[arch-general] USB flash installation medium in BIOS machines
Hi, I started working on my old Laptop again, which is a pre-EFI model and needed a live USB medium to do some repartitioning. I copied the current installation ISO to a USB flash. When I try to boot with it, I see the boot menu (which looks like systemd-boot menu) with only options for UEFI boot and EFI shell option. In the wiki it is mentioned, that BIOS boots are available throug syslinux:
Tip: The installation image uses systemd-boot for booting in UEFI mode and syslinux for booting in BIOS mode. [...]
I tried 2 different USB drives and different USB ports. Am I missing something? Cheers, jotz
On 2020-11-02 10:57:02 (+0100), Juergen Werner via arch-general wrote:
I started working on my old Laptop again, which is a pre-EFI model and needed a live USB medium to do some repartitioning. I copied the current installation ISO to a USB flash. When I try to boot with it, I see the boot menu (which looks like systemd-boot menu) with only options for UEFI boot and EFI shell option.
It seems that your hardware does support UEFI, otherwise systemd-boot would not be started. You can check in your BIOS/Firmware. Many older models have both BIOS and UEFI capabilities and usually you can select which should be used. Syslinux will only be used if the hardware does not provide UEFI. Best, David -- https://sleepmap.de
On 02.11.20 11:22, David Runge wrote:
It seems that your hardware does support UEFI, otherwise systemd-boot would not be started.
You can check in your BIOS/Firmware. Many older models have both BIOS and UEFI capabilities and usually you can select which should be used.
I just double checked and I don't see any mentioning of UEFI or CSM in the BIOS settings. I always used legacy BIOS instructions and setup before and it always worked on this machine (Acer Travelmate TM8473T). But I can imagine, that this BIOS is somewhat tainted with EFI, because at that time it was just getting introduced to the general public. I found a Linux Mint forum entry where they describe a similar problem with a relatively recent installation medium on this laptop. [1]
Syslinux will only be used if the hardware does not provide UEFI.
Can I force it somehow? Like by manipulating the image on the flash drive? [1] https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=302868
On 02/11/2020 12.23, Juergen Werner via arch-general wrote:
I just double checked and I don't see any mentioning of UEFI or CSM in the BIOS settings. I always used legacy BIOS instructions and setup before and it always worked on this machine (Acer Travelmate TM8473T).
But I can imagine, that this BIOS is somewhat tainted with EFI, because at that time it was just getting introduced to the general public.
There should be two separate entries in boot menu for booting in UEFI mode and Legacy BIOS mode. What choices do you have if you open boot device menu? Regards, Łukasz
On 02.11.20 15:17, Łukasz Michalski wrote:
There should be two separate entries in boot menu for booting in UEFI mode and Legacy BIOS mode. What choices do you have if you open boot device menu?
There are only my 2 installed hard drives plus a "USB HDD: ..." option. I am very positive that this laptop is legacy BIOS only and that it is somehow wrongly identified as UEFI? I forgot to mention, that once I confirm one of the UEFI boot options in the systemd-boot menu, the screen goes black, the fan speed increases and then stays constant. Nothing happens afterwards and no reaction on (multiple) ctrl-alt-del. Only a long press of the power button releases it from its pain.
There are only my 2 installed hard drives plus a "USB HDD: ..." option. I am very positive that this laptop is legacy BIOS only and that it is somehow wrongly identified as UEFI?
It can't be "wrongly identified as UEFI". If the laptop didn't support UEFI, then you wouldn't even see the systemd-boot menu, because there wouldn't be anything to *load* systemd-boot, or support it running. systemd-boot is designed to exclusively run in the UEFI environment, and it just can not work at all in a BIOS environment.
I see the boot menu (which looks like systemd-boot menu) with only options for UEFI boot and EFI shell option.
-- damjan
Damjan Georgievski via arch-general <arch-general@archlinux.org> wrote:
There are only my 2 installed hard drives plus a "USB HDD: ..." option. I am very positive that this laptop is legacy BIOS only and that it is somehow wrongly identified as UEFI?
It can't be "wrongly identified as UEFI". If the laptop didn't support UEFI, then you wouldn't even see the systemd-boot menu, because there wouldn't be anything to *load* systemd-boot, or support it running. systemd-boot is designed to exclusively run in the UEFI environment, and it just can not work at all in a BIOS environment.
I see the boot menu (which looks like systemd-boot menu) with only options for UEFI boot and EFI shell option.
-- damjan
Have you entered the firmware configuration, or the bios configuration, whatever that is, to see its options? -- u34
On 03/11/2020 10.23, u34@net9.ga wrote:> Have you entered the firmware configuration, or the bios configuration,
whatever that is, to see its options?
I have 2 options for that during POST. Press F2 or Del to go into BIOS configuration and see and reorder the boot devices. This list is a classical BIOS boot device list. The other option is press F12 and select a boot device, without the need to permanently reorder stuff. This is very plain and leaves not much room for interpretation and I tried both. Since there is no (known) option to force the boot mode of the flash drive, I went with Óscars suggestion and created a BIOS-GRUB flash drive to load the ISO as loop device, which went really smooth. I used that method before, when I originally installed Arch on it, but just for the reason that I could have multiple ISOs on a stick without reflashing all the time. That is probably the reason, why I never ran into this problem with the Arch ISO. I came to the conclusion, that my hardware is faulty. Somehow it is capable to start the systemd-boot loader but not the actual UEFI image. And all while not mentioning any EFI capabilities in BIOS settings. Just out of curiosit, does anyone know a way to "ask" the hardware about EFI capabilities, without actually booting through EFI?
Juergen Werner via arch-general <arch-general@archlinux.org> wrote:
On 03/11/2020 10.23, u34@net9.ga wrote:> Have you entered the firmware configuration, or the bios configuration,
whatever that is, to see its options?
I have 2 options for that during POST. Press F2 or Del to go into BIOS configuration and see and reorder the boot devices. This list is a classical BIOS boot device list. The other option is press F12 and
Don't F2, or Del show more complex screens, other than just reorder boot devices?
select a boot device, without the need to permanently reorder stuff. This is very plain and leaves not much room for interpretation and I tried both.
Since there is no (known) option to force the boot mode of the flash drive, I went with ??scars suggestion and created a BIOS-GRUB flash drive to load the ISO as loop device, which went really smooth. I used that method before, when I originally installed Arch on it, but just for the reason that I could have multiple ISOs on a stick without reflashing all the time. That is probably the reason, why I never ran into this problem with the Arch ISO.
Perhaps the problem is that itthe dirmware is looking for an ESP, which can not be found?
I came to the conclusion, that my hardware is faulty. Somehow it is capable to start the systemd-boot loader but not the actual UEFI image. And all while not mentioning any EFI capabilities in BIOS settings.
Well, if it boots systemd-boot, have you tried to configure systemd-boot? Are you aware to the fact that there used to be 32 bits variant of the efi firmware?
Just out of curiosit, does anyone know a way to "ask" the hardware about EFI capabilities, without actually booting through EFI?
I think that if you can start the installation, you might query hardware capabilities. I am referring to https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface#C... . -- u34
On 03.11.2020 15:15, u34@net9.ga wrote:
I have 2 options for that during POST. Press F2 or Del to go into BIOS configuration and see and reorder the boot devices. This list is a classical BIOS boot device list. The other option is press F12 and
Don't F2, or Del show more complex screens, other than just reorder boot devices?
Yes of course. I just didn't want to describe my whole BIOS settings menu, because I thought your question was aimed the boot device selection. There is some unrelated stuff, but like with most consumer laptops it is very rudimentary and narrow, like disable USB or disable Camera or disable Micorphone or ASF configuration...
Perhaps the problem is that itthe dirmware is looking for an ESP, which can not be found?
Shouldn't the ESP be on the Live medium? I never had one on my hard drive, which is a plain MBR partitioned one with no fancy firmware loading stuff... plain old BIOS GRUB setup. Always been.
I came to the conclusion, that my hardware is faulty. Somehow it is capable to start the systemd-boot loader but not the actual UEFI image. And all while not mentioning any EFI capabilities in BIOS settings.
Well, if it boots systemd-boot, have you tried to configure systemd-boot? Are you aware to the fact that there used to be 32 bits variant of the efi firmware?
What do you mean by configure? It is the unchanged archlinux-2020.11.01-x86_64.iso I dd'ed on a stick.
Just out of curiosit, does anyone know a way to "ask" the hardware about EFI capabilities, without actually booting through EFI?
I think that if you can start the installation, you might query hardware capabilities. I am referring to https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface#C... .
I am aware of /sys/firmware/efi, but it only shows up when you actually boot through the EFI, which, as stated, I was never able to. I worked around the problem, so I am good for now. If someone is interested in investigating the problem with that dated hardware I am more than willing to do whatever you need for that. Just mail directly, no need to spam the list any further.
El lun., 2 nov. 2020 a las 10:57, Juergen Werner via arch-general (<arch-general@archlinux.org>) escribió:
I tried 2 different USB drives and different USB ports. Am I missing something?
Hi jotz. I tell you a method to have a Live USB that boots directly from ISO and that can have several ISOs. Let's assume that your USB is /dev/sdX 1. Partition It: sudo fdisk /dev/sdX One DOS partition, press o to new table, n to new partition a enter to end to pick full disk. Set the partition type with t command to c (W95 FAT32 (LBA)) and use a to activate partition. 2. Format as FAT: sudo mkfs.fat -F32 -n MULTIBOOT /dev/sdX1 3. Mount it in /usb (or in any site that you like, in my sample I'm using /usb). sudo mkdir /usb sudo mount /dev/sdX1 /usb 4. Make a boot dir in USB sudo mkdir /usb/boot 5. Install GRUB for BIOS and UEFI (First line is for BIOS and second one for UEFI) sudo grub-install --target=i386-pc --recheck --boot-directory=/usb/boot /dev/sdX sudo grub-install --target x86_64-efi --removable --boot-directory=/usb/boot --efi-directory=/usb 6. Edit grub menu file (/usb/boot/grub/grub.cfg) writ this into it: insmod all_video set gfxpayload=keep submenu "Arch Linux --->" { set isover="2020.11.01" set isoarch="x86_64" set isofile="/iso/archlinux-${isover}-${isoarch}.iso" loopback loop ${isofile} menuentry "Arch Linux ${isover} ${isoarch}" { echo "Using ${isofile}..." probe -u ${root} --set=rootuuid linux (loop)/arch/boot/${isoarch}/vmlinuz-linux img_dev=/dev/disk/by-uuid/${rootuuid} img_loop=${isofile} initrd (loop)/arch/boot/intel-ucode.img (loop)/arch/boot/amd-ucode.img (loop)/arch/boot/${isoarch}/initramfs-linux.img } menuentry "Run Memtest86+ (RAM test)" { echo "Using ${isofile}..." linux16 (loop)/arch/boot/memtest } } 7. Create a /usb/iso directory and copy archlinux-2020.11.01-x86_64.iso into it. 8. Sync and umount sync umount /usb Reboot and enjoy. If you want more entries for the grub menu or have other ISOs in your USB you can see my article about it[1] (it's in Spanish but Google translate makes miracles). Greetings. [1]: https://blog.ogarcia.me/crear-un-usb-multiboot/ -- Óscar García Amor | ogarcia at moire.org | http://ogarcia.me
participants (6)
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Damjan Georgievski
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David Runge
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Juergen Werner
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u34＠net9.ga
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Óscar García Amor
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Łukasz Michalski