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#1 2013-08-04 02:14:55

Known
Member
Registered: 2012-08-23
Posts: 63

Lost all boot options

Hey guys
I've made such a mess of things!
During installation when I try to install bootloader (EFISTUB) I entered "efibootmgr..." but it says fatal error I entered "modprobe efivars" and "efiboogr..." but now it removed all of my boot options like windows or even my laptop BIOS. now I just access to Arch Linux. it load when laptop starts.

please send some helpfull advices
thanks a lot

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#2 2013-08-04 02:33:15

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

Re: Lost all boot options

Can you get into BIOS at all?

Have you checked whether a firmware update is available for your machine? This really sounds like a firmware bug to me and the manufacturer should fix it (but don't count on it).

Can you post some information about your hardware? Which laptop and which firmware do you have?

I'm no expert but there are some things you can try. One is that you could try downloading an EFI shell and installing it to the default bootloader position. Relative to your EFI partition this would be EFI/boot/bootx64.efi. From there you should be able to boot Windows or Arch. The wiki page on UEFI has details of how to do this. Depending on how your machine is configured, you might also be able to boot the shell or a live media from a USB key but this will depend on whether losing the boot menu entries has destroyed the ability to boot this way.

In Arch, if you modprobe efivars and run efibootmgr -v, what do you get?


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#3 2013-08-04 02:43:57

Known
Member
Registered: 2012-08-23
Posts: 63

Re: Lost all boot options

cfr wrote:

Can you get into BIOS at all?

Have you checked whether a firmware update is available for your machine? This really sounds like a firmware bug to me and the manufacturer should fix it (but don't count on it).

Can you post some information about your hardware? Which laptop and which firmware do you have?

I'm no expert but there are some things you can try. One is that you could try downloading an EFI shell and installing it to the default bootloader position. Relative to your EFI partition this would be EFI/boot/bootx64.efi. From there you should be able to boot Windows or Arch. The wiki page on UEFI has details of how to do this. Depending on how your machine is configured, you might also be able to boot the shell or a live media from a USB key but this will depend on whether losing the boot menu entries has destroyed the ability to boot this way.

In Arch, if you modprobe efivars and run efibootmgr -v, what do you get?

No
I totally lost BIOS access.
When I press F10 it just says "Arch Linux"
Damn it. I wanted to install GRUB but...
My laptop is SAMSUNG NP300E5C and I'd update it before.
I'm not an advanced user but I try to do my best. So could you please tell me how I should Install an efi shell. Is it possible to install GRUB and disable EFISTUB.
Another problem is I can't boot live media. It doesn't check USB.
#modprobe efivars
nothing to show
#efibootmgr -v
nothing to show

Any hope?

Last edited by Known (2013-08-04 02:45:04)

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#4 2013-08-04 03:10:33

Known
Member
Registered: 2012-08-23
Posts: 63

Re: Lost all boot options

Could anyone tell me why it removed my bios menu (when my laptop starts F2 key doesn't lead me to BIOS menu and all options on boot selection list (F10) deleted!)?

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#5 2013-08-04 05:00:56

henk
Member
From: Weert, Netherlands
Registered: 2013-01-01
Posts: 334

Re: Lost all boot options

The only thing I can recommend is to reset the BIOS by removing the battery from the mainboard for about 30 seconds.
This is fairly easy with a desktop, but I never opened up a laptop....

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#6 2013-08-04 05:25:15

Known
Member
Registered: 2012-08-23
Posts: 63

Re: Lost all boot options

henk wrote:

The only thing I can recommend is to reset the BIOS by removing the battery from the mainboard for about 30 seconds.
This is fairly easy with a desktop, but I never opened up a laptop....

me too
the warranty doesn't let me that.

but you think it works
on boot menu nothing is to show. just it says:
"arch-grub"

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#7 2013-08-04 05:32:51

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

Re: Lost all boot options

So you have an entry for grub, right?  So put gummiboot at \EFI\arch_grub\grub.efi (or whatever the path that you made is relative to the root of the ESP).  Gummiboot has an option to get you into the bios in it menu.  You would be advised though to actually configure gummiboot so that yu can still get into your system.  Either that, or you can use grub to launch gummiboot (I'm not sure if this is actually possible), or even have gummiboot launch grub.

In any case, I have seen this before (or at least seen this happen to someone else.... 65kid I think) and that was what he ended up having to do.  Fortunately, with UEFI, there is a flag that can be set so that the machine will automatically reboot into the firmware/bios.  This is actually how many machines have to do it these days, as the windows 8 fast boot thing has forced vendors to have default settings that no longer poll for USB during POST, meaning that there is no longer the option to hit F1 or whatever to get into the bios.

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#8 2013-08-04 05:44:20

henk
Member
From: Weert, Netherlands
Registered: 2013-01-01
Posts: 334

Re: Lost all boot options

If the warranty bothers you, and you still have warranty, bring it back to the shop. They will have to repair it.
If you have no options to change the boot-order you are dead in the water, sorry to put it like that. Otherwise you would be able to flash the BIOS.

Resetting doesn't always work. I replaced the mainboard on this desktop last year november when I had a similair problem; couldn't
get past the BIOS screen or into the BIOS. Nothing would work........

EDIT: did not see WonderWoofy's post, sorry

Last edited by henk (2013-08-04 05:45:44)

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#9 2013-08-04 06:07:19

Known
Member
Registered: 2012-08-23
Posts: 63

Re: Lost all boot options

I do what WonderWoofy says. nothing changed!
I think I have to bring it back to shop but I wonder what the hell going on to my laptop!
Is it possible to delete boot order while installing arch!
Huge problem!

and one more question:
how do they flash the bios?

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#10 2013-08-04 06:31:18

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

Re: Lost all boot options

Yup, I'm not of ideas then... I guess you'll have to take it in for service.  They will likely have to replace the motherboard, as it is not worth their time or effort to flash the new bios into place on the spot. 

Normally it would be find for you the user to try to flash a new bios, but typically if you have a bootable medium from which to flash, it is bootable in bios compatibility mode only.  So if you can't turn that on, then you're screwed. But then even if it is already on, if you can't select the disk to boot from... you're screwed.

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#11 2013-08-04 06:50:10

henk
Member
From: Weert, Netherlands
Registered: 2013-01-01
Posts: 334

Re: Lost all boot options

Flashing Bios: download a (the one you use now, or a newer version) BIOS firmware package for your mainboard. These are normally provided by the
mainbord manufacturor, or in your case by Samsung. Burn it to a disk, or put it on an USB-stick. Then you would proceed like WonderWoofy mentioned,
IF you could change the boot-order, or had acces to the BIOS.

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#12 2013-08-04 13:40:19

Known
Member
Registered: 2012-08-23
Posts: 63

Re: Lost all boot options

henk wrote:

Flashing Bios: download a (the one you use now, or a newer version) BIOS firmware package for your mainboard. These are normally provided by the
mainbord manufacturor, or in your case by Samsung. Burn it to a disk, or put it on an USB-stick. Then you would proceed like WonderWoofy mentioned,
IF you could change the boot-order, or had acces to the BIOS.

And the big problem is I can't change the boot order then USB Stick not working this time.
I think I have to take it to the shop.
they know what they have to do!

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#13 2013-08-04 15:03:38

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

Re: Lost all boot options

Known wrote:

Could anyone tell me why it removed my bios menu (when my laptop starts F2 key doesn't lead me to BIOS menu and all options on boot selection list (F10) deleted!)?

It is almost certainly buggy firmware and you should make clear you know that when you take it back to the shop i.e. don't let them blame the fact that you installed Linux since what you did should *not* have had this effect. Not unless you did something very different from what you say i.e. deliberately deleted every entry in the EFI boot menu. But you would know if you did this - it isn't the sort of thing that one typo would cause, for example. You would have to issue several commands and each one would give you feedback showing an ever shrinking boot menu. (If it was possible at all - I can't delete a number of settings in my EFI boot menu even though they point to non-existent Windows stuff which I deleted long ago.) And running efibootmgr without modprobing should do nothing except complain - it should have zero effect on anything.

I am interested in how you are booting Arch, though. Where is vmlinuz-linux.efi?

When you pick arch-grub, you actually boot Arch directly? That is, you don't get a grub menu? If you are actually doing this with grub i.e. it is grubx64.efi booting the machine, check whether the timeout for the menu is set to zero. If so, make it longer and regenerate grub.cfg. See if that gets you a grub menu because if it does, you should be able to set up grub to boot Windows as an option as well.

Personally, I would take it and complain, though. This sounds like crappy firmware and they should fix it. Check if a bios update is available. If it is, ask the shop to update the firmware. If they have to replace the motherboard to do so, so be it.

Last edited by cfr (2013-08-04 15:12:16)


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Arch Linux | x86_64 | GPT | EFI boot | refind | stub loader | systemd | LVM2 on LUKS
Lenovo x270 | Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-7200U CPU @ 2.50GHz | Intel Wireless 8265/8275 | US keyboard w/ Euro | 512G NVMe INTEL SSDPEKKF512G7L

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#14 2013-08-04 19:08:31

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

Re: Lost all boot options

As cfr said, this is a firmware issue.  As awesome as Samsung machines are (and I really do think they are nice machines), they have know issues with their firmware and UEFI in particular.  So nothing you did should have caused this.  In fact, it should be that there are certain entries that cannot be removed whatsoever.  So even if you were to issue commands with the intent of removing say "0000 setup", there should be protections in place that should not allow you to do this.

After you take case of this, I would recommend you switch to legacy bios mode... for all operating systems you use.  I think if there are bios updates released by Samsung that claim to squash some of these bugs, then it might be reasonable to think about swtching back to UEFI.  But as far as I know they haven't even released a fix for the infamous UEFI bricking issues that were happening a few months back.  There have been things in Linux that have changed in order to avoid this, but Samsung themselves haven't done anything.  Also it is not just Linux from which this can happen, so if you are using windows, it is advisable to switch to legacy bios in general since I really don't think that MS has addressed the issue either.

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