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#1 2013-01-05 03:52:15

jackie2feet
Member
Registered: 2012-12-27
Posts: 7

UEFI - issues - save me m'lords

I've had a nightmare of a time installing Arch with UEFI (ASRock  Z77e-itx). At first I couldn't get Arch to boot after a few installs, then I managed to get a working system but my windows hard drive somehow managed to lose its boot-loader.

I've heard installing from CDR is much easier in regards to UEFI, but when I try to boot in UEFI mode from CDR I get an error saying that a config file required is missing or unable to load.

When installing Windows 8 on another drive from USB, I am given two options, UEFI boot or normal boot, and the UEFI one doesn't work. So I install Win8 normally. I can boot the ARCH ISO normally with no issues, but can't boot it in UEFI.

I've done a ton of reading and followed all the official documentation but I'm still confused. If I have a UEFI motherboard, do I need to install in UEFI mode, or can I just do an install as if I was on any other computer? Will the January release fix the UEFI issues? Is there any reason why my Windows drive would lose it's bootloader? If I'm trying to boot two separate hard drives, one with Arch and one with Win8, on a UEFI motherboard, do I need to take special steps or can I install it as if the Win8 drive didn't exist, because they're separate drives?

Also even though I've formatted BOTH hard drives, I still get lots of REFIND boot options when I boot up and hit f11. Where are these even stored, if not on my hard drives?

Cheers.

Last edited by jackie2feet (2013-01-06 05:31:26)

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#2 2013-01-05 08:17:56

andmars
Member
Registered: 2012-03-13
Posts: 362

Re: UEFI - issues - save me m'lords

a lot of people get this error when booting the current arch iso in uefi-mode:

No loader found. Configuration files in /loader/entries/*.conf are needed.

so I assume you are refering to this, right?

As for your questions: If you have a uefi-motherboard you can choose between uefi-boot and bios-boot. The boards (I have an ASUS P8P67) are backwards compatible.

Here is a pretty good guide on how to get the installation done in normal mode and later switch to uefi-boot.

http://pcavdisor.blogspot.ca/

As for dualboot with Windows7/8 I'm not sure (since I don't use Windows anymore) but I think it needs uefi/gpt arch to do the dual-boot trick.

As for REFIND boot options with F11. I think the disappear once you have installed your new system.

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#3 2013-01-05 08:29:10

jackie2feet
Member
Registered: 2012-12-27
Posts: 7

Re: UEFI - issues - save me m'lords

andmars wrote:

a lot of people get this error when booting the current arch iso in uefi-mode:

No loader found. Configuration files in /loader/entries/*.conf are needed.

so I assume you are refering to this, right?

Yes, that's the error!

andmars wrote:

As for your questions: If you have a uefi-motherboard you can choose between uefi-boot and bios-boot. The boards (I have an ASUS P8P67) are backwards compatible.

Yup I have the ability to choose either, but I'm wondering if I have Windows in UEFI and Linux in legacy, will that cause problems? Even though windows installer doesn't boot from the UEFI option, it still creates an EFI partition which means it must be a UEFI installation right?

andmars wrote:

As for dual boot with Windows7/8 I'm not sure (since I don't use Windows anymore) but I think it needs uefi/gpt arch to do the dual-boot trick.

As for REFIND boot options with F11. I think the disappear once you have installed your new system.

I want to dual boot but from separate hard drives, not partitions. I'm not sure if the rules of dual booting are the same in that circumstance, so I was wondering if someone could clarify.

Thanks for your help so far andmars big_smile

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#4 2013-01-05 08:31:41

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

Re: UEFI - issues - save me m'lords

Keep in mind that with Linux at least, UEFI and legacy bios bootability can peacefully coexist.  So you can get it set up and going the way you know how, then comb through the wiki to figure out how to get it working right.

Here is a hint: The default *.efi application is /EFI/boot/bootx64.efi.  This will boot automatically when you choose to boot from that given HDD in UEFI mode.

The reason I say "with Linux at least" is because I have seem so god damn many reports of how finnicky windows is about bootability and the partition table and bears and whatnot.  If you do the wrong thing, even ever so slightly, that shit won't boot.  Look at it the wrong way... no boot.  Try to molest your dog... no boot.  Miss the toilet... no boot.  You get the picture.

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#5 2013-01-05 09:35:42

jackie2feet
Member
Registered: 2012-12-27
Posts: 7

Re: UEFI - issues - save me m'lords

WonderWoofy wrote:

The reason I say "with Linux at least" is because I have seem so god damn many reports of how finnicky windows is about bootability and the partition table and bears and whatnot.  If you do the wrong thing, even ever so slightly, that shit won't boot.  Look at it the wrong way... no boot.  Try to molest your dog... no boot.  Miss the toilet... no boot.  You get the picture.

That's just it though, while installing Linux I disconnected my Windows hard drive so that my arch install could not affect my Windows drive. After plugging my Windows hard drive back in it said there was no boot driver. I reinstalled Windows and it worked fine but then I couldn't boot into Linux. I select the Linux drive on boot up and it just boots Windows.

I don't struggle with Arch in general, when I had it working I was having a ball playing around with it. I just find this whole UEFI boot mess a real mind f***. I've installed Arch on my laptop with no problems whatsoever (non-UEFI).

While it is possible my dog felt violated enough to sabotage my windows installation, I just can't see him doing that. My cat on the other hand is a real piece of work. But I never touched her.

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#6 2013-01-05 16:17:49

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

Re: UEFI - issues - save me m'lords

jackie2feet wrote:

I've had a nightmare of a time installing Arch with UEFI (Z77e-itx).

When reporting hardware information, it's important to include the manufacturer as well as the model number (assuming that "Z77e-itx" is a model number and not just a reference to the chipset and form factor of your motherboard). That said, I doubt if your problems are specific to your hardware, so this really isn't critical; I'm just pointing it out for future reference.

I've done a ton of reading and followed all the official documentation but I'm still confused. If I have a UEFI motherboard, do I need to install in UEFI mode, or can I just do an install as if I was on any other computer?

As others have said, you can treat most modern computers as if they were BIOS-based. The trouble is that mixing modes (booting Linux in BIOS mode and Windows in EFI mode, for instance) is awkward. You might be able to do it without too much fuss with rEFInd by uncommenting the "scanfor" line and adding "hdbios" to the list of options, but that's not guaranteed to work. It's better to install both OSes in the same boot mode, or at least, if you install Windows in EFI mode, plan to convert Linux to boot in EFI mode after doing a BIOS-mode install.

Also even though I've formatted BOTH hard drives, I still get lots of REFIND boot options when I boot up and hit f11. Where are these even stored, if not on my hard drives?

rEFInd scans for boot loaders, which in EFI terms are files with .efi extensions stored in subdirectories of the "EFI" directory on the EFI System Partition (ESP). In addition to that location, rEFInd scans the root directory, and it scans every partition it's able to read. If you've got duplicate boot loaders or stray files that happen to have .efi extensions, rEFInd will clutter its display with them. There are ways to deal with that, but obviously, deleting unnecessary boot loaders should be your first step in this direction. I'd put this off until the things you want to boot actually are booting, though.

Incidentally, F11 shouldn't have any special effect in rEFInd. You can use Esc to re-scan for boot loaders, though.

That's just it though, while installing Linux I disconnected my Windows hard drive so that my arch install could not affect my Windows drive. After plugging my Windows hard drive back in it said there was no boot driver. I reinstalled Windows and it worked fine but then I couldn't boot into Linux. I select the Linux drive on boot up and it just boots Windows.

First, understand this: Most EFIs have their own built-in boot manager. This boot manager stores a list of bootable files in NVRAM, and it presents as boot options only files in that list (and perhaps a special boot file called EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi). Also, EFI boot loaders can easily boot an OS on one physical disk even though they're located on another physical disk. (This varies from one boot loader to another, though.)

Some EFIs (perhaps most or even all of them) "helpfully" remove boot loaders from the NVRAM list if the computer starts up and the firmware can't find the boot file. The problem, of course, is that if you temporarily unplug a disk that holds valid boot loaders, you end up losing those boot loader entries. Chances are this is the cause of at least half your problems, and maybe all of them. The solution is to install a boot loader such as rEFInd, that actively scans for boot loaders at startup or that you can configure with files, which are less volatile than the NVRAM entries that the firmware uses. If you set it up in NVRAM as the first boot loader tried, it should work. If you install it to the special filename of EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi, it will also function as a fallback boot loader if all other NVRAM entries are deleted -- but if even one NVRAM entry exists, the fact that it's installed as EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi won't help you launch it. Note that you could use gummiboot instead of rEFInd, but the last time I checked, gummiboot was limited to launching boot loaders on its own partition. Given your setup, that won't be adequate, or at the very least it will require some additional reconfiguration in the form of moving all your boot loaders to one partition.

You can manage NVRAM entries in an EFI-mode boot of Linux with the "efibootmgr" command or from an EFI shell (version 2) with the "bcfg" command. Both commands are described in the Arch wiki, so go there for details. I recommend you find a way to boot either Linux or an EFI version 2 shell and use one of those commands to restore rEFInd as your primary boot loader. Note that you can do this from a Linux emergency disc, although it needs to boot in EFI mode. Alternatively, you can drop an EFI version 2 shell on a USB flash drive as EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi and select the flash drive as the boot device using your firmware's boot manager.

Once rEFInd is booting, it should detect all your boot loaders, including Windows and, depending on how you've installed everything, your Linux kernels and/or a Linux boot loader like GRUB or ELILO.

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#7 2013-01-06 02:26:00

cfr
Member
From: Cymru
Registered: 2011-11-27
Posts: 7,130

Re: UEFI - issues - save me m'lords

jackie2feet wrote:

When installing Windows 8 on another drive from USB, I am given two options, UEFI boot or normal boot, and the UEFI one doesn't work. So I install Win8 normally. I can boot the ARCH ISO normally with no issues, but can't boot it in UEFI.

I don't know anything about dual booting with Windows but from the other comments here, it seems it is best to boot both OSs in the same mode. So if you installed Windows "normally", does that mean non-UEFI? You said the UEFI option didn't work. Because in that case, maybe you should install Linux in legacy mode as well unless you want to redo the Windows installation?


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#8 2013-01-06 04:05:14

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

Re: UEFI - issues - save me m'lords

I would say just stick with whatever windows did.  Reinstalling is a ridiculous process with windows, and changing it from bios to uefi seems rather painful as well (and risky since windows will refuse to boot if you look at it wrong).  From what I understand, windows 8 wants to default to uefi, but is capable of running in bios made as well.

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#9 2013-01-06 05:52:24

jackie2feet
Member
Registered: 2012-12-27
Posts: 7

Re: UEFI - issues - save me m'lords

srs5694 wrote:

When reporting hardware information, it's important to include the manufacturer as well as the model number (assuming that "Z77e-itx" is a model number and not just a reference to the chipset and form factor of your motherboard). That said, I doubt if your problems are specific to your hardware, so this really isn't critical; I'm just pointing it out for future reference.

Thanks, I'll keep it in mind. I only mentioned it because I've found that many others getting the:

No loader found. Configuration files in /loader/entries/*.conf are needed.

error have the same or similar hardware.

srs5694 wrote:

It's better to install both OSes in the same boot mode, or at least, if you install Windows in EFI mode, plan to convert Linux to boot in EFI mode after doing a BIOS-mode install.

Installing Windows is a pretty automated process, even though it doesn't boot the installation disc in the UEFI mode, it installs an EFI partition. I guess I'll have to find a way to install Windows 8 in BIOS-mode, or convert it.

srs5694 wrote:

continued

Very helpful information, especially in regards to why I might have lost access to my Windows boot-loader. Thank you.

cfr wrote:

I don't know anything about dual booting with Windows but from the other comments here, it seems it is best to boot both OSs in the same mode. So if you installed Windows "normally", does that mean non-UEFI? You said the UEFI option didn't work. Because in that case, maybe you should install Linux in legacy mode as well unless you want to redo the Windows installation?.

Yeah, Normal as non-UEFI. The Windows installation doesn't boot from [UEFI] USB, just regular USB. But it still creates an EFI boot partition. I would of thought it would have to boot into [UEFI]. I'm still confused as to what the difference of booting an install medium the regular way or the [UEFI] way is. It seems you can boot into the non-UEFI install medium and still use an EFI boot-loader.

I usually follow all UEFI-related instructions in the ARCH install guide. I thought that it was necessary but perhaps I should try a totally standard install.

Many thanks for your helpful replies~!

Last edited by jackie2feet (2013-01-06 05:53:56)

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#10 2013-01-06 18:57:39

cfr
Member
From: Cymru
Registered: 2011-11-27
Posts: 7,130

Re: UEFI - issues - save me m'lords

Is there anything in the EFI partition Windows installed?


CLI Paste | How To Ask Questions

Arch Linux | x86_64 | GPT | EFI boot | refind | stub loader | systemd | LVM2 on LUKS
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#11 2013-01-06 20:08:00

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

Re: UEFI - issues - save me m'lords

jackie2feet wrote:
cfr wrote:

I don't know anything about dual booting with Windows but from the other comments here, it seems it is best to boot both OSs in the same mode. So if you installed Windows "normally", does that mean non-UEFI? You said the UEFI option didn't work. Because in that case, maybe you should install Linux in legacy mode as well unless you want to redo the Windows installation?.

Yeah, Normal as non-UEFI. The Windows installation doesn't boot from [UEFI] USB, just regular USB. But it still creates an EFI boot partition. I would of thought it would have to boot into [UEFI]. I'm still confused as to what the difference of booting an install medium the regular way or the [UEFI] way is. It seems you can boot into the non-UEFI install medium and still use an EFI boot-loader.

If Windows 7 installs to a GPT-partitioned disk, then the installer is running in EFI mode and the resulting installation is in EFI mode. Windows will not boot in BIOS mode from a GPT disk. I haven't heard differently for Windows 8, although I suppose it's possible that it's willing to do an EFI-mode installation from a BIOS-mode boot. I recommend you review the working Windows installation, as described here. I suspect that you're either booting in EFI mode even though you think you're booting in BIOS mode or that you're installing in BIOS mode to an MBR disk even though you think you're installing to a GPT disk.

Cfr is quite correct that it's best to keep two OSes on one computer booting in the same mode. It's usually possible to mix and match, but switching modes is awkward or sometimes even impossible with most EFI implementations. rEFInd has features that can help, but they don't work with all EFIs and configurations, so you shouldn't count on them being available.

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#12 2013-01-09 02:38:57

jackie2feet
Member
Registered: 2012-12-27
Posts: 7

Re: UEFI - issues - save me m'lords

srs5694 wrote:

I recommend you review the working Windows installation, as described here. I suspect that you're either booting in EFI mode even though you think you're booting in BIOS mode or that you're installing in BIOS mode to an MBR disk even though you think you're installing to a GPT disk.

Thanks mate. I have windows.exe so Windows 8 must be booting in bios. I'm not sure why it creates an EFI partition on the Windows 8 SSD. I'm going to try a fresh install of Arch on an MBR disc in non-uefi and see if I have any problems dual booting.

Thanks everyone for answering my questions !

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#13 2013-01-14 16:54:50

DislikeYou
Member
Registered: 2013-01-03
Posts: 9

Re: UEFI - issues - save me m'lords

I have found a simple solution to the "No loader found. Configuration files in /loader/entries/*.conf are needed." error. You don't need refind or grub.

Just replace the bootx64.efi file with this one: http://www.filedropper.com/bootx64

It is also gummiboot but from a older version of Arch Linux ISO.

Use diskpart to format USB:

list disk
select disk
clean
convert gpt
create partition primary
select partition 1
format fs=fat32 quick


Then extract the Arch ISO to USB stick using 7zip if you are on Windows, because if you use winrar or other tools, the file names might be wrong after extraction and it will fail to boot. Replace the bootx64.efi on the USB stick and boot.

Last edited by DislikeYou (2013-01-16 10:25:12)

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#14 2013-01-15 18:06:37

6ng4n
Member
Registered: 2012-02-07
Posts: 84

Re: UEFI - issues - save me m'lords

Is refind_linux.conf in the same dir with vmlinuz-arch.efi and initramfs-arch.img in UEFI partition?

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#15 2013-01-15 18:30:44

swordfish
Member
Registered: 2012-01-14
Posts: 160

Re: UEFI - issues - save me m'lords

6ng4n wrote:

Is refind_linux.conf in the same dir with vmlinuz-arch.efi and initramfs-arch.img in UEFI partition?

Jepp, the directory is /boot/efi/EFI/arch wink


Arch_x64 on Thinkpad Edge E520 (Intel Core i5, 4 GB RAM, 128 GB Crucial M4 SSD) + ITX-Desktop (Asrock H77M-ITX, Intel Core i3-2120T, 8GB RAM, 64 GB Samsung 830 SSD)

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