UEFI boot on Lenovo Thinkpad X220 (USB thumb drive)

Hello all,

I have a Lenovo Thinkpad X220, which lacks a DVD drive.

I am wanting to install OpenSUSE on my laptop in UEFI mode, because it has an SSD, and I would rather use GPT than MBR on it (and my laptop will not boot a GPT hard drive unless it is in UEFI mode… I have tried workarounds, but I think it is a limitation of the firmware of the laptop itself).

I have not been able to boot the laptop in UEFI mode from the installation media. I have tried Unetbootin, using dd to copy the media to the drive, and formatting the drive as FAT32, marking it as bootble, and copying the files from the ISO to the USB drive (this has worked on other distros I have tried in the past like Arch Linux).

Does anyone have any tips?

I do not have an external DVD drive, otherwise I would try that.

Thanks!

On Wed 07 Nov 2012 11:56:01 PM CST, mrmylanman wrote:

Hello all,

I have a Lenovo Thinkpad X220, which lacks a DVD drive.

I am wanting to install OpenSUSE on my laptop in UEFI mode, because it
has an SSD, and I would rather use GPT than MBR on it (and my laptop
will not boot a GPT hard drive unless it is in UEFI mode… I have tried
workarounds, but I think it is a limitation of the firmware of the
laptop itself).

I have not been able to boot the laptop in UEFI mode from the
installation media. I have tried Unetbootin, using dd to copy the media
to the drive, and formatting the drive as FAT32, marking it as bootble,
and copying the files from the ISO to the USB drive (this has worked on
other distros I have tried in the past like Arch Linux).

Does anyone have any tips?

I do not have an external DVD drive, otherwise I would try that.

Thanks!

Hi
I had the same issue with this laptop, tried the dvd via external usb
drive, but appears to be a BIOS issue. I added a HDD caddy in place of
the dvd drive, had to pop it back in for the UEFI/GPT install and
attach the caddy hdd as a usb device for the install.

I think it is BIOS related, but didn’t investigate further…

Can you manually configure the UEFI options, might need to add the
install device and path to the efi directory manually.


Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 12.2 (x86_64) Kernel 3.4.11-2.16-desktop
up 10 days 1:08, 4 users, load average: 0.01, 0.02, 0.05
CPU Intel i5 CPU M520@2.40GHz | Intel Arrandale GPU

You threw me for a loop for a bit – on first read, I was like “err, that laptop doesn’t have a rom drive, let alone an ultra bay” rotfl!

On Thu 08 Nov 2012 01:36:01 AM CST, Tyler K wrote:

malcolmlewis;2502058 Wrote:
> I added a HDD caddy in place of
> the dvd driveYou threw me for a loop for a bit – on first read, I
> was like “err,
that laptop doesn’t have a rom drive, let alone an ultra bay” rotfl!

Hi
This laptop == DELL Latitude E5510 :wink:


Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 12.2 (x86_64) Kernel 3.4.11-2.16-desktop
up 10 days 2:33, 4 users, load average: 0.00, 0.01, 0.05
CPU Intel i5 CPU M520@2.40GHz | Intel Arrandale GPU