Hi all,
The subject says what I want to do. The why is as follows. About a year and a half ago I bought a new machine with a 2 Tb SSD and a 2 Tb hard drive. It came with Windows on it, which I wanted to keep, so I found a Windows program that let me shrink the Windows partitions on both the SSD and the HD to 1 Tb, and tried to install Fedora on the free 1Tb SSD. But at the time the installer would not recognize the SSD, so I ended up installing on the HD, with a new EFI partition there. I was then able to select between Windows and Fedora from the boot menu. About the time F33 came out, I learned I needed to disable Raid in the Bios, and then I installed F33 on the free 1Tb SSD. This added Fedora to the Windows EFI partition, and replaced Fedora in the boot menu with the new version, so I was still able to select either Windows or Fedora 33 when I booted. And grub conveniently found my old HD installation and included it in the grub menu. Then something happened about a week ago, and the Fedora entry in the boot menu reverted to the HD entry (which is F31). I can do a rescue boot and chroot to F33, and then run efibootmgr, but I can't figure out how to create a legitimate, bootable entry for F33. The files all seem to still be in the right place, and I can create an entry in the menu, but it is not a valid entry. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
On Thu, 13 May 2021 at 16:56, Lester Petrie lmpetrie@bellsouth.net wrote:
Hi all,
The subject says what I want to do. The why is as follows. About a year and a half ago I bought a new machine with a 2 Tb SSD and a 2 Tb hard drive. It came with Windows on it, which I wanted to keep, so I found a Windows program that let me shrink the Windows partitions on both the SSD and the HD to 1 Tb, and tried to install Fedora on the free 1Tb SSD. But at the time the installer would not recognize the SSD, so I ended up installing on the HD, with a new EFI partition there. I was then able to select between Windows and Fedora from the boot menu. About the time F33 came out, I learned I needed to disable Raid in the Bios, and then I installed F33 on the free 1Tb SSD. This added Fedora to the Windows EFI partition, and replaced Fedora in the boot menu with the new version, so I was still able to select either Windows or Fedora 33 when I booted.
Did you also disable Windows "fastboot"?
And grub conveniently found my old HD installation and included it in the grub menu. Then something happened about a week ago, and the Fedora entry in the boot menu reverted to the HD entry (which is F31). I can do a rescue boot and chroot to F33, and then run efibootmgr, but I can't figure out how to create a legitimate, bootable entry for F33. The files all seem to still be in the right place, and I can create an entry in the menu, but it is not a valid entry. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
How do define "not valid"? Do you get an error, do you end up in Windows, or ...? Did the problem occur after using Windows? Have you checked the BIOS settings?
On 5/13/2021 4:17 PM, George N. White III wrote:
On Thu, 13 May 2021 at 16:56, Lester Petrie <lmpetrie@bellsouth.net mailto:lmpetrie@bellsouth.net> wrote:
Hi all, The subject says what I want to do. The why is as follows. About a year and a half ago I bought a new machine with a 2 Tb SSD and a 2 Tb hard drive. It came with Windows on it, which I wanted to keep, so I found a Windows program that let me shrink the Windows partitions on both the SSD and the HD to 1 Tb, and tried to install Fedora on the free 1Tb SSD. But at the time the installer would not recognize the SSD, so I ended up installing on the HD, with a new EFI partition there. I was then able to select between Windows and Fedora from the boot menu. About the time F33 came out, I learned I needed to disable Raid in the Bios, and then I installed F33 on the free 1Tb SSD. This added Fedora to the Windows EFI partition, and replaced Fedora in the boot menu with the new version, so I was still able to select either Windows or Fedora 33 when I booted.Did you also disable Windows "fastboot"?
I am able to get to the boot menu the same as always, so I am pretty sure Windows "fastboot" is not the problem.
And grub conveniently found my old HD installation and included it in the grub menu. Then something happened about a week ago, and the Fedora entry in the boot menu reverted to the HD entry (which is F31). I can do a rescue boot and chroot to F33, and then run efibootmgr, but I can't figure out how to create a legitimate, bootable entry for F33. The files all seem to still be in the right place, and I can create an entry in the menu, but it is not a valid entry. Any help will be greatly appreciated.How do define "not valid"? Do you get an error, do you end up in Windows, or ...? Did the problem occur after using Windows? Have you checked the BIOS settings?
Not valid means that if I select the entry I made from the boot menu, I get an error message saying it is not valid. I can still select Windows, or the HD version of Fedora successfully.
-- George N. White III
On Thu, 13 May 2021 15:55:14 -0400 Lester Petrie lmpetrie@bellsouth.net wrote:
Hi all,
The subject says what I want to do. The why is as follows. About a year and a half ago I bought a new machine with a 2 Tb SSD and a 2 Tb hard drive. It came with Windows on it, which I wanted to keep, so I found a Windows program that let me shrink the Windows partitions on both the SSD and the HD to 1 Tb, and tried to install Fedora on the free 1Tb SSD. But at the time the installer would not recognize the SSD, so I ended up installing on the HD, with a new EFI partition there. I was then able to select between Windows and Fedora from the boot menu. About the time F33 came out, I learned I needed to disable Raid in the Bios, and then I installed F33 on the free 1Tb SSD. This added Fedora to the Windows EFI partition, and replaced Fedora in the boot menu with the new version, so I was still able to select either Windows or Fedora 33 when I booted. And grub conveniently found my old HD installation and included it in the grub menu. Then something happened about a week ago, and the Fedora entry in the boot menu reverted to the HD entry (which is F31). I can do a rescue boot and chroot to F33, and then run efibootmgr, but I can't figure out how to create a legitimate, bootable entry for F33. The files all seem to still be in the right place, and I can create an entry in the menu, but it is not a valid entry. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
When I encountered this issue a few years ago, the answer was that it is only possible to have a single Fedora instance at a time using grub. What you describe above, two UEFI boots for Fedora showed up in the menu, is an anomaly. It should not be possible. When I want to boot a different EFI partition, I have to go into the bios boot menu and select the different efi partition. That is, only one efi partition can be active at any one time. There is an exception to this, systemd-boot, which finesses the issue by putting all efi candidates in a single partition, as I understand it. But it doesn't sound like you are using that if you are getting a grub menu.
Since your system seems to be exceptional, you could try running grub2-mkconfig, which runs a discovery program, and maybe it will add the entries correctly to your grub menu. For F33, I think that is still grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grub.cfg for efi.
In F34, the grub.cfg file is now in /boot/grub2/grub.cfg for both bios and efi.
I think the answer to your question is to use the bios boot menu to select the SSD version as the default Fedora boot. Or at least move it above the HD version.
On 5/14/2021 2:39 PM, stan wrote:
On Thu, 13 May 2021 15:55:14 -0400 Lester Petrie lmpetrie@bellsouth.net wrote:
Hi all,
The subject says what I want to do. The why is as follows. About a year and a half ago I bought a new machine with a 2 Tb SSD and a 2 Tb hard drive. It came with Windows on it, which I wanted to keep, so I found a Windows program that let me shrink the Windows partitions on both the SSD and the HD to 1 Tb, and tried to install Fedora on the free 1Tb SSD. But at the time the installer would not recognize the SSD, so I ended up installing on the HD, with a new EFI partition there. I was then able to select between Windows and Fedora from the boot menu. About the time F33 came out, I learned I needed to disable Raid in the Bios, and then I installed F33 on the free 1Tb SSD. This added Fedora to the Windows EFI partition, and replaced Fedora in the boot menu with the new version, so I was still able to select either Windows or Fedora 33 when I booted. And grub conveniently found my old HD installation and included it in the grub menu. Then something happened about a week ago, and the Fedora entry in the boot menu reverted to the HD entry (which is F31). I can do a rescue boot and chroot to F33, and then run efibootmgr, but I can't figure out how to create a legitimate, bootable entry for F33. The files all seem to still be in the right place, and I can create an entry in the menu, but it is not a valid entry. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
When I encountered this issue a few years ago, the answer was that it is only possible to have a single Fedora instance at a time using grub. What you describe above, two UEFI boots for Fedora showed up in the menu, is an anomaly. It should not be possible. When I want to boot a different EFI partition, I have to go into the bios boot menu and select the different efi partition. That is, only one efi partition can be active at any one time. There is an exception to this, systemd-boot, which finesses the issue by putting all efi candidates in a single partition, as I understand it. But it doesn't sound like you are using that if you are getting a grub menu.
Since your system seems to be exceptional, you could try running grub2-mkconfig, which runs a discovery program, and maybe it will add the entries correctly to your grub menu. For F33, I think that is still grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grub.cfg for efi.
In F34, the grub.cfg file is now in /boot/grub2/grub.cfg for both bios and efi.
I think the answer to your question is to use the bios boot menu to select the SSD version as the default Fedora boot. Or at least move it above the HD version.
Obviously, my subject line was not adequate. The menu I need to create an entry in is the bios boot menu. I have a UEFI system, so I think I will have to use efibootmgr. So far I have only succeeded in getting into the F33 system using rescue mode and a chroot. My attempt at creating an entry from there using efibootmgr actually put an entry in the menu, but when I tried to select it, a not valid entry error was reported, and I had to reboot. What I need is more guidance than what is available in the man page for efibootmgr.
I went back and deleted the entry I had made before (apparently you can not edit an existing menu item), and then recreated it being very careful to place strings within apostrophes. I was then able to boot that entry. It did a selinux relabel during the boot, but I have now booted back into Fedora 33.
On 5/14/21 3:21 PM, Lester Petrie wrote:
On 5/14/2021 2:39 PM, stan wrote:
On Thu, 13 May 2021 15:55:14 -0400 Lester Petrie lmpetrie@bellsouth.net wrote:
Hi all,
The subject says what I want to do. The why is as follows. About a year and a half ago I bought a new machine with a 2 Tb SSD and a 2 Tb hard drive. It came with Windows on it, which I wanted to keep, so I found a Windows program that let me shrink the Windows partitions on both the SSD and the HD to 1 Tb, and tried to install Fedora on the free 1Tb SSD. But at the time the installer would not recognize the SSD, so I ended up installing on the HD, with a new EFI partition there. I was then able to select between Windows and Fedora from the boot menu. About the time F33 came out, I learned I needed to disable Raid in the Bios, and then I installed F33 on the free 1Tb SSD. This added Fedora to the Windows EFI partition, and replaced Fedora in the boot menu with the new version, so I was still able to select either Windows or Fedora 33 when I booted. And grub conveniently found my old HD installation and included it in the grub menu. Then something happened about a week ago, and the Fedora entry in the boot menu reverted to the HD entry (which is F31). I can do a rescue boot and chroot to F33, and then run efibootmgr, but I can't figure out how to create a legitimate, bootable entry for F33. The files all seem to still be in the right place, and I can create an entry in the menu, but it is not a valid entry. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
When I encountered this issue a few years ago, the answer was that it is only possible to have a single Fedora instance at a time using grub. What you describe above, two UEFI boots for Fedora showed up in the menu, is an anomaly. It should not be possible. When I want to boot a different EFI partition, I have to go into the bios boot menu and select the different efi partition. That is, only one efi partition can be active at any one time. There is an exception to this, systemd-boot, which finesses the issue by putting all efi candidates in a single partition, as I understand it. But it doesn't sound like you are using that if you are getting a grub menu.
Since your system seems to be exceptional, you could try running grub2-mkconfig, which runs a discovery program, and maybe it will add the entries correctly to your grub menu. For F33, I think that is still grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grub.cfg for efi.
In F34, the grub.cfg file is now in /boot/grub2/grub.cfg for both bios and efi.
I think the answer to your question is to use the bios boot menu to select the SSD version as the default Fedora boot. Or at least move it above the HD version.
Obviously, my subject line was not adequate. The menu I need to create an entry in is the bios boot menu. I have a UEFI system, so I think I will have to use efibootmgr. So far I have only succeeded in getting into the F33 system using rescue mode and a chroot. My attempt at creating an entry from there using efibootmgr actually put an entry in the menu, but when I tried to select it, a not valid entry error was reported, and I had to reboot. What I need is more guidance than what is available in the man page for efibootmgr.
On 5/13/21 4:40 PM, Lester Petrie wrote:
On 5/13/2021 4:17 PM, George N. White III wrote:
On Thu, 13 May 2021 at 16:56, Lester Petrie <lmpetrie@bellsouth.net mailto:lmpetrie@bellsouth.net> wrote:
Hi all,
The subject says what I want to do. The why is as follows. About a year and a half ago I bought a new machine with a 2 Tb SSD and a 2 Tb hard drive. It came with Windows on it, which I wanted to keep, so I found a Windows program that let me shrink the Windows partitions on both the SSD and the HD to 1 Tb, and tried to install Fedora on the free 1Tb SSD. But at the time the installer would not recognize the SSD, so I ended up installing on the HD, with a new EFI partition there. I was then able to select between Windows and Fedora from the boot menu. About the time F33 came out, I learned I needed to disable Raid in the Bios, and then I installed F33 on the free 1Tb SSD. This added Fedora to the Windows EFI partition, and replaced Fedora in the boot menu with the new version, so I was still able to select either Windows or Fedora 33 when I booted.
Did you also disable Windows "fastboot"?
I am able to get to the boot menu the same as always, so I am pretty sure Windows "fastboot" is not the problem.
And grub conveniently found my old HD installation and included it in the grub menu. Then something happened about a week ago, and the Fedora entry in the boot menu reverted to the HD entry (which is F31). I can do a rescue boot and chroot to F33, and then run efibootmgr, but I can't figure out how to create a legitimate, bootable entry for F33. The files all seem to still be in the right place, and I can create an entry in the menu, but it is not a valid entry. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
How do define "not valid"? Do you get an error, do you end up in Windows, or ...? Did the problem occur after using Windows? Have you checked the BIOS settings?
Not valid means that if I select the entry I made from the boot menu, I get an error message saying it is not valid. I can still select Windows, or the HD version of Fedora successfully.
Hi Lester
There is a utility Supergrub2 2.04s1 that boots from a USB that finds all the bootables on the system for a workaround.
From the f31 you can look at the /boot of the f33 and see if the grub.cfg and grubenv entries in /boot/efi/EFI/fedora have the correct uuid for the f33. Also the entries in /boot/loader/entries for the kernels
On Fri, 14 May 2021 17:16:28 -0400 Lester M Petrie lmpetrie@bellsouth.net wrote:
I went back and deleted the entry I had made before (apparently you can not edit an existing menu item), and then recreated it being very careful to place strings within apostrophes. I was then able to boot that entry. It did a selinux relabel during the boot, but I have now booted back into Fedora 33.
Thanks for both the clarification of your problem, and for posting the working solution you found.
-
George N. White III -
Lester M Petrie -
Lester Petrie
-
Robert McBroom -
stan