Dear Fedora Experts, I' ve recently bought a new Dell Precision m6800 and today I was trying to install Fedora 23 in dual boot with windows 7 (this was the OS originally on the machine).
I' ve run the installer from the live CD and after a couple of wrong attempts I successfully finished the installation process without errors or at least apparently without errors.
I' ve restarted the machine I got into the following error message:
*file "/boot/grub2/i386-pc/normal.mod" NOT FOUND grub rescue>*
neither windows nor fedora boot.
Booting again from the live cd I got that ever the partition are there:
Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type /dev/sda1 63 80324 80262 39.2M de Dell Utility /dev/sda2 * 81920 25710591 25628672 12.2G 27 Hidden NTFS WinRE /dev/sda3 25710592 201408511 175697920 83.8G 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda4 201408512 1953523711 1752115200 835.5G 5 Extended /dev/sda5 201410560 202776575 1366016 667M 83 Linux /dev/sda6 202778624 307636223 104857600 50G 83 Linux /dev/sda7 307638272 341192703 33554432 16G 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sda8 341194752 351680511 10485760 5G 83 Linux /dev/sda9 351682560 360071167 8388608 4G 83 Linux /dev/sda10 360073216 368461823 8388608 4G 83 Linux /dev/sda11 368463872 371609599 3145728 1.5G 6 FAT16 /dev/sda12 371611648 1953523711 1581912064 754.3G 83 Linux
where sda1-3 are the original windows partitions, sda5 is /boot and sda6 is /
I' ve mounted the /boot partition and inside grub2 there is not i386-pc dir nor the normal.mod file. I' ve tried to manually copy /usr/lib/grub/i386-pc/normal.mod into /boot/grub2 but the only difference I got is that the boot is stucked on
grub>
So what I have to do to fix the situation and be able to run both windows and linux?
thank you in advance for your help.
Walter --
On 12/23/2015 01:23 AM, Walter Cazzola wrote:
Dear Fedora Experts, I' ve recently bought a new Dell Precision m6800 and today I was trying to install Fedora 23 in dual boot with windows 7 (this was the OS originally on the machine).
I' ve run the installer from the live CD and after a couple of wrong attempts I successfully finished the installation process without errors or at least apparently without errors.
I' ve restarted the machine I got into the following error message:
*file "/boot/grub2/i386-pc/normal.mod" NOT FOUND grub rescue>*
neither windows nor fedora boot.
Booting again from the live cd I got that ever the partition are there:
Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type /dev/sda1 63 80324 80262 39.2M de Dell Utility /dev/sda2 * 81920 25710591 25628672 12.2G 27 Hidden NTFS WinRE /dev/sda3 25710592 201408511 175697920 83.8G 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda4 201408512 1953523711 1752115200 835.5G 5 Extended /dev/sda5 201410560 202776575 1366016 667M 83 Linux /dev/sda6 202778624 307636223 104857600 50G 83 Linux /dev/sda7 307638272 341192703 33554432 16G 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sda8 341194752 351680511 10485760 5G 83 Linux /dev/sda9 351682560 360071167 8388608 4G 83 Linux /dev/sda10 360073216 368461823 8388608 4G 83 Linux /dev/sda11 368463872 371609599 3145728 1.5G 6 FAT16 /dev/sda12 371611648 1953523711 1581912064 754.3G 83 Linux
where sda1-3 are the original windows partitions, sda5 is /boot and sda6 is /
I' ve mounted the /boot partition and inside grub2 there is not i386-pc dir nor the normal.mod file. I' ve tried to manually copy /usr/lib/grub/i386-pc/normal.mod into /boot/grub2 but the only difference I got is that the boot is stucked on
grub>
Hi Why an extended partitition? It should a gpt partitioning with efi. Your 'Dell Precision m6800' uses uefi but you have not any efi partition http://www.manualslib.com/manual/563583/Dell-Precision-M6800.html?page=58 For me, your install is wrong. First, You have to disable uefi secure boot in your bios, then install F23. Installer has to detect an efi partition like '/boot/efi'
On Wed, Dec 23, 2015 at 4:32 AM, maderios maderios@gmail.com wrote:
Why an extended partitition? It should a gpt partitioning with efi.
Nope, Windows 7 pre-installed. Dell enabled the CSM on those systems. So it's got the faux-BIOS enabled and thus MBR is required. Windows 7 did support UEFI but it was crap so many vendors just opt to have the CSM enabled.
Ideally he'd try to get a Windows 8.1 upgrade for free (?) and then disable the CSM, sometimes perversely in the UI it's an option to "enable UEFI" as if it's even possible to disable it.
Your
'Dell Precision m6800' uses uefi but you have not any efi partition http://www.manualslib.com/manual/563583/Dell-Precision-M6800.html?page=58 For me, your install is wrong. First, You have to disable uefi secure boot in your bios, then install F23. Installer has to detect an efi partition like '/boot/efi'
OK please definitely stop suggesting people disable UEFI Secure Boot, it's bad advice and it's not necessary, Fedora supports Secure Boot just fine. On any system that has Secure Boot enabled with Windows on it, *especially* this is bad advice as it exposes the user unnecessarily to bootloader malware and that's not good. It's a huge PITA to get rid of those.
On 12/24/2015 10:33 PM, Chris Murphy wrote:
Your
'Dell Precision m6800' uses uefi but you have not any efi partition http://www.manualslib.com/manual/563583/Dell-Precision-M6800.html?page=58 For me, your install is wrong. First, You have to disable uefi secure boot in your bios, then install F23. Installer has to detect an efi partition like '/boot/efi'
OK please definitely stop suggesting people disable UEFI Secure Boot, it's bad advice and it's not necessary, Fedora supports Secure Boot just fine. On any system that has Secure Boot enabled with Windows on it, *especially* this is bad advice as it exposes the user unnecessarily to bootloader malware and that's not good. It's a huge PITA to get rid of those.
'Secure boot' is just a windows problem. In Linux world, nobody uses 'Secure Boot'. In Windows world, they need it and they use it because Windows system is 'natively' insecured.
On Thu, Dec 24, 2015 at 3:50 PM, maderios maderios@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/24/2015 10:33 PM, Chris Murphy wrote:
Your
'Dell Precision m6800' uses uefi but you have not any efi partition http://www.manualslib.com/manual/563583/Dell-Precision-M6800.html?page=58 For me, your install is wrong. First, You have to disable uefi secure boot in your bios, then install F23. Installer has to detect an efi partition like '/boot/efi'
OK please definitely stop suggesting people disable UEFI Secure Boot, it's bad advice and it's not necessary, Fedora supports Secure Boot just fine. On any system that has Secure Boot enabled with Windows on it, *especially* this is bad advice as it exposes the user unnecessarily to bootloader malware and that's not good. It's a huge PITA to get rid of those.
'Secure boot' is just a windows problem. In Linux world, nobody uses 'Secure Boot'. In Windows world, they need it and they use it because Windows system is 'natively' insecured.
1. The OP says he's using Windows. And your advice for this Windows user, was the disable Secure Boot. It's bad advice.
2. It's completely asinine to assert "nobody uses" Secure Boot in the Linux world. Considering every new Windows 8+ preloaded computer has Secure Boot enabled, and most every Linux distro supports Secure Boot out of the box, it's just factually wrong to assert that no Linux users use it. Of course they are. Tens of thousands are.
3. Bootloader malware takes control in the pre-boot environment. That's what Secure Boot is designed to protect against. It hardly matters how the system is infected. What matters is prevention and what you're proposing is that people disable being protected against it. And that's bad advice.
Allegedly, on or about 24 December 2015, Chris Murphy sent:
What matters is prevention and what you're proposing is that people disable being protected against it. And that's bad advice.
I tend to view such hazardous advice with more than just suspicion that the person doesn't fully appreciate the situation, I'm concerned that they might be a black hat trying to make it easier for their mates.
I think, that as a matter of security, you have to be suspicious of "turn off your firewall/malware-protection/etc.," advice, as coming from someone with ulterior motives, or coming from someone who's been unwittingly conditioned by those with ulterior motives.
On Thu, Dec 24, 2015 at 2:50 PM, maderios maderios@gmail.com wrote:
'Secure boot' is just a windows problem. In Linux world, nobody uses 'Secure Boot'. In Windows world, they need it and they use it because Windows system is 'natively' insecured.
Nonsense. Secure Boot secures Linux systems against rootkits, as well, by prohibiting unsigned content in kernel mode.
On 12/25/2015 10:00 PM, Gordon Messmer wrote:
On Thu, Dec 24, 2015 at 2:50 PM, maderios maderios@gmail.com wrote:
'Secure boot' is just a windows problem. In Linux world, nobody uses 'Secure Boot'. In Windows world, they need it and they use it because Windows system is 'natively' insecured.
Nonsense. Secure Boot secures Linux systems against rootkits, as well, by prohibiting unsigned content
Its' Redhat point of view... I'm not specialist but, historically, I know Redhat dev asked Linus Torvalds patch kernel with 'secure boot' Linus Torvalds answer (2013): http://www.pcworld.com/article/2029542/linus-torvalds-speaks-out-with-a-secu... http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/02/linus-torvalds-i-will-... http://www.networkworld.com/article/2224184/microsoft-subnet/microsoft-s-sec...
On 12/25/2015 01:29 PM, maderios wrote:
Its' Redhat point of view... I'm not specialist but, historically, I know Redhat dev asked Linus Torvalds patch kernel with 'secure boot'
It's an interesting historical footnote, but I don't think you (or the authors of those articles) understand the pull request or Linus' response. At the time of that pull request, Linux had supported Secure Boot for some time already. The pull request added a mechanism for importing new keys. So, it's not particularly relevant to the question of whether or not to use Secure Boot.
On Fri, Dec 25, 2015 at 2:29 PM, maderios maderios@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/25/2015 10:00 PM, Gordon Messmer wrote:
On Thu, Dec 24, 2015 at 2:50 PM, maderios maderios@gmail.com wrote:
'Secure boot' is just a windows problem. In Linux world, nobody uses 'Secure Boot'. In Windows world, they need it and they use it because Windows system is 'natively' insecured.
Nonsense. Secure Boot secures Linux systems against rootkits, as well, by prohibiting unsigned content
Its' Redhat point of view... I'm not specialist but, historically, I know Redhat dev asked Linus Torvalds patch kernel with 'secure boot' Linus Torvalds answer (2013):
You need to read the whole thread. It wasn't about just secure boot yes or no in general. It had to do with enabling the use of keys in PEs instead of only depending on X509 support in the kernel: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1445369/focus=1445405
and
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1445369/focus=1445405
Are good summaries.
On Sat, Dec 26, 2015 at 3:26 PM, Chris Murphy lists@colorremedies.com wrote:
On Fri, Dec 25, 2015 at 2:29 PM, maderios maderios@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/25/2015 10:00 PM, Gordon Messmer wrote:
On Thu, Dec 24, 2015 at 2:50 PM, maderios maderios@gmail.com wrote:
'Secure boot' is just a windows problem. In Linux world, nobody uses 'Secure Boot'. In Windows world, they need it and they use it because Windows system is 'natively' insecured.
Nonsense. Secure Boot secures Linux systems against rootkits, as well, by prohibiting unsigned content
Its' Redhat point of view... I'm not specialist but, historically, I know Redhat dev asked Linus Torvalds patch kernel with 'secure boot' Linus Torvalds answer (2013):
You need to read the whole thread. It wasn't about just secure boot yes or no in general. It had to do with enabling the use of keys in PEs instead of only depending on X509 support in the kernel: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1445369/focus=1445405
and
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1445369/focus=1445405
Are good summaries.
Oops. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1445516
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1447326
and
On Tue, Dec 22, 2015 at 5:23 PM, Walter Cazzola cazzola@di.unimi.it wrote:
Dear Fedora Experts, I' ve recently bought a new Dell Precision m6800 and today I was trying to install Fedora 23 in dual boot with windows 7 (this was the OS originally on the machine).
I' ve run the installer from the live CD and after a couple of wrong attempts I successfully finished the installation process without errors or at least apparently without errors.
I' ve restarted the machine I got into the following error message:
file "/boot/grub2/i386-pc/normal.mod" NOT FOUND grub rescue>
That is a bootloader file, and it's a binary that's only ever found on computers with BIOS firmware. On computers with UEFI firmware, it's not needed.
So if this m6800 has UEFI, it must have legacy boot enabled... oh hell.
neither windows nor fedora boot.
Booting again from the live cd I got that ever the partition are there:
Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type /dev/sda1 63 80324 80262 39.2M de Dell Utility
This is a huge red flag. Can you boot off live media, connect to wifi if supported out of the box, or plug in an ethernet cable and run:
# parted /dev/sda u s p > parted.txt # fpaste parted.txt
And you'll get a URL you can post. Like this: http://ur1.ca/ocxjd
I want to know if this is GPT or MBR and what the physical sector size is, because LBA 63 on a 512e AF drive is bad news performance wise and some companies did do this for a while including Dell and it's just... really f'n annoyingly incompetent. I do have a work around that's rather tedious but we get to that later.
If you're feeling brave, it's semi worthwhile poking around the firmware setup (probably F2) to see if you can find the words Secure Boot. I'm curious if this firmware supports it or not. Don't change the setting, I just want to know if you can find it or not.
/dev/sda2 * 81920 25710591 25628672 12.2G 27 Hidden NTFS WinRE /dev/sda3 25710592 201408511 175697920 83.8G 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda4 201408512 1953523711 1752115200 835.5G 5 Extended /dev/sda5 201410560 202776575 1366016 667M 83 Linux /dev/sda6 202778624 307636223 104857600 50G 83 Linux /dev/sda7 307638272 341192703 33554432 16G 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sda8 341194752 351680511 10485760 5G 83 Linux /dev/sda9 351682560 360071167 8388608 4G 83 Linux /dev/sda10 360073216 368461823 8388608 4G 83 Linux /dev/sda11 368463872 371609599 3145728 1.5G 6 FAT16 /dev/sda12 371611648 1953523711 1581912064 754.3G 83 Linux
where sda1-3 are the original windows partitions, sda5 is /boot and sda6 is /
I' ve mounted the /boot partition and inside grub2 there is not i386-pc dir nor the normal.mod file. I' ve tried to manually copy /usr/lib/grub/i386-pc/normal.mod into /boot/grub2 but the only difference I got is that the boot is stucked on
grub>
So what I have to do to fix the situation and be able to run both windows and linux?
The easiest way to fix this and not change anything or reinstall? Is to download netinstall media, ~400MB download. And change the boot parameter line (use the tab key to show the boot param line at the boot menu) and add at the end, inst.rescue. Choose the default option in each, it should find all the parts of the system and assemble them at /mnt/sysimage. Then you can do:
# chroot /mnt/sysimage # grub2-install /dev/sda5 --force # grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
And then reboot. What I'm virtually certain has happened is because partition 1 starts at LBA 63, and because Fedora defaults to using LVM, the GRUB core.img is too big to be embedded in the MBR gap. And therefore the installation of the bootloader actually failed during the OS install.
Installing the bootloader by embedding to the VBR of /dev/sda5 is suboptimal and not recommended by GRUB upstream, but it is supported with --force which is what that command above will do. And it should be pretty stable. And if it works, then you're done.
-
Chris Murphy -
Gordon Messmer -
maderios -
Tim -
Walter Cazzola