New f29 install, windows 10 not detected / grub2-editenv nit

[Richard Shaw]

My son recently built his own computer and still needs Windows 10 for some
games so when get got a new 2TB HD he installed Windows.

This weekend I walked him through installing Fedora. We resized the NTFS
partition and grabbed about 500GB for Fedora. The installation went
smoothly.

Upon reboot there was no GRUB menu. I know it's supposed to be hidden by
default but not if there are multiple OS's installed.

First nit... I wanted to turn off the hidden menu. I knew from a previous
list email and BZ that you shouldn't edit grubenv directly so I tried to do
it what I thought was the RIGHT way...

When I tried the logical way

# grub2-editenv set menu_auto_hide=0

I got an error. I thought it was odd but after looking at --help the
command goes at the end so I did:

# grub2-editenv menu_auto_hide=0 set
(no error)
# grub2-editenv create

Now the grubenv only contains hashes. All the options are gone. Looking
here:

https://hansdegoede.livejournal.com/19081.html

Apparently if you don't want to specify the filename you need to use "-",
so:

# grub2-editenv - set menu_auto_hide=0

Next the bigger problem:

I tried running grub2-mkconfig into a temporary file and OS prober is not
finding the Windows installation.

Going to check if both are booting UEFI or not... Could be the problem.

Thanks,
Richard

[Richard Shaw]

Following up on Windows 10 not being detected I have a strange (to me)
issue...

Windows 10 created an EFI partition

Fedora did a EFI install but DID NOT install the EFI data to the EFI
partition that Windows created and DID NOT create one of its own. The
Fedora EFI files are installed to the plain /boot partition.

Now I will say this is a somewhat older computer and has pretty early EFI
support (EFI Ready). There's no configurable EFI options in the BIOS other
than for CD/DVD booting.

Thoughts?

Do I just need to add a manual option and chainload Win10?

Thanks,
Richard

[Hans de Goede]

Hi,

On 09-01-19 15:11, Richard Shaw wrote:
>  Following up on Windows 10 not being detected I have a strange (to
> me) issue...
>  
>  Windows 10 created an EFI partition
>  
>  Fedora did a EFI install but DID NOT install the EFI data to the EFI partition that
> Windows created and DID NOT create one of its own. The Fedora EFI files are installed to
> the plain /boot partition.
>  
>  Now I will say this is a somewhat older computer and has pretty early EFI support (EFI
> Ready). There's no configurable EFI options in the BIOS other than for CD/DVD
> booting.
>  
>  Thoughts? 
I believe this means that Fedora did not recognize your machine as using UEFI
and is using classic BIOS boot instead. When you installed Fedora and
booted from a CD or USB stick, you likely got the option to either boot
Fedora in classic BIOS mode (probably marked in your BIOS boot menu as just "USB
storage"
or some such) and to boot it in UEFI mode (marked with EFI in the name somewhere),
I think you probably picked the classic option, causing Fedora to do
a classic install.

Since you are getting what is most likely a classic BIOS grub version now
when booting now your BIOS likely remembered that you booted in classic mode
the last time and stuck with that.

If Windows 10 expects to be loaded through UEFI then chainloading won't work.
Take a look in your BIOS if you can turn EFI mode on, or try hitting F12 / F8
(or some such) to get your BIOS boot menu. Probably you can choose between
UEFI and classic booting your harddisk.

If you've not customized Fedora a lot yet, it is probably best to
re-install Fedora and make sure you pick the UEFI boot option this time.

Regards,

Hans

[Richard Shaw]

On Wed, Jan 9, 2019 at 8:57 AM Hans de Goede <hdegoede(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:

>  Hi,
>
>  On 09-01-19 15:11, Richard Shaw wrote:
>  > Following up on Windows 10 not being detected I have a strange (to me)
>  issue...
>  >
>  > Windows 10 created an EFI partition
>  >
>  > Fedora did a EFI install but DID NOT install the EFI data to the EFI
>  partition that Windows created and DID NOT create one of its own. The
>  Fedora EFI files are installed to the plain /boot partition.
>  >
>  > Now I will say this is a somewhat older computer and has pretty early
>  EFI support (EFI Ready). There's no configurable EFI options in the BIOS
>  other than for CD/DVD booting.
>  >
>  > Thoughts?
>
>  I believe this means that Fedora did not recognize your machine as using
>  UEFI
>  and is using classic BIOS boot instead. When you installed Fedora and
>  booted from a CD or USB stick, you likely got the option to either boot
>  Fedora in classic BIOS mode (probably marked in your BIOS boot menu as
>  just "USB storage"
>  or some such) and to boot it in UEFI mode (marked with EFI in the name
>  somewhere),
>  I think you probably picked the classic option, causing Fedora to do
>  a classic install.
>  
Ok... I thought the presence of /boot/efi/EFI meant it was booting UEFI but
I checked my MythTV system which hasn't seen a fresh install since 2012 and
it has those directories as well. It does have BIOS_BOOT since the main HD
is gpt partitioned.



>  Since you are getting what is most likely a classic BIOS grub version
> now
>  when booting now your BIOS likely remembered that you booted in classic
>  mode
>  the last time and stuck with that.
>
>  If Windows 10 expects to be loaded through UEFI then chainloading won't
>  work.
>  Take a look in your BIOS if you can turn EFI mode on, or try hitting F12 /
>  F8
>  (or some such) to get your BIOS boot menu. Probably you can choose between
>  UEFI and classic booting your harddisk.
>  
I'll double check but it treats the USB has a hard disk and I don't recall
seeing a EFI option. The ONLY option related to EFI in the BIOS is for
CD/DVD devices which is set, hence Win10 getting installed EFI using the
disc. I may have to actually burn the ISO to disk to get it to boot in UEFI
mode.

Thanks,
Richard

[Hans de Goede]

Hi,

On 09-01-19 16:10, Richard Shaw wrote:
>  On Wed, Jan 9, 2019 at 8:57 AM Hans de Goede <hdegoede(a)redhat.com
> <mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
>  
>      Hi,
>  
>      On 09-01-19 15:11, Richard Shaw wrote:
>       > Following up on Windows 10 not being detected I have a strange (to me)
> issue...
>       >
>       > Windows 10 created an EFI partition
>       >
>       > Fedora did a EFI install but DID NOT install the EFI data to the EFI partition
> that Windows created and DID NOT create one of its own. The Fedora EFI files are installed
> to the plain /boot partition.
>       >
>       > Now I will say this is a somewhat older computer and has pretty early EFI
> support (EFI Ready). There's no configurable EFI options in the BIOS other than for
> CD/DVD booting.
>       >
>       > Thoughts?
>  
>      I believe this means that Fedora did not recognize your machine as using UEFI
>      and is using classic BIOS boot instead. When you installed Fedora and
>      booted from a CD or USB stick, you likely got the option to either boot
>      Fedora in classic BIOS mode (probably marked in your BIOS boot menu as just "USB
> storage"
>      or some such) and to boot it in UEFI mode (marked with EFI in the name somewhere),
>      I think you probably picked the classic option, causing Fedora to do
>      a classic install.
>  
>  
>  Ok... I thought the presence of /boot/efi/EFI meant it was booting UEFI but I checked my
> MythTV system which hasn't seen a fresh install since 2012 and it has those
> directories as well. It does have BIOS_BOOT since the main HD is gpt partitioned.
>  
>      Since you are getting what is most likely a classic BIOS grub version now
>      when booting now your BIOS likely remembered that you booted in classic mode
>      the last time and stuck with that.
>  
>      If Windows 10 expects to be loaded through UEFI then chainloading won't work.
>      Take a look in your BIOS if you can turn EFI mode on, or try hitting F12 / F8
>      (or some such) to get your BIOS boot menu. Probably you can choose between
>      UEFI and classic booting your harddisk.
>  
>  
>  I'll double check but it treats the USB has a hard disk and I don't recall seeing
> a EFI option. The ONLY option related to EFI in the BIOS is for CD/DVD devices which is
> set, hence Win10 getting installed EFI using the disc. I may have to actually burn the ISO
> to disk to get it to boot in UEFI mode. 
In that case it is probably easier to convert your existing install to UEFI:

1) Move /boot/efi contents to some place
2) Edit fstab mount the existing EFI system partition on /boot/efi
3) mount /boot/efi
4) move /boot/efi contents back in place
5) Run efibootmgr, doing something like:

efibootmgr -c -d /dev/sda -p 1 -L Fedora -l '\EFI\fedora\grubx64.efi'

This will tell your BIOS to add a "Fedora" entry to its UEFI boot menu.

You may need to adjust the /dev/sda and the partition "1" to match
your system. Also this assume your system and Fedora install are 64 bits,
UEFI is only supported with a 64 bit install. Perhaps that is why
your BIOS is not giving an EFI option for the USB disk ?

For some more info on how to convert a system to UEFI see:
https://oded.blog/2017/11/13/fedora-bios-to-uefi/

You may also want to use the -o option after running the -c
(for create) command to make Fedora the default.

Ugh I just realized that efibootmgr will only work if
you are already booted in UEFI mode. If you can get Windows
to boot again by trying to re-enable UEFI or some such
in the BIOS you can probably find a similar tool under
Windows. Sometimes UEFI BIOS also allow you to select an
EFI binary to execute, in that case you can navigate to
EFI\fedora\grubx64.efi and execute it directly or if
you can start an EFI commandline shell you can start
grubx64.efi from there.

Once you've booted Fedora in UEFI mode that way you can
use the efibootmgr command to permanently add Fedora to
the list of OS-es the UEFI part of your BIOS knows about.

If there is none of these options you may need to clear your mbr
or open fdisk and re-write the existing GPT table, so that you get
a dummy old style partition table (as is normally used with GPT)
that may kick the BIOS back into UEFI mode and give you Windows 10
again.

Note steps 1-4 are harmless (if done correct) and you will still
be able to boot in legacy mode regardless.

Regards,

Hans

[Richard Shaw]

On Wed, Jan 9, 2019 at 12:16 PM Hans de Goede <hdegoede(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:

>  Hi,
>
>  On 09-01-19 16:10, Richard Shaw wrote:
>  > On Wed, Jan 9, 2019 at 8:57 AM Hans de Goede <hdegoede(a)redhat.com
>  <mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
>  >
>  > I'll double check but it treats the USB has a hard disk and I don't
>  recall seeing a EFI option. The ONLY option related to EFI in the BIOS is
>  for CD/DVD devices which is set, hence Win10 getting installed EFI using
>  the disc. I may have to actually burn the ISO to disk to get it to boot in
>  UEFI mode.
>
>  In that case it is probably easier to convert your existing install to
>  UEFI:
>
>  1) Move /boot/efi contents to some place
>  2) Edit fstab mount the existing EFI system partition on /boot/efi
>  3) mount /boot/efi
>  4) move /boot/efi contents back in place
>  5) Run efibootmgr, doing something like:
>
>  efibootmgr -c -d /dev/sda -p 1 -L Fedora -l '\EFI\fedora\grubx64.efi'
>
>  This will tell your BIOS to add a "Fedora" entry to its UEFI boot menu.
>
>  You may need to adjust the /dev/sda and the partition "1" to match
>  your system. Also this assume your system and Fedora install are 64 bits,
>  UEFI is only supported with a 64 bit install. Perhaps that is why
>  your BIOS is not giving an EFI option for the USB disk ?
>  
I've been 64 bits only for years...


For some more info on how to convert a system to UEFI see:
>  https://oded.blog/2017/11/13/fedora-bios-to-uefi/
>
>  You may also want to use the -o option after running the -c
>  (for create) command to make Fedora the default.
>
>  Ugh I just realized that efibootmgr will only work if
>  you are already booted in UEFI mode. If you can get Windows
>  to boot again by trying to re-enable UEFI or some such
>  in the BIOS you can probably find a similar tool under
>  Windows. Sometimes UEFI BIOS also allow you to select an
>  EFI binary to execute, in that case you can navigate to
>  EFI\fedora\grubx64.efi and execute it directly or if
>  you can start an EFI commandline shell you can start
>  grubx64.efi from there.
>  
Worst case I can hopefully boot UEFI from the Live disc (instead of USB),
move all the data around, and then chroot before running efibootmgr.



>  Once you've booted Fedora in UEFI mode that way you can
>  use the efibootmgr command to permanently add Fedora to
>  the list of OS-es the UEFI part of your BIOS knows about.
>
>  If there is none of these options you may need to clear your mbr
>  or open fdisk and re-write the existing GPT table, so that you get
>  a dummy old style partition table (as is normally used with GPT)
>  that may kick the BIOS back into UEFI mode and give you Windows 10
>  again.
>
>  Note steps 1-4 are harmless (if done correct) and you will still
>  be able to boot in legacy mode regardless.
>  
We'll see what happens. I've recovered from worse and my son doesn't have
any critical data anyway.

Thanks for the help!

Richard

[Robin Laing]

On 09/01/2019 12:35, Richard Shaw wrote:
>  On Wed, Jan 9, 2019 at 12:16 PM Hans de Goede <hdegoede(a)redhat.com
>
>  <mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
>   
> > SNIP  << 

>  
>  
>  We'll see what happens. I've recovered from worse and my son doesn't 
>  have any critical data anyway. 
When I had this problem, I just let my son pick Windows from the BIOS as 
it is on it's own drive as well as Linux.  As he uses Windows for gaming 
on this machine, I let it boot automatically into Windows instead of Fedora.

I am lazy this way.  :)

Robin

[Hans de Goede]

Hi,

On 09-01-19 19:16, Hans de Goede wrote:
>  Hi,
>  
>  On 09-01-19 16:10, Richard Shaw wrote:
> > On Wed, Jan 9, 2019 at 8:57 AM Hans de Goede <hdegoede(a)redhat.com
> <mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
> >
> >     Hi,
> >
> >     On 09-01-19 15:11, Richard Shaw wrote:
> >      > Following up on Windows 10 not being detected I have a strange (to me)
> issue...
> >      >
> >      > Windows 10 created an EFI partition
> >      >
> >      > Fedora did a EFI install but DID NOT install the EFI data to the EFI
> partition that Windows created and DID NOT create one of its own. The Fedora EFI files are
> installed to the plain /boot partition.
> >      >
> >      > Now I will say this is a somewhat older computer and has pretty early EFI
> support (EFI Ready). There's no configurable EFI options in the BIOS other than for
> CD/DVD booting.
> >      >
> >      > Thoughts?
> >
> >     I believe this means that Fedora did not recognize your machine as using UEFI
> >     and is using classic BIOS boot instead. When you installed Fedora and
> >     booted from a CD or USB stick, you likely got the option to either boot
> >     Fedora in classic BIOS mode (probably marked in your BIOS boot menu as just
> "USB storage"
> >     or some such) and to boot it in UEFI mode (marked with EFI in the name
> somewhere),
> >     I think you probably picked the classic option, causing Fedora to do
> >     a classic install.
> >
> >
> > Ok... I thought the presence of /boot/efi/EFI meant it was booting UEFI but I checked
> my MythTV system which hasn't seen a fresh install since 2012 and it has those
> directories as well. It does have BIOS_BOOT since the main HD is gpt partitioned.
> >
> >     Since you are getting what is most likely a classic BIOS grub version now
> >     when booting now your BIOS likely remembered that you booted in classic mode
> >     the last time and stuck with that.
> >
> >     If Windows 10 expects to be loaded through UEFI then chainloading won't
> work.
> >     Take a look in your BIOS if you can turn EFI mode on, or try hitting F12 / F8
> >     (or some such) to get your BIOS boot menu. Probably you can choose between
> >     UEFI and classic booting your harddisk.
> >
> >
> > I'll double check but it treats the USB has a hard disk and I don't recall
> seeing a EFI option. The ONLY option related to EFI in the BIOS is for CD/DVD devices
> which is set, hence Win10 getting installed EFI using the disc. I may have to actually
> burn the ISO to disk to get it to boot in UEFI mode.
>  
>  In that case it is probably easier to convert your existing install to UEFI:
>  
>  1) Move /boot/efi contents to some place
>  2) Edit fstab mount the existing EFI system partition on /boot/efi
>  3) mount /boot/efi
>  4) move /boot/efi contents back in place
>  5) Run efibootmgr, doing something like:
>  
>  efibootmgr -c -d /dev/sda -p 1 -L Fedora -l '\EFI\fedora\grubx64.efi'
>  
>  This will tell your BIOS to add a "Fedora" entry to its UEFI boot menu.
>  
>  You may need to adjust the /dev/sda and the partition "1" to match
>  your system. Also this assume your system and Fedora install are 64 bits,
>  UEFI is only supported with a 64 bit install. Perhaps that is why
>  your BIOS is not giving an EFI option for the USB disk ?
>  
>  For some more info on how to convert a system to UEFI see:
>  https://oded.blog/2017/11/13/fedora-bios-to-uefi/
>  
>  You may also want to use the -o option after running the -c
>  (for create) command to make Fedora the default.
>  
>  Ugh I just realized that efibootmgr will only work if
>  you are already booted in UEFI mode. If you can get Windows
>  to boot again by trying to re-enable UEFI or some such
>  in the BIOS you can probably find a similar tool under
>  Windows. Sometimes UEFI BIOS also allow you to select an
>  EFI binary to execute, in that case you can navigate to
>  EFI\fedora\grubx64.efi and execute it directly or if
>  you can start an EFI commandline shell you can start
>  grubx64.efi from there.
>  
>  Once you've booted Fedora in UEFI mode that way you can
>  use the efibootmgr command to permanently add Fedora to
>  the list of OS-es the UEFI part of your BIOS knows about.
>  
>  If there is none of these options you may need to clear your mbr
>  or open fdisk and re-write the existing GPT table, so that you get
>  a dummy old style partition table (as is normally used with GPT)
>  that may kick the BIOS back into UEFI mode and give you Windows 10
>  again.
>  
>  Note steps 1-4 are harmless (if done correct) and you will still
>  be able to boot in legacy mode regardless. 
p.s.

Once you have Fedora booting in UEFI mode, re-run grub2-mkconfig and
now it will hopefully pickup the Windows install.

REgards,

Hans

[Richard Shaw]

Ok, to make a long story short I was able to boot in EFI mode after burning
Fedora 29 live to a DVD and I ended up using a hybrid approch from what
Hans said and the blog post, but...

I was able to tie in the Windows created EFI partition and just reinstalled
the packages that install all the files instead of moving the files back
over... Windows created a "Boot" folder under EFI and Fedora created a
"BOOT" folder and I wasn't sure which one to use (or if it mattered).

I could run efbootmgr without issue or errors but the system still booted
in BIOS mode. I even renamed /boot/grub2/grub.cfg and then it wouldn't boot
at all, just dropped me at the grub command line.

From what I've read you're not supposed to run grub2-install on EFI systems
but I suspect that my computer having an earlier implementation wasn't
smart enough to figure it out, maybe running grub2-install would have fixed
it since something was telling it to look for the BIOS_GRUB partition.

I ended up giving up and just reinstalling Fedora and can report that
everything now works fine. I had already completed a /home backup using
BackupPC so after I got all the extra packages installed he was right back
where he started.

On a side note, one problem I had is that grub2-mkconfig produced NO output
when running under a chroot. I probably spent a good two hours on that
alone which is partially why I gave up and decided to reinstall. After
running "ps auf" while it was hung I figured out that it's the vgs call
that was hanging. vgs couldn't talk to lvmeatd or whatever it's called. I
never really found a direct solution but caught a reference about it not
being able to find the runfile in /run so on a whim I added "mount --rbind
/run /mnt/fedora/run" and voila, it worked! I've never needed to do that
before...

Still didn't fix the problem since I couldn't get it to not look at
/boot/grub2/grub.cfg...

And just to reiterate since I'm still seeing comments about it, the *ONLY*
option in the BIOS on this computer related to EFI is whether to enable it
for CD/DVD devices, which is why installing via USB resulted in a BIOS
install.

Hopefully if someone else runs into this they will find this thread useful.

Thanks,
Richard

[Samuel Sieb]

On 1/10/19 11:10 AM, Richard Shaw wrote:
>  I was able to tie in the Windows created EFI partition and just 
>  reinstalled the packages that install all the files instead of moving 
>  the files back over... Windows created a "Boot" folder under EFI and 
>  Fedora created a "BOOT" folder and I wasn't sure which one to use (or if 
>  it mattered). 
You have two folders, one named Boot and one named BOOT?  That shouldn't 
be possible because the EFI partition is FAT32 which is not case-sensitive.

>  On a side note, one problem I had is that grub2-mkconfig produced NO
>
>  output when running under a chroot. I probably spent a good two hours on 
>  that alone which is partially why I gave up and decided to reinstall. 
>  After running "ps auf" while it was hung I figured out that it's the vgs 
>  call that was hanging. vgs couldn't talk to lvmeatd or whatever it's 
>  called. I never really found a direct solution but caught a reference 
>  about it not being able to find the runfile in /run so on a whim I added 
>  "mount --rbind /run /mnt/fedora/run" and voila, it worked! I've never 
>  needed to do that before... 
If you just chroot, you won't have access to /dev, /proc, /run, etc. 
The easiest option is to use a netinstall image and boot into the rescue 
mode.  That will automatically mount all the extra filesystems for you 
in the chroot.  (If you do use that option, you will probably want to 
remove the /.autorelabel file when you're done, just make sure you have 
messed up any labels.)

[Richard Shaw]

On Thu, Jan 10, 2019 at 3:03 PM Samuel Sieb <samuel(a)sieb.net&gt; wrote:

>  On 1/10/19 11:10 AM, Richard Shaw wrote:
>  > I was able to tie in the Windows created EFI partition and just
>  > reinstalled the packages that install all the files instead of moving
>  > the files back over... Windows created a "Boot" folder under EFI and
>  > Fedora created a "BOOT" folder and I wasn't sure which one to use (or
> if
>  > it mattered).
>
>  You have two folders, one named Boot and one named BOOT?  That shouldn't
>  be possible because the EFI partition is FAT32 which is not case-sensitive.
>  
Yes, but the original Fedora installation installed the files in the main
boot partition which is ext4.


>  On a side note, one problem I had is that grub2-mkconfig produced NO
>  > output when running under a chroot. I probably spent a good two hours on
>  > that alone which is partially why I gave up and decided to reinstall.
>  > After running "ps auf" while it was hung I figured out that it's the
> vgs
>  > call that was hanging. vgs couldn't talk to lvmeatd or whatever it's
>  > called. I never really found a direct solution but caught a reference
>  > about it not being able to find the runfile in /run so on a whim I added
>  > "mount --rbind /run /mnt/fedora/run" and voila, it worked! I've never
>  > needed to do that before...
>
>  If you just chroot, you won't have access to /dev, /proc, /run, etc.
>  The easiest option is to use a netinstall image and boot into the rescue
>  mode.  That will automatically mount all the extra filesystems for you
>  in the chroot.  (If you do use that option, you will probably want to
>  remove the /.autorelabel file when you're done, just make sure you have
>  messed up any labels.)
>  
The message was already long but I did all the needed mounts (proc, sys,
dev) I just had to add /run to that for grub2-mkconfig to work.

Thanks,
Richard