Request for information from EFI Windows/Linux dual-booters

srs5694 · 2013-12-31 23:11:27

Hi,

As many of you know, I'm the developer of the rEFInd boot manager. I'm currently adding a new feature to rEFInd, the intent of which is to kick the Windows recovery boot options off of the main list of OSes and into the second row. The trouble is that I suspect there's a lot of variability in what the recovery boot loader is called. On a lot of computers with Windows 8 pre-installed, there seem to be recovery tools on a second non-ESP FAT partition, but I don't know what these tools are called in all cases. Thus, I'd appreciate it if those of you with Windows 8 EFI/UEFI installations could get back to me with this information. What I'd like is the filesystem label and complete file path to any Windows recovery tool(s) on your computer. For instance, "EFI/Manufacturer/bootmgfw.efi on the FOO filesystem boots to a Windows recovery tool." Note that the filesystem label is critical and it varies between manufacturers. It appears in the rEFInd menu (if rEFInd picks up the tool) and should be revealed by "blkid" under Linux. (I need the LABEL= value, not the PARTLABEL= value.) My intention is to incorporate all the known names as defaults in rEFInd, and give an override option to add to or replace that default list of filenames.

You can post here (if the forum moderators don't mind), send me a PM on this system, or e-mail me (rodsmith@rodsbooks.com). Thanks in advance for any responses.

jasonwryan · 2013-12-31 23:17:04

Post here is fine.

This is better suited to GNU/Linux discussion, though. Moving...

TheSaint · 2014-01-01 05:41:28

In my system originally created I have as follow

/dev/sda1: LABEL="SYSTEM" UUID="3EB7-5907" TYPE="vfat" PARTLABEL="EFI system partition" PARTUUID="6b139546-f3e4-423c-8a5a-5429389899b4"
/dev/sda4: LABEL="OS" UUID="A478065E7806301A" TYPE="ntfs" PARTLABEL="Basic data partition" PARTUUID="a5dc35f6-5a5e-47f9-97d2-207ddf78489e"
/dev/sda6: LABEL="Restore" UUID="FAC20D83C20D44FB" TYPE="ntfs" PARTLABEL="Basic data partition" PARTUUID="14fa438d-4143-4e70-923a-f3a4f971ceb9"

As per partitioning

 # gdisk /dev/sda -l
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 0.8.8

Partition table scan:
  MBR: protective
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.
Disk /dev/sda: 1465149168 sectors, 698.6 GiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): E805A24A-C0ED-4E17-B852-352C5CD6A9F7
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 1465149134
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 3757 sectors (1.8 MiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1            2048          616447   300.0 MiB   EF00  EFI system partition
   2       179179520       220139519   19.5 GiB    0700
   3          616448         2721791   1.0 GiB     0C01
   4         2721792       179179519   84.1 GiB    0700  Basic data partition
   5       588779520      1423183871   397.9 GiB   0700  Basic data partition
   6      1423183872      1465147391   20.0 GiB    2700  Basic data partition
   8       220139520       261099519   19.5 GiB    EF02
   9       261099520       383979519   58.6 GiB    0700
  10       383979520       588779519   97.7 GiB    0700

$ sudo mount /dev/sda1 /boot/efi/

$ ls /boot/efi/EFI/
ASUS  Boot  Microsoft  arch_grub  gummiboot
$ find /boot/efi/ -iname 'bootmgfw.efi'
/boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi

I hope I was of some help.

srs5694 · 2014-01-01 15:17:22

TheSaint wrote:

$ find /boot/efi/ -iname 'bootmgfw.efi'
/boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi

I hope I was of some help.

Could you please do:

find /boot/efi -iname "*.efi"

Also, please tell me which (if any) of the resulting files actually boots into a Windows recovery utility. (On my system, some of them aren't valid EFI program files.) You'll need to test this from an EFI shell. Thanks.

TheSaint · 2014-01-02 07:42:07

$ find /boot/efi -iname "*.efi"
/boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
/boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgr.efi
/boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/memtest.efi
/boot/efi/EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi
/boot/efi/EFI/gummiboot/gummibootx64.efi
/boot/efi/EFI/arch_grub/grubx64.efi
/boot/efi/shellx64.efi

Desolated I can't help, I modified ESP lately, I don't think to find any clue about your request

srs5694 · 2014-01-02 19:34:30

Thanks, TheSaint, but it doesn't look like you've got any recovery options. Is this an OEM setup or did you install it yourself? I'd guess the latter, since most OEMs put recovery options on the hard disk.

TheSaint · 2014-01-03 06:40:22

Well, in ESP I found two directories, ASUS and MICROSOFT. /dev/sda6 (Restore) contains some program which I never thought to try.

srs5694 · 2014-01-03 14:15:07

Your /dev/sda6 is an NTFS volume, so it doesn't have anything that rEFInd (or the EFI firmware) could read, even if it's an EFI program. If the EFI/ASUS directory on your ESP held any .efi files, then one of them might launch a restore tool; but your "find" command didn't turn anything up.

Arch Linux

#1 2013-12-31 23:11:27

Request for information from EFI Windows/Linux dual-booters

#2 2013-12-31 23:17:04

Re: Request for information from EFI Windows/Linux dual-booters

#3 2014-01-01 05:41:28

Re: Request for information from EFI Windows/Linux dual-booters

#4 2014-01-01 15:17:22

Re: Request for information from EFI Windows/Linux dual-booters

#5 2014-01-02 07:42:07

Re: Request for information from EFI Windows/Linux dual-booters

#6 2014-01-02 19:34:30

Re: Request for information from EFI Windows/Linux dual-booters

#7 2014-01-03 06:40:22

Re: Request for information from EFI Windows/Linux dual-booters

#8 2014-01-03 14:15:07

Re: Request for information from EFI Windows/Linux dual-booters

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