-gentoo', I wonder if that could be causing an issue? I've never had an issue with something like that before, however.

[gilxa1226]

... Gentoo however, is giving me fits, and I've tried about everything. It doesn't matter if the grubx64.efi is in /EFI/boot, or /EFI/gentoo. I've followed all the install instructions and whenever I try to boot, I end up with a screen that says unable to find OS, press F2 to try again, F12 to enter setup, and one other choice that eludes me.

Are you at all getting the grub selection screen?

• If so, please adjust the topic because you are having a grub problem
• If not, what do you have in efibootmgr -v?

sorry, I should have been more clear with that message, that is coming from UEFI, not from grub. Here is the output of efibootmgr -v:

Code: Select all

sysresccd / # efibootmgr -v
BootCurrent: 0006
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0003,0002,0001,0004,0005,0000,0006
Boot0000* gentoo	VenHw(99e275e7-75a0-4b37-a2e6-c5385e6c00cb)
Boot0001* Diskette Drive	BBS(Floppy,Diskette Drive,0x0)..BO
Boot0002* TOSHIBA DT01ACA100	BBS(HD,P0: TOSHIBA DT01ACA100        ,0x0)..BO
Boot0003* USB Storage Device	BBS(USB,Flash Drive SM_USB20 1100,0x0)..BO
Boot0004* CD/DVD/CD-RW Drive	BBS(CDROM,P2: PLDS DVD+/-RW DU-8A5LH    ,0x0)..BO
Boot0005* Onboard NIC	BBS(Network,Onboard NIC,0x0)..BO
Boot0006* UEFI: Flash Drive SM_USB20 1100	PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x14,0x0)/USB(1,0)/HD(1,MBR,0x81caa6fb,0x80,0x77f000)..BO

[gilxa1226]

You can try sys-boot/refind, if you want.

refind does the same thing, I get the UEFI prompt asking me to:

1) try to boot again
2) boot into setup
3) run advanced diagnostics (mobo diags)

[charles17]

sorry, I should have been more clear with that message, that is coming from UEFI, not from grub. Here is the output of efibootmgr -v:

Code: Select all

sysresccd / # efibootmgr -v
BootCurrent: 0006
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0003,0002,0001,0004,0005,0000,0006
Boot0000* gentoo	VenHw(99e275e7-75a0-4b37-a2e6-c5385e6c00cb)
Boot0001* Diskette Drive	BBS(Floppy,Diskette Drive,0x0)..BO
Boot0002* TOSHIBA DT01ACA100	BBS(HD,P0: TOSHIBA DT01ACA100        ,0x0)..BO
Boot0003* USB Storage Device	BBS(USB,Flash Drive SM_USB20 1100,0x0)..BO
Boot0004* CD/DVD/CD-RW Drive	BBS(CDROM,P2: PLDS DVD+/-RW DU-8A5LH    ,0x0)..BO
Boot0005* Onboard NIC	BBS(Network,Onboard NIC,0x0)..BO
Boot0006* UEFI: Flash Drive SM_USB20 1100	PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x14,0x0)/USB(1,0)/HD(1,MBR,0x81caa6fb,0x80,0x77f000)..BO

The Boot0000* looks wrong and grubx64.efi isn't even listed. Did you expect booting an EFI stub kernel, or did you expect bringing up a bootmanager?
It seems you haven't been able to find any of the documentations as there are:

• https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/EFI_stub_kernel
• https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Efibootmgr
• https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/REFInd

[gilxa1226]

sorry, I should have been more clear with that message, that is coming from UEFI, not from grub. Here is the output of efibootmgr -v:

Code: Select all

sysresccd / # efibootmgr -v
BootCurrent: 0006
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0003,0002,0001,0004,0005,0000,0006
Boot0000* gentoo	VenHw(99e275e7-75a0-4b37-a2e6-c5385e6c00cb)
Boot0001* Diskette Drive	BBS(Floppy,Diskette Drive,0x0)..BO
Boot0002* TOSHIBA DT01ACA100	BBS(HD,P0: TOSHIBA DT01ACA100        ,0x0)..BO
Boot0003* USB Storage Device	BBS(USB,Flash Drive SM_USB20 1100,0x0)..BO
Boot0004* CD/DVD/CD-RW Drive	BBS(CDROM,P2: PLDS DVD+/-RW DU-8A5LH    ,0x0)..BO
Boot0005* Onboard NIC	BBS(Network,Onboard NIC,0x0)..BO
Boot0006* UEFI: Flash Drive SM_USB20 1100	PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x14,0x0)/USB(1,0)/HD(1,MBR,0x81caa6fb,0x80,0x77f000)..BO

The Boot0000* looks wrong. Did you expect booting an EFI stub kernel, or did you expect bringing up a bootmanager?
It seems you haven't been able to find any of the documentations as there are:

• https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/EFI_stub_kernel
• https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Efibootmgr
• https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/REFInd

what should Boot0000* look like then? Based on how I've installed I expect it to bring up Grub. I tried to install REFInd, and configured for that, however I got the same outcome. I've followed all three of those links, to no avail. My original intent was to boot the system as defined in the Handbook via grub, because that is what I'm most familiar with, but it doesn't seem to matter, nothing I do with Gentoo seems to work, which is frustrating.

[charles17]

what should Boot0000* look like then? Based on how I've installed I expect it to bring up Grub. I tried to install REFInd, and configured for that, however I got the same outcome. I've followed all three of those links, to no avail. My original intent was to boot the system as defined in the Handbook via grub, because that is what I'm most familiar with, but it doesn't seem to matter, nothing I do with Gentoo seems to work, which is frustrating.

If you want EFI to bring up grub, grub needs to be shown by efibootmgr -v. If not in there, EFI cannot bring it up.

Please read https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Efibootmgr.

[gilxa1226]

what should Boot0000* look like then? Based on how I've installed I expect it to bring up Grub. I tried to install REFInd, and configured for that, however I got the same outcome. I've followed all three of those links, to no avail. My original intent was to boot the system as defined in the Handbook via grub, because that is what I'm most familiar with, but it doesn't seem to matter, nothing I do with Gentoo seems to work, which is frustrating.

If you want EFI to bring up grub, grub needs to be shown by efibootmgr -v. If not in there, EFI cannot bring it up.

Please read https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Efibootmgr.

Here is a clean output from efibootmgr -v before running grub install:

Code: Select all

(chroot) sysresccd / # efibootmgr -v
BootCurrent: 000E
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0009,000A,000B,000C,000D,000E
Boot0009* Diskette Drive	BBS(Floppy,Diskette Drive,0x0)..BO
Boot000A* TOSHIBA DT01ACA100	BBS(HD,P0: TOSHIBA DT01ACA100        ,0x0)..BO
Boot000B* USB Storage Device	BBS(USB,Flash Drive SM_USB20 1100,0x0)..BO
Boot000C* CD/DVD/CD-RW Drive	BBS(CDROM,P2: PLDS DVD+/-RW DU-8A5LH    ,0x0)..BO
Boot000D  Onboard NIC	BBS(Network,Onboard NIC,0x0)..BO
Boot000E* UEFI: Flash Drive SM_USB20 1100	PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x14,0x0)/USB(0,0)/HD(1,MBR,0x81caa6fb,0x80,0x77f000)..BO

Here is after running

Code: Select all

grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot

:

Code: Select all

(chroot) sysresccd / # grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot
Installing for x86_64-efi platform.
Installation finished. No error reported.
(chroot) sysresccd / # efibootmgr -v
BootCurrent: 000E
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0000,0009,000A,000B,000C,000D,000E
Boot0000* gentoo	HD(1,GPT,24c330a6-b647-4601-b156-c654351dde5e,0x800,0x100000)/File(\EFI\gentoo\grubx64.efi)
Boot0009* Diskette Drive	BBS(Floppy,Diskette Drive,0x0)..BO
Boot000A* TOSHIBA DT01ACA100	BBS(HD,P0: TOSHIBA DT01ACA100        ,0x0)..BO
Boot000B* USB Storage Device	BBS(USB,Flash Drive SM_USB20 1100,0x0)..BO
Boot000C* CD/DVD/CD-RW Drive	BBS(CDROM,P2: PLDS DVD+/-RW DU-8A5LH    ,0x0)..BO
Boot000D  Onboard NIC	BBS(Network,Onboard NIC,0x0)..BO
Boot000E* UEFI: Flash Drive SM_USB20 1100	PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x14,0x0)/USB(0,0)/HD(1,MBR,0x81caa6fb,0x80,0x77f000)..BO

I still get the issue with this.

[charles17]

Here is a clean output from efibootmgr -v before running grub install:

And you haven't done anything to put grub in there.
Once again, read the efibootmgr wiki article!!

Edit:
Stop. Now I see, record Boot0000* has something in it. So that one, when selected from F12 (or how your computer is presenting its boot entries) should do something. Hopefully

[gilxa1226]

Here is a clean output from efibootmgr -v before running grub install:

And you haven't done anything to put grub in there.
Once again, read the efibootmgr wiki article!!

I have read it, I've also followed the handbook (https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Handbook:A ... ult:_GRUB2), which doesn't say anything about using efibootmgr to load up grub properly. So clearly I'm missing something. Does grub-install put the efi record in labeled gentoo, if that wasn't put in correctly then there is either 1) and issue with the way grub-install works, or 2) the need for additional instructions in the Handbook section detailing out using grub to boot the system.

The efibootmgr wiki entryfor creating a boot entry doesn't specify anything specific about grub, I'm guessing running something like this would register grub:

Code: Select all

efibootmgr -c -d /dev/sda -p 1 -L "Gentoo" -l "\efi\boot\bootx64.efi"

if I run that, I get the following:

Code: Select all

root@sysresccd /root % efibootmgr -v
BootCurrent: 000E
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0001,0000,0009,000A,000B,000C,000D,000E
Boot0000* gentoo	VenHw(99e275e7-75a0-4b37-a2e6-c5385e6c00cb)
Boot0001* Gentoo Grub	HD(1,GPT,24c330a6-b647-4601-b156-c654351dde5e,0x800,0x100000)/File(\efi\boot\bootx64.efi)
Boot0009* Diskette Drive	BBS(Floppy,Diskette Drive,0x0)..BO
Boot000A* TOSHIBA DT01ACA100	BBS(HD,P0: TOSHIBA DT01ACA100        ,0x0)..BO
Boot000B* USB Storage Device	BBS(USB,Flash Drive SM_USB20 1100,0x0)..BO
Boot000C* CD/DVD/CD-RW Drive	BBS(CDROM,P2: PLDS DVD+/-RW DU-8A5LH    ,0x0)..BO
Boot000D  Onboard NIC	BBS(Network,Onboard NIC,0x0)..BO
Boot000E* UEFI: Flash Drive SM_USB20 1100	PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x14,0x0)/USB(0,0)/HD(1,MBR,0x4294967291,0x80,0x77f000)..BO

Is that more along the lines of what you are expecting to see?

[charles17]

Is that more along the lines of what you are expecting to see?

Almost. Boot0001* Gentoo Grub looks promising.
Seems grub has some magic for internally running efibootmgr? I don't use it, so I cannot say.
So that boot entry should work, hopefully.

Regarding ESP, it's bad style putting grub stuff into Gentoo directory, see https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/EFI_System ... ard_layout. And having anything in /boot/EFI/boot/ should not be needed (only makes confusion). For grub, best would be like /boot/EFI/grub/grubx64.efi so you can see which boot entry is for which application:

Code: Select all

efibootmgr -v -c -d /dev/sda -p 1 -L "Grub" -l "\EFI\grub\bootx64.efi"

[gilxa1226]

Is that more along the lines of what you are expecting to see?

Almost. Boot0001* Gentoo Grub looks promising.
Seems grub has some magic for internally running efibootmgr? I don't use it, so I cannot say.
So that boot entry should work, hopefully.

Regarding ESP, it's bad style putting grub stuff into Gentoo directory, see https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/EFI_System ... ard_layout. And having anything in /boot/EFI/boot/ should not be needed (only makes confusion). For grub, best would be like /boot/EFI/grub/grubx64.efi so you can see which boot entry is for which application:

Code: Select all

efibootmgr -v -c -d /dev/sda -p 1 -L "Grub" -l "\EFI\grub\bootx64.efi"

Yeah, my entry didn't work, I tried what you put up and nothing, the setup utility can see the files, but it's almost like when it goes to execute things that is when it dies. I think I'm going to install Ubuntu again and document the crap out of what it does and then try to recreate that with Gentoo. If that fails, I'll just fail back to Legacy BIOS boot (but that feels like giving up and not something I've every resorted to with Gentoo since I started in 2001.)

[charles17]

Yeah, my entry didn't work, I tried what you put up and nothing, the setup utility can see the files, but it's almost like when it goes to execute things that is when it dies. I think I'm going to install Ubuntu again and document the crap out of what it does and then try to recreate that with Gentoo. If that fails, I'll just fail back to Legacy BIOS boot (but that feels like giving up and not something I've every resorted to with Gentoo since I started in 2001.)

Did you check if efi vars can be mounted?
I'd like to recommend you trying refind before giving up. That wiki article has been updated to my personal experience altogether with EFI System Partition. So it is well tested.

[gilxa1226]

Yeah, my entry didn't work, I tried what you put up and nothing, the setup utility can see the files, but it's almost like when it goes to execute things that is when it dies. I think I'm going to install Ubuntu again and document the crap out of what it does and then try to recreate that with Gentoo. If that fails, I'll just fail back to Legacy BIOS boot (but that feels like giving up and not something I've every resorted to with Gentoo since I started in 2001.)

Did you check if efi vars can be mounted?
I'd like to recommend you trying refind before giving up. That wiki article has been updated to my personal experience altogether with EFI System Partition. So it is well tested.

Just wanted to follow up, after studying the Ubuntu install, it appears they use a shim efi loader that includes secure boot certs. Other than that I could tell no difference in setup (I have secure boot off, so that should be the issue). So I tried Gentoo again, no luck with Grub, or with a EFI Shim kernel, so I tried rEFInd, and it worked like a charm once I make the fall back loaded following the instructions. I'm now successfully booting Gentoo on UEFI. Thanks for the help.