Yes, if it is really UEFI mode you must have so called EFI System Partition which should be formatted as FAT. It is normally mounted on /boot/efi (this is not strictly required, but I suppose many scripts could depend on it). If you are installing in UEFI mode, installer suggests this automatically. Did you manually edit suggested partition layout? Did you remove small FAT partition probably?
This partition has tiny amount of data. SLES creates 70MB by default and Windows 100MB (I think). No need to do more.
I’m familiar with that tiny boot-efi FAT32 partition from other distributions.
When I let the installation partitioner create a partitioning scheme, it is unacceptable. It creates a 2GB swap (on a machine with 16GB RAM) as /dev/sda1 and then a 20GB “/” partition as /dev/sda2. When I select the “Edit partition” option, I do not see any small FAT32 partition, so presumably the partitioner is not creating it.
Well … do you really boot in UEFI mode? Could it be legacy boot mode?
Oh! I see you have live CD … somebody recently mentioned that it does not have UEFI support, so you are booting in legacy mode in reality. You need full installation DVD to install on UEFI system.
fdisk incorrectly shows all 3tb as /dev/sda1, GPT, type “ee”. And complains it is a GPT drive.
parted shows this:
/dev/sda1 starts at 512MB, ends at 1536MB, is named “boot-efi”, marked as boot.
/dev/sda2 is the rest of the partition except for 16gb of swap at the end. It’s exta4.
I created this scheme manually before the last install attempt, marking “boot-efi” as the boot partition. As you can see, the install routine also tagged “/” as boot.
Does the partition I have named “boot-efi” need to called something specific? Does it need to be formatted as FAT32 or just set as a FAT32 partition?
Do I need a separate /boot partition?
Which partition should be flagged for booting?
Not to complain, but given all they hype about UEFI booting, why isn’t the install routine handling all this automatically?
I see the ELILO boot.
I see the kernel load.
I see the row of dots progress across the screen.
Then I see a black screen with one blinking cursor.
The I see “Error No Active Partition” scroll across the screen.
LATER: Booted the DVD in non-EFI mode. Partitioned as follows:
dev/sda1 /boot
dev/sda2 swap
/dev/sda3 /
Boot loader is installed on /boot.
At the first boot after the install, the same “No Active Partition” message appears. But, a check with parted shows the boot flag is set on /dev/sda1.
So,results so far:
Install from LivCD in EFI or non-EFi mode: failure with “no active partition”
Install from DVD in EFI mode or non-EFI mode: failure with “no active partition”.
> OK. Booting off the DVD. No luck:
>
> I see the ELILO boot.
> I see the kernel load.
> I see the row of dots progress across the screen.
> Then I see a black screen with one blinking cursor.
> The I see “Error No Active Partition” scroll across the screen.
Are you sure it is not attempting to boot the hard disk instead?
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)
What I see is that with my BIOS set to boot the DVD in EFI mode is this: a console screen with the ELILO boot prompt, followed by a kernel loading message, followed by the “No active partition”.
When I boot with the BIOS DVD setting in no-EFI mode, the install proceeds normally. But, of course, I cannot make use of the 3TB drive.
In any case, if I do try to install in non-EFI mode and accept the installer’s recommended (and useless) partitioning scheme, it puts swap in /dev/sda1 and then sets that as the boot partition, which is obviously a nonstarter.
Do you have smaller drive? You could use it as system with MBR partition and then use large drive with GPT.
accept the installer’s recommended (and useless) partitioning scheme
So do not accept it But installer may see that you have large drive and insist on using GPT … hard to say without seeing actual logs.
I do not know why you cannot boot. Do you have any other DVD that supports UEFI boot for testing? Have you tried to completely wipe out partition table (something like dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1M count=1 from rescue mode would do) and retry UEFI install?
But installer may see that you have large drive and insist on using GPT … hard to say without seeing actual logs.