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#1 2012-11-14 23:21:18

WonderWoofy
Member
From: Los Gatos, CA
Registered: 2012-05-19
Posts: 8,414

[Solved] Gummiboot on Samsung 830 128GB... borked!

Warning: I have found a way to fix the issue, though it does not involve a fix that I would really consider a solution.  Sorry!
I found the real solution now. It seems that gummiboot does not like loader entries to be copied from one drive to another. Recreating the entries fixes the issue consistently.

I have had this issue for a few weeks now.  But I haven't been too worried about it, as I have alternate methods.  But alas, curiosity is getting the best of me, and I just have to ask.

I had been using gummiboot for probably a bit over a month.  It was very nice, simple, and easy.  A couple weeks ago, I got a Samsung 830 128GB SSD.  So I transitioned everything over to this drive.  I opted not to dd the efi system partition, instead just manually creating it, and then cp -a everything onto the partition.  At this point, my gummiboot stopped working. It just gives me a black screen.  No cursor, no nothing.  I tried upgrading to the git, downgrading to every previous version I could find down to the first one in the repos (mid-August), and I have tried the two updates that were pushed to the repos recently.  I also tried evey one from an efibootmgr entry, a bcfg entry, from the uefi shell, and moving them to /EFI/boot/bootx64.efi and booting from the drive.  Same result every time.  Strangely, it still works from the archiso's from the past couple of months.  So naturally I tried copying those over as well... again trying every method I could think of.

So I guess I just want to know if others have run into this issue of gummiboot not working from a particular drive?  Anybody experiencing non-funtionality from a Samsung 830 in particular?  As this is a pre-boot environment, I have no log or anything to post here.  I think I would just take solice in knowing that I am not the only one... or that this is not a reulst of me being an idiot somehow.

Any comments are welcome... even if you just need to tell me I'm somehow an idiot (though it would be nice to know why).  Maybe someone has a reccomendation that I might try something that I haven't though of yet.

Last edited by WonderWoofy (2013-01-29 03:51:55)

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#2 2012-11-15 21:55:28

hunterthomson
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Registered: 2008-06-22
Posts: 794
Website

Re: [Solved] Gummiboot on Samsung 830 128GB... borked!

Hum, well first the `cp -a`... the '-a' is not needed becuase it is a FAT filesystem, so there are no permissions to protect. Maybe just go ahead and re-initialize the UEFI. I know on the Dell R510 PowerEdge server this is done in the BIOS... I think this Thinkpad dose that is BIOS also...

Basicaly, maybe just start from scratch with the UEFI.

(note: I am only responding because no one ellse has posted anything yet)

Last edited by hunterthomson (2012-11-15 21:56:04)


OpenBSD-current Thinkpad X230, i7-3520M, 16GB CL9 Kingston, Samsung 830 256GB
Contributor: linux-grsec

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#3 2012-11-16 04:46:25

the.ridikulus.rat
Member
From: Indiana, USA
Registered: 2011-10-04
Posts: 765

Re: [Solved] Gummiboot on Samsung 830 128GB... borked!

Can you try rEFInd "textonly" mode? That does the same thing as gummiboot.

If not try copying gummiboot.efi or refind.efi to /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi . Apparently some firmware launch only that particular file and ignore any efibootmgr/bcfg created entries. It seems some vendors/OEMs do not allow any OS other than Windows to boot in UEFI mode in the system. You can also try http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/20187.html . This seems to be hardcoded in the firmware Whether its the vendor's own policy or something mandated (not openly) by Microsoft is an unanswered question. According to me this borders on anti-competitive behaviour, and should be reported to concerned authorities (though in my country India, no one peple/government is bothered about these restrictions, atleast Europe gives importance to these issues).

Last edited by the.ridikulus.rat (2012-11-16 05:19:11)

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#4 2012-11-16 04:53:48

WonderWoofy
Member
From: Los Gatos, CA
Registered: 2012-05-19
Posts: 8,414

Re: [Solved] Gummiboot on Samsung 830 128GB... borked!

Sorry, about the slow response here.  I was not aware my thread got any attention, and I forgot to subscribe.

I was not aware of refind text mode.  I will have to give that a try.  I just don't want all the fancy pants graphics that just seem totally unnecessary to me. 

I will also try the /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi trick.  Thanks the.rediculus.rat.  You sure do know your UEFI.  Out of curiosity, how is it that you are so incredibly informed on the ways of UEFI?

Also, hunterthompson, I truly do appreciate the response.  I really didn't quite expect to get much of an answer to a question that was not really posed as a truly solveable problem.  The "cp -a" is just habit, and I used it because it is recursive.  I know that vfat does not have permissions, and think it is funny that all files show up as executbale on the command line.  (Stoopid FAT)

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#5 2012-11-16 05:03:18

WonderWoofy
Member
From: Los Gatos, CA
Registered: 2012-05-19
Posts: 8,414

Re: [Solved] Gummiboot on Samsung 830 128GB... borked!

So while posting the above, I was in the process of creating an EFI system partition on my mSATA drive.  Gummiboot works from there, so I think I am just not going to mess with it.

I definitely appreciate the responses from you guys.  the.rediculus.rat, I will definitely keep that microsoft efi trick in mind for the future though.  That is something really good to know.  Thanks again!

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#6 2012-11-16 05:23:44

the.ridikulus.rat
Member
From: Indiana, USA
Registered: 2011-10-04
Posts: 765

Re: [Solved] Gummiboot on Samsung 830 128GB... borked!

WonderWoofy wrote:

I will also try the /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi trick.  Thanks the.rediculus.rat.  You sure do know your UEFI.  Out of curiosity, how is it that you are so incredibly informed on the ways of UEFI?

I implemented UEFI support in Archboot and wrote the PKGBUILDs for grub-efi-* pkgs. I maintain most of the *-efi-git UEFI bootloaders pkgs in AUR. I also wrote the GPT, UEFI and UEFI_Booloaders Archwiki pages.

I know that vfat does not have permissions, and think it is funny that all files show up as executbale on the command line.  (Stoopid FAT)

You should use "noexec" mount option for FAT/NTFS to disable the executable flag as Linux/Unix/POSIX file permissions are not supported by these filesystems. Atleast in case of NTFS, even though it supports similar Windows equivalent file permissions, ntfs-3g does not support that.

Last edited by the.ridikulus.rat (2012-11-16 05:24:41)

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#7 2012-11-16 06:39:01

WonderWoofy
Member
From: Los Gatos, CA
Registered: 2012-05-19
Posts: 8,414

Re: [Solved] Gummiboot on Samsung 830 128GB... borked!

Wow, I guess that would lead to quite a bit of learnin' about UEFI.  Well I certainly appreciate your assistance and knowledge on the matter.  Any time there is a UEFI issue on the threads, I always think, "Where is the.redikulus.rat? Surely he will know the answer."  Usually.. you do.

I actually do mount my ESP /boot with noexec now.  In fact, a couple months ago, I fould the security wiki page and now mount it with nosuid and nodev as well.  I just find it amazing that such a primative filesystem is in such common use more than thirty years after it was created.  Especially when it is so limited in functionality relative to todays options.


Edit: Oh yeah, BTW, you know, even mounted with noexec, the files still show up on the command line with the asterick (indicating executability).

Last edited by WonderWoofy (2012-11-16 06:41:53)

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#8 2012-11-16 13:37:14

89c51
Member
Registered: 2012-06-05
Posts: 741

Re: [Solved] Gummiboot on Samsung 830 128GB... borked!

the.ridikulus.rat wrote:

Can you try rEFInd "textonly" mode? That does the same thing as gummiboot.

If not try copying gummiboot.efi or refind.efi to /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi . Apparently some firmware launch only that particular file and ignore any efibootmgr/bcfg created entries. It seems some vendors/OEMs do not allow any OS other than Windows to boot in UEFI mode in the system. You can also try http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/20187.html . This seems to be hardcoded in the firmware Whether its the vendor's own policy or something mandated (not openly) by Microsoft is an unanswered question. According to me this borders on anti-competitive behaviour, and should be reported to concerned authorities (though in my country India, no one peple/government is bothered about these restrictions, atleast Europe gives importance to these issues).

Is there a way to check if thats the case in a firmware??

I updated the firmware on my motherboard and while i can see that the entries i created with efibootmgr/bcfg are written in NVRAM they don't appear on the motherboard menu making it impossible to boot my system properly.

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#9 2012-11-16 14:46:16

89c51
Member
Registered: 2012-06-05
Posts: 741

Re: [Solved] Gummiboot on Samsung 830 128GB... borked!

Fuckin hell.

I created a file /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi (which is a renamed Tianocore shell) and all of a sudden the entries i created show up. And this on an Intel motherboard. Yes the FOSS loving intel. Their firmware probably checks for that file or something.


hmm

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#10 2012-11-16 15:21:25

srs5694
Member
From: Woonsocket, RI
Registered: 2012-11-06
Posts: 719
Website

Re: [Solved] Gummiboot on Samsung 830 128GB... borked!

One possible root cause of the original problem is that the NVRAM entry for the original boot loader wasn't updated. Those entries refer to disk partitions by GUID number, so when you created new partitions for the new disk, that number would also be new and the old entries would stop working. If you were to re-add gummiboot via a fresh "efibootmgr" command, it would probably start working again. It sounds like the trail on this is a bit cold, though, so it may not be possible to test this hypothesis. It is something to keep in mind in the future, though: When swapping out disks on UEFI-based systems, you must either clone the partition table in a way that preserves the partitions' GUID values or you must update your NVRAM's boot manager entries. Cloning a disk's GUID values can be done with a low-level "dd" copy of the disk or in various ways with gdisk or sgdisk. Be aware, though, that cloning a disk's GUID values is advisable only if the original disk's partition table will be completely erased or if the disk is to be removed from the computer. GUID values are supposed to be unique, after all!

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#11 2012-12-26 03:46:10

WonderWoofy
Member
From: Los Gatos, CA
Registered: 2012-05-19
Posts: 8,414

Re: [Solved] Gummiboot on Samsung 830 128GB... borked!

So I got a new drive for Christmas, and figured I was going to make this work if it was the last thing I did.  Because, despite the fact that I had fixed it somehow, once again, it was not working when I rsynced my installation to a new drive.  So once again, I sat down and fiddled with it... and fiddled with it... and fiddled with it.  And I finally figured it out.

Last time, I had created a new ESP, and during that process, I copied most things, but accidently moved the loader.conf to the new ESP.  So I recreated it on the originial, so that I could try and get it working.  Magically, it started working again.  I was not entirely sure how though. 

This time, I decided that since that seemed to be the point at which it started working, I deleted the loader.conf file and remade it.  Still no go.  So I thought that maybe it was the configuration files in general.  So I deleted the entire $ESP/loader directory, and recreated it.  I then went ahead and created each file by hand that had been in place before.  They are exactly the same as they were before. 

Suddenly gummiboot was working again!  So I guess it has something to do with it not liking the configuration files when they are rsynced from one ESP to another.  Why?  I have no idea, but it works now.

Just thought the update mght help someone.


BTW, my new drive is a Samsung 840 (not pro) 250GB.  It is replacing a Samsung 830 128GB.  Though I ordered an optical bay hdd adapter.  So I will soon be able to use both.  I am a tad wary of TLC, but I figure I have three years of warranty to figure out if it is legit.

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