Ubuntu 14.04 Boot Order Problems - efibootmgr

Question

Trying to work out boot order at the moment and not sure if I need to some how change this order, i.e.:

I ran the command: sudo efibootmgr -v

BootCurrent: 0001
Timeout: 2 seconds
BootOrder: 0000,2001,2002,2003
Boot0000* Windows Boot Manager  HD(1,800,100000,86a8c8c9-a9fb-4586-b60c-e124e3fdfa94)File(\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi)RC
Boot0001* Unknown Device:   HD(1,800,100000,86a8c8c9-a9fb-4586-b60c-e124e3fdfa94)File(\EFI\ubuntu\shimx64.efi)RC
Boot0002* ubuntu    HD(1,800,100000,86a8c8c9-a9fb-4586-b60c-e124e3fdfa94)File(\EFI\ubuntu\shimx64.efi)
Boot2001* EFI USB Device    RC
Boot2002* EFI DVD/CDROM RC
Boot2003* EFI Network   RC

Based on the above, I assume the BootCurrent: 0001 is set to "Unknown Device"

Do I need to somehow get this changed to 0002, i.e. Boot0002 as at the moment, when I boot up my machine, I have to manually go through 3 steps to eventually have Ubuntu boot up?

If this is the case, how would I go about changing the BootCurrent value to: 0002 as I'm not sure if this is what it should actually be set at?

Thanks.

Answer 1

The BootCurrent value identifies the current boot path; it's descriptive, not a setting that you can alter. (Well, you probably could change it, but doing so would be pointless at best.)

To alter the order in which boot options are tried, you should edit the BootOrder variable, which you do with the -o option to efibootmgr, as in:

sudo efibootmgr -o 2,1,0,2001,2002

This command, given your output, sets the boot order to use the ubuntu entry first, the Unknown Device: entry second, the Windows Boot Manager entry third, and so on.

In the case of the output you posted, though, it looks like the ubuntu and Unknown Device: entries are identical except for their descriptions, so changing would have no effect (unless I've missed some detail or a detail is being hidden by efibootmgr, both of which are possibilities).

In a previous question of yours, you posted a link to Boot Info Script output that included a different efibootmgr run, which I reproduce here:

BootCurrent: 0001
Timeout: 2 seconds
BootOrder: 0002,2001,2002,2003
Boot0000* Unknown Device:   HD(1,800,100000,aa8f4a18-e5fc-41ff-bb2d-826eab7312c9)File(EFIubuntushimx64.efi)RC
Boot0001* USB HDD: SanDisk Cruzer Facet ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(14,0)USB(2,0)USB(1,0)HD(1,20,ee8be0,01a86199)RC
Boot0002* ubuntu    HD(1,800,100000,86a8c8c9-a9fb-4586-b60c-e124e3fdfa94)File(EFIubuntushimx64.efi)
Boot2001* EFI USB Device    RC
Boot2002* EFI DVD/CDROM RC
Boot2003* EFI Network   RC

This output is different from what you posted in the current question in that the Unknown Device: entry references a different disk partition -- aa8f4a18-e5fc-41ff-bb2d-826eab7312c9 vs. 86a8c8c9-a9fb-4586-b60c-e124e3fdfa94. This made me think that you might have another copy of Shim stashed away on another partition, and that only one of those copies of Shim was working for you. You may need to check your partition table, locate that second copy of Shim, and figure out which one is working in order to proceed with a repair.

Incidentally, those partition identifiers are GUIDs associated with the partitions. You can identify the GUIDs of partitions with gdisk's i option or sgdisk, as in:

$ sudo sgdisk -i 2 /dev/sda
Partition GUID code: C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B (EFI System)
Partition unique GUID: 6E49FCAF-D054-47C9-BA69-A668C5EE8192
First sector: 3072 (at 1.5 MiB)
Last sector: 1133567 (at 553.5 MiB)
Partition size: 1130496 sectors (552.0 MiB)
Attribute flags: 0000000000000000
Partition name: 'EFI System'

The value of interest here is the Partition unique GUID: -- 6E49FCAF-D054-47C9-BA69-A668C5EE8192 in this case. Note that this matches the GUID displayed by efibootmgr on the same computer:

$ sudo efibootmgr -v
BootCurrent: 0000
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0000
Boot0000* rEFInd (direct)   HD(2,c00,114000,6e49fcaf-d054-47c9-ba69-a668c5ee8192)File(\EFI\refind\refind_x64.efi)
Boot0004* UEFI: Built-in EFI Shell  Vendor(5023b95c-db26-429b-a648-bd47664c8012,)..BO

In my case, rEFInd is the default boot program, and it's stored on /dev/sda2 (6e49fcaf-d054-47c9-ba69-a668c5ee8192 -- note that GUIDs are shown as hexadecimal numbers with punctuation; they're case-insensitive).

Scan through your partitions looking for the one with a partition unique GUID code of aa8f4a18-e5fc-41ff-bb2d-826eab7312c9 to find your mystery partition and that suspected second instance of Shim. OTOH, it could be that your previous output was showing some long-gone copy of Shim from a previous installation, so it might no longer be valid and I might be sending you on a wild goose chase. If so, my apologies.