0

I am attempting to UEFI secure boot boot from a new installation of Ubuntu 17.04 desktop. UEFI is reporting that there is no bootable disk on the system or that the boot disk is damaged.

Hardware Configuration

  • HP Pavillion P7-1080la 16GB memory
  • Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600 CPU @ 3.40GHz
  • /dev/sda KINGSTON SVP200S3120G (501ABBF0) 120GB SSD
  • /dev/sdb WDC WD20EARS-60MVWB0 (51.0AB51) 2.0TB

Partitioning using GPT

/dev/sda1 ESD Partition 400MiB
/dev/sda2 System Partition 25GiB
/dev/sda3 Home Partition 90GiB

/dev/sda is zeroed before installation with dd the partition table is created with gdisk and the partitions are created with gparted.

/dev/sdb is not used during installation.

Installation

Installation is performed using the "other" option for partitioning and the root directory / is assigned to /dev/sda2. Installation is then performed normally.

Troubleshooting

Installation is performed normally and on reboot I enter the BIOS to verify the boot order. The entry from BOOT000 named ubuntu shows up as the only UEFI boot drive. However when I let the boot proceed UEFI reports that there is no boot drive or that the drive is damaged.

When I reboot using a LiveUsb I invoke the disk check option from the Grub2 menu and it reports a clean bill of health.

After reboot I check /dev/sda1 with fsck.fat and /dev/sda2 with fsck.ext4 and both report everything OK. I then run the "verify" option in gdisk and it also reports everything OK. I have run boot-repair with the option to produce a report which can be found at https://pastebin.com/rKbrBe8j.

I have tried 3 flavors of Ubuntu with the same result:

  • Ubuntu 17.04 Desktop 64 bit
  • Ubuntu 16.04 Desktop 64 bit
  • Ubuntu-Gnome 16.04.3 Desktop 64 bit

I have also tried a system installation using LVM as well as a normal installation. I have tried with a separate boot partition and with a normal system partition.

I have also tried running the recommended repair operation with boot-repair.

This system has been running Ubuntu since early 2012 without problems up to two weeks ago. It will boot from either of two UEFI pendrives, one created as a GPT UEFI system and the other a standard legacy BIOS boot pendrive.

From what I can see I have one of two problems:

  • There is something wrong with the installed system that is confusing the first stage Grub2 loader shimx64.efi. However no diagnostics of any kind are issued.
  • UEFI has a problem handling something in the system layout.
  • UEFI has a bug.

I bought this machine in Feb. 2012 so it has a very early version of the UEFI firmware. For example it has no way to disable secure boot. It originally came with Windows 8 pre-installed and I ran it dual booted for a while before getting rid of Windows.

Based on a comment I have tried the following three suggestions

  • Added a "Windows Boot Manager" EFI boot entry pointing to ubuntu/shimx64.efi.
  • Created a EFI/boot directory on the ESD with a copy of the EFI/ubuntu directory.
  • Installed Refind.

Unfortunately none of these suggestions made the boot volume visible.

I followed Rod Smith's suggestion to use the advanced repair capabilities of boot-repair but I got the same result as always. Unable to find a boot volume. The bootinfo log is at https://pastebin.com/xRJBb5kx.

What should be my next troubleshooting steps as I have tried everything I know of?

Jonathan
  • 1,280
  • 2
    HP violates UEFI spec. Only valid UEFI entry is "Windows Boot Manager". But several work arounds. I might do both set up the fallback /EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi as copy of shimx64.efi. And create a new entry that says "Windows Boot Manager" but really uses /EFI/ubuntu/shimx64. efi to boot. They check description but not actual boot file.Sony, HP & others: http://askubuntu.com/questions/486752/dual-boot-win-8-ubuntu-loads-only-win/486789#486789 Boot-Repair automatically does copy with 'use standard EFI file': http://askubuntu.com/questions/582073/dual-boot-but-only-windows-boots/582114#582114 – oldfred Aug 13 '17 at 01:14
  • @oldfred Thanks for these suggestions. I tried the three that made sense for a system that does not need to boot Windows, unfortunately without success. – Jonathan Aug 13 '17 at 21:28
  • To clarify, have you tried the Boot Repair tool with its option (on its advanced tab) to back up and rename files? That's likely (but not certain) to fix the problem -- or at least to work around it. – Rod Smith Aug 13 '17 at 21:32
  • I think many HP have an UEFI entry to boot fallback or hard drive, which is then the /EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi in the ESP. But some may not and then you have to add a boot entry into UEFI for the hard drive. Not exactly sure what description then works. – oldfred Aug 13 '17 at 22:21
  • @RodSmith Boot-repair finally terminated and the bootinfo log has been posted in the main text. It did not work and had the major consequence that my kernel was downgraded from 4.10.0-28 to 4.4.0-91 which is a large drop. – Jonathan Aug 14 '17 at 01:09
  • Your boot-repair report shows the name "ubuntu" instead of "Windows Boot Manager" It makes no sense, but for HP, you have to change that name for it to work. – ubfan1 Aug 14 '17 at 04:16
  • I removed the Windows Boot Manager boot entry after finding that it did not help. – Jonathan Aug 14 '17 at 07:18

0 Answers0