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I have an Impish system that cannot boot in EFI mode but CSM/BIOS/Legacy compatibility only due to some firmware setup issues (CAN'T SAVE ANY SETTINGS). However, I have 3 OSes on this GPT drive as you can see below. I am trying to understand :) my system and I found very valuable resources from this community for instance ''EFI boot partition'' and ''biosgrub'' partition.

or this with @oldfred: Legacy boot only available

I ended up on this scenario after I reinstalled Impish and at the end of the installation failed to install grub on /dev/sda. I tried to create a small boot partition with bios_grub flag on the first sector but failed. Before that, I moved to ubuntu fs (sda1) to make room for this new (sda9) partition. I knew that should be unformatted but I think only ext4 has been accepted. I am not remembering exactly what I did, but it boots OK now just don't understand how. Only Rod S will know that :)

My question is how does this system boot since the bios_grub flag partition is not what is supposed to be: grub2core.img.

enter image description here

root@zika:/etc/apache2# efibootmgr
EFI variables are not supported on this system.
root@zika:/etc/apache2# efivar -l
efivar: error listing variables: Function not implemented
root@zika:/etc/apache2# root@zika:/boot/grub/x86_64-efi# ll
total 300
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root  12288 Jan 31 17:39 ./
drwxr-xr-x 7 root root   4096 Jan 31 20:44 ../
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 143360 Jan 31 17:39 core.efi
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 143360 Jan 31 17:39 grub.efi
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root     98 Jan 31 17:39 load.cfg
Brad Thompson
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    Your bios_grub must be unformatted, not ext4. But you are showing an ESP, and if drive is gpt, then Windows only boots in UEFI mode. So then you should install Ubuntu in UEFI mode. What is issue with UEFI? And what brand/model system. Some do need extra settings. But if you always want to boot from UEFI boot menu, not grub you can have Ubuntu in BIOS mode & Windows in UEFI mode. UEFI & BIOS are not compatible or once you start booting you cannot change. Or a BIOS grub cannot offer to dual boot UEFI Windows. – oldfred Feb 03 '22 at 20:01
  • BIOS setup issues (CAN'T SAVE SETTINGS) – Brad Thompson Feb 03 '22 at 20:22
  • How to install ubuntu in UEFI mode when my machine starts in Legacy? – Brad Thompson Feb 03 '22 at 20:26
  • What brand/model? Some require you to set UEFI password (never lose that or reset to blank when done). Some like Acer require control S to get to extra settings. Many also need UEFI update to latest available and many with SSD need SSD firmware update. My Samsung NVMe drive had a separate bootable ISO with latest update. – oldfred Feb 03 '22 at 20:26
  • HP15 and BIOS F.18 – Brad Thompson Feb 03 '22 at 20:38
  • @oldfred can be an option instead reinstall ubuntu to install grub in efi mode on the same esp partition along W10? efibootmgr output: EFI variables are not supported on this system. – Brad Thompson Feb 03 '22 at 20:52
  • You clearly have broken your EFI partition, depending on the scenarios it's possible or not to reinstall. The problem I think is you mixed UEFI with BIOS, that's one reason for the conflicts between OSes. To configure your BIOS sometimes you have to set a "security password" BUT BEWARE TO NOT FORGET THAT PASSWORD. Once the password is set it will be allowed to change settings inside that BIOS. – Satoshi Nakamoto Feb 03 '22 at 21:53
  • Found that error on other systems. You may need to install efivars. https://itectec.com/unixlinux/efi-variables-are-not-supported-on-this-system/ Which should be available if in UEFI boot mode. – oldfred Feb 04 '22 at 03:55
  • @Type-O do not confuse my actual issue with old issues. I do not have EFI on ubuntu partition. – Brad Thompson Feb 04 '22 at 15:33
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    Just going to make a point but if your system doesn't let you save BIOS options you're going to be extremely limited with how you can get everything booting properly and working. Legacy or UEFI modes are enforced by BIOS. if the BIOS won't let you save the UEFI or Legacy MBR mode settings, then you need to start by handling that part which will require you to go to HP for support to repair the BIOS problems first. – Thomas Ward Feb 04 '22 at 15:42
  • @Thomas Ward thank you for confirming what I knew for almost 6 years. And yes HP support is 'ZERO' as expected if you do not buy the extended warranty, In fact, this is a 2014 purchase so what would expect? – Brad Thompson Feb 07 '22 at 14:48
  • I can enter to BIOS but I can not save any changes. I tried to upgrade but failed. It is a HP14 but this is another story. Now the question is how come I am able to boot when bios_grub partition is empty? – Brad Thompson Feb 07 '22 at 14:51
  • @Tyþë-Ø if you do not mind I will like to explore the option you suggested previously. I mean BIOS "security password" – Brad Thompson Feb 07 '22 at 15:03
  • /dev/sda3 "EFI system partition" -- it's ridiculous you telling me that you don't have an EFI partition, sure it explains why it doesn't work, there's even an error sign beside. Since I already successfully booted 300 machines in my previous experiences, I strictly recommend that you FIX your EFI partition. It simply will never work without it. – Satoshi Nakamoto Feb 08 '22 at 09:48
  • You have to set a password for the administrator of BIOS not simply put a user password. – Satoshi Nakamoto Feb 08 '22 at 09:50
  • Now that I read your post carefully and completely, I have seen many mistakes there. Since you cannot change BIOS settings (and you need to know for sure that you can). You tried to install UEFI OS into a CMS BIOS (notice that CMS/BIOS are not the same as the old BIOS legacy). You left broken partitions like unrecognized EFI. You have assign flag for a partition which you're not supposed to do(the system is the only who should do that automatically) which will lead to breaking other OSes. Make a full backup, erase your full partition using Gparted and make sure you re-install EFI at beginning – Satoshi Nakamoto Feb 08 '22 at 10:03
  • do you know why I have an EFI partition in my present settings? – Brad Thompson Feb 08 '22 at 15:26
  • let's say I assigned an admin password in firmware settings. The next step is to save and exit. But my firmware does not save ANY settings. How this will solve? – Brad Thompson Feb 08 '22 at 15:29
  • I am still not getting an answer to my question: How does this system boot? I am not interested to find how many mistakes are in partitioning my HDD because I know there are a few or how to fix them because in this present machine state not much can be done without compromising other OSs. – Brad Thompson Feb 09 '22 at 01:52
  • Let us continue this discussion in chat. – Brad Thompson Feb 09 '22 at 01:53

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