My laptop crashed to the point it won't boot, so I ended up burning Fedora 35 Workstation on a LiveUSB and re-installing. When the install ended, it told me that it had failed to install the boot loader and the system wasn't bootable. I know that I created a /boot, but I don't know if I needed more than that and Anaconda didn't ask for more. What do I need to do to recover from this?
On Sat, 29 Jan 2022 at 19:58, WMU Bavaria joe@zeff.us wrote:
My laptop crashed to the point it won't boot, so I ended up burning Fedora 35 Workstation on a LiveUSB and re-installing. When the install ended, it told me that it had failed to install the boot loader and the system wasn't bootable. I know that I created a /boot, but I don't know if I needed more than that and Anaconda didn't ask for more. What do I need to do to recover from this?
Did you manually partition the disk or let the installer use the defaults?
Have you ruled out a hardware problem? Prime suspects include memory, CPU cooling, and mass storage. Some laptop models have a history of specific failures. Googling the specific model may be helpful.
Were you running Fedora 35 before the system crashed? Does the laptop work properly running the live USB? Look at the disk layout on the internal drive. I find it useful to have Fedora installed to a USB device (there are USB3 external cases for SSD's, and there is currently a good supply of used 128 or 256 GB SSD's pulled from laptops when a larger SSD was installed).
On 01/30/2022 8:00 AM George N. White III gnwiii@gmail.com wrote:
Did you manually partition the disk or let the installer use the defaults?
I always partition the disk myself both to get the layout I want and to preserve /home.
Have you ruled out a hardware problem?
The laptop's about 10 years old, and Anaconda didn't ask what type of install or give me a chance to select software. I've tried reinstalling several times and it's never asked about what software to install.
On 30 Jan 2022, at 17:49, WMU Bavaria joe@zeff.us wrote:
On 01/30/2022 8:00 AM George N. White III gnwiii@gmail.com wrote:
Did you manually partition the disk or let the installer use the defaults?
I always partition the disk myself both to get the layout I want and to preserve /home.
Have you ruled out a hardware problem?
The laptop's about 10 years old, and Anaconda didn't ask what type of install or give me a chance to select software. I've tried reinstalling several times and it's never asked about what software to install.
Is this an EFI bios? If so there is a possibility that you need to reset the EFI variables. Some buggy EFI bios never clean up and fill nvram. This will prevent a new install.
Barry
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On 01/30/2022 3:49 PM Barry barry@barrys-emacs.org wrote:
Is this an EFI bios? If so there is a possibility that you need to reset the EFI variables. Some buggy EFI bios never clean up and fill nvram. This will prevent a new install.
No, at ten years old at least, it's too old for that.
Hello
I recommend looking at the bios setup again. The desktop I am writing this email on is from 2011/2012 it is using UEFI and the laptop sitting in my lap is from 2013 and both are using UEFI bios. I had very similar problem stalling on my Laptop, I had to disable secure boot for the install to work properly.
My laptop is HP it has two setting that can effect how it boots. 1. Legacy Support <Enabled> for MBR operating system <Disabled> for UEFI Operating system 2. Secure Boot <Enabled> /Disabled
I needed to select the option "Clear All Secure Boot Keys" to disable the secure boot.
If your computer was shipped with Windows 8 (release date 2012) or newer it most likely has an UEFI capable bios. Version 2.0 of UEFI specification was released in 2006, I would not make an assumption on what your computer supports. If I remember that time period even computers being shipped with Windows 7 had UEFI support; the bios was configured to use the Legacy mode.
Now check to see how Fedora was installed, MBR or gpt. Use the installation media to boot the system into a shell either rescue mode or I like using the live boot media so you can have a fully functional graphical desktop and terminal. Use lsblk, fdisk and gdisk to determine if you have a MBR system or GPT system.
If you need help post the output of the fdisk and gdisk command. You will need to determine what devices your system is using: $ lsblk sr0 11:0 1 4.9G 0 rom zram0 251:0 0 5.8G 0 disk [SWAP] sda 252:0 0 40G 0 disk ├─sda1 252:1 0 600M 0 part /boot/efi ├─sda2 252:2 0 1G 0 part /boot └─sda3 252:3 0 38.4G 0 part /
If you see an efi mount point then you know the system was installed using UEFI and not MBR. If you do not see the efi mount point use the fdsik command, if your system is using a Legacy MBR than the output of the fdisk command will show the disklabel type as something other than gpt, I think mbr. I do not have any legacy systems to verify the output. At the root prompt (substitute / dev/sda with output from the lsblk command); # fdisk /dev/sda
or using sudo $ sudo fdisk /dev/sda Post if you have further questions.
Aaron
On Sunday, January 30, 2022 3:15:47 PM MST WMU Bavaria wrote:
On 01/30/2022 3:49 PM Barry barry@barrys-emacs.org wrote:
Is this an EFI bios? If so there is a possibility that you need to reset the EFI variables.
Some buggy EFI bios never clean up and fill nvram.
This will prevent a new install.
No, at ten years old at least, it's too old for that. _______________________________________________ users mailing list -- users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to users-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/users@lists.fedoraproject.org Do not reply to spam on the list, report it: https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure
On 01/30/2022 10:00 PM Aaron admin@siegel-tech.net wrote:
If your computer was shipped with Windows 8 (release date 2012) or newer it most likely has an UEFI capable bios.
My laptop shipped with Windows Vista installed, long before UEFI was invented.
On Sun, Jan 30, 2022 at 8:12 PM WMU Bavaria joe@zeff.us wrote:
On 01/30/2022 10:00 PM Aaron admin@siegel-tech.net wrote:
If your computer was shipped with Windows 8 (release date 2012) or newer it most likely has an UEFI capable bios.
My laptop shipped with Windows Vista installed, long before UEFI was invented.
Intel EFI ~1998 Tiano - 2004 UEFI 2.0 - 2005 Windows Vista - 2007 Windows 7 - 2009
In fact Vista was the first version of Windows to have EFI support, but the vast majority of (U)EFI systems of this era shipped with a Compatibility Support Module (CSM) enabled by default to present a faux-BIOS to the operating system. A 10 year old laptop is ~2011 which would put it in the Windows 7 era, and had substantially improved UEFI support.
Anyway, I'm willing to bet this laptop has an MBR with a 1st partition starting at an LBA less than 2048, therefore there isn't enough room for modern GRUB to embed in the small MBR gap of this era. You can remedy this by offering up the 1st partition to Anaconda for deletion. When a new 1st partition is created as part of the installation, probably for /boot, it will start at LBA 2048 which will provide a large enough MBR gap for GRUB to be installed.
fdisk -l /dev/sdX
On 01/30/2022 10:51 PM Chris Murphy lists@colorremedies.com wrote:
A 10 year old laptop is ~2011 which would put it in the Windows 7 era, and had substantially improved UEFI support.
I was only guessing on the age, but I can assure you that it has a Windows Vista sticker and one for Intel Centrino inside if that matters.
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Aaron -
Barry -
Chris Murphy -
George N. White III -
WMU Bavaria