After openSUSE 13.1 installation next to Windows 7 (on a second hard disk) only Windows can boot

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

Hi,
it is been a very long while since i did a dual boot installation of openSUSE, but today i had to do it on a Windows 7 pc.
At first i will give you the specifications:

  • Windows 7 (64 bit) was installed on a 3TB hdd (EFI boot is selected in the bios, i do not know but i think there is a GPT partition table on the hdd)
  • for the installation of openSUSE a new hard disk was bought and plugged into the PC (it is a 2TB hdd)
  • the installation went fine, not problems or errors occured, the whole new disk was used for root (2 GB as swap) no addtional partitions

After the installation finished i the pc rebooted, and started windows, so i checked the boot settings in the bios and changed the new HDD to highest priority (Winodws partition was next in line).
After that, windows started again, so i checked the bios again and made the usb installation-stick second in line (the new hdd stayed first and windows became third), this resulted in the usb stick booting.

I have not the slightest clue whats wrong here, i assume it is something about (U)EFI, i do not know, what can i do to investigate further?

#2

Hi
So during the openSUSE install you did not select (on the windows disk) /boot/efi and tell it not to format?

You need to boot into the rescue system and post the output from;


gdisk -l /dev/sda
gdisk -l /dev/sdb
efibootmgr -v

Also what hardware as in motherboard.

#3

I just selected the new hard disk on the partitioning step during the installation. I did not hcanged anything on the windows hard disk/partition, actually my plan was to not touch the windows hdd/partition at all. Thas why i used a new hard disk for installation openSuse on. My plan was to install it in this additional hdd and then just change the boot priority (i was prepared to change the grub settings in case it did not recognized window by itself).

Btw: together with the windows hdd and the new linux hdd are two other hdds, both truecrypt encryted storage only devices.
If i remember the partition overview corectly (the one i saw during the opensuse installation) then the linux hdd was indeed /dev/sdb but the windows hdd was sbc or sbd but definitely not /dev/sda.

Following your advice i booted into the rescue system using the opensuse live usb stick i got the following results:

  • gdisk was not found at all, i got the message: “command not found”
  • efibootmgr -v, resulted it:
    Fatal: couldn’t open either sysfi or procfs directories for accessing EFI variables try ‘modprobe efivars’ as root. [but that does help either].
#4

On 2014-07-20 03:46, sabo007 wrote:

> Following your advice i booted into the rescue system using the opensuse
> live usb stick i got the following results:
> - gdisk was not found at all, i got the message: “command not found”
> - efibootmgr -v, resulted it:

You have to “su” first.

Failing that, download the CD/USB image from the openSUSE site called
“rescue image” aka “XFCE image”, (13.1 version) and try again, with it.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.

(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))

#5

Hi
That generally means you haven’t started up in UEFI mode… can you press for example a Fn key to get to a boot menu where you can browse to the efi file?

#6

Are not you allready root when you login as root? The installation disk/usb has a rescue system option and there you have to login as root (without password).
Anyway, i created another boot usb stick using the rescue image you proposed, it was a bit different than the other rescue system but this time i was able to run the gdisk commands (this time i had to su) but the efibootmgr command output was the same as before. The gdisk output was:

  • for the Windows hdd (/dev/sdd)
    port table scan:
    MBR: protective
    BSD: not present
    APM: n.p.
    GPT: present

4 partitions: 1. EFI system partition, 2. Microsoft reserved, 3. basic data, 4. basic data

  • for the Linux hdd (/dev/sdb)
    MBR: only
    BSD: n.p.
    APM: n.p.
    GPT: n.p.
    2 partitions: 1. linux swap, 2. linux filesystem

  • the other two hdds are encrypted, nothing to show there

Does this mean i forgot something during installation, like creating an EFI boot partition on the linux hdd? I did not noticed such an option but i have to admit i was not aware of such a problem.

#7

On 2014-07-20 12:36, sabo007 wrote:
>
> robin_listas;2654860 Wrote:
>> On 2014-07-20 03:46, sabo007 wrote:
>> You have to “su” first.
>>
>> Failing that, download the CD/USB image from the openSUSE site called
>> “rescue image” aka “XFCE image”, (13.1 version) and try again, with it.
>>
> Are not you allready root when you login as root? The installation
> disk/usb has a rescue system option and there you have to login as root
> (without password).

It depends on the particular rescue image you use; I was not sure which.
And that particular one I have not used in a long time as it is very
limited.

> Anyway, i created another boot usb stick using the rescue image you
> proposed, it was a bit different than the other rescue system but this
> time i was able to run the gdisk commands (this time i had to su) but
> the efibootmgr command output was the same as before.

See Malcolm’s reply about that.

> The gdisk output
> was:
> - for the Windows hdd (/dev/sdd)
> port table scan:
> MBR: protective
> BSD: not present
> APM: n.p.
> GPT: present
>
> 4 partitions: 1. EFI system partition, 2. Microsoft reserved, 3. basic
> data, 4. basic data

Please, just post the actual output, do not describe it. You can either
save it to a file, and post from another machine, or connect to internet
from the XFCE rescue image.

You could also post the output of:


> lsblk --output NAME,KNAME,SIZE,TYPE,MOUNTPOINT,LABEL,UUID,PARTLABEL,PARTUUID,SIZE

Or, instead, download this script (yes, you can install things in that
XFCE rescue USB):

https://github.com/arvidjaar/bootinfoscript/raw/master/bootinfoscript

and run it. It will extract lots of information about your boot system
and partitions, including how and where boot sequence is set up.

And very important, please use code tags for pasting any that. Use the
‘#’ button in the forum editor - for command outputs and listings
See how

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.

(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))

#8

Unfortunately the internet access is not working in the live/rescue system but i managed to get the script on the system and got it running, the results are too long for this post but i try to attach the file directly.
Attaching the file did not work so i uploaded it here (i hope it works):
http://txt.do/kzot

#9

How many disks you have? In your output sde seems to be live medium, sdd - disk with Windows and sdb - disk with Linux. This leaves us two disks - sda (1TB, Samsung) and sdc (2TB, Seagate) both with unknown filesystems and sdc with rather strange partitions. Do you know what these disks are?

Otherwise your Windows is indeed using EFI, and /etc/fstab from Linux does not include /boot/efi mountpoint, which means you installed Linux in legacy mode. That explains why you cannot boot it. Your rescue system is booted in legacy mode as well.

You need to consult your motherboard documentation how to select booting from EFI DVD and reinstall openSUSE making sure you are running on EFI (it is possible to convert, but it would be easier in this case to simply reinstall). One indication is different boot menus. You must use full installation DVD for this.

#10

There are four hard disks in the pc, the two other hard disks are fully encrypted using truecrypt (the file systems are on top of the encryption). I do not know why one of them has this strange partitons (maybe it has to to with the truecrypt pull-out affair, just kidding).

Ok i will reinstall opensuse then, i just did not noticed an EFI installation mode the last time, maybe i just overlooked.

thanks.

#11

You misunderstand. You cannot select EFI after you booted from DVD. You have to select EFI boot using your motherboard boot menu. Installation DVD supports both BIOS and EFI, but once it is booted in one mode it cannot be switched to another without reboot.

You may need to additionally turn off secure boot or something like this (although I would be surprised if it allowed legacy boot with secure boot on).

#12

Last time used a usb stick to install opensuse, but only because at first i burned a DVD which did not was able to boot, there was indeed an error during the loading of the kernel, something like that it was not able to load something at “/boot/”. Thats why i wrote the same iso image on a usb stick, with this there was no problem loading the kernel but right from the start the booting menu or installation environment looked a bit different.
Is it possible that the failed booting from DVD was a failed attempt to use EFI boot and the usb boot was non-efi?
My motherboard setting only has three options for efi: efi, non-efi and auto
it was set on EFI the whole time.
I have to try this again when iam at home. Is there a way to identify if the installation medium was booted using EFI or not?

#13

Yes, as you noticed initial menu is different. In BIOS mode you get menu with Fn keys at the bottom which can be used to set installation options. They are not present in EFI mode.

#14

I have the Gigabyte G1.sniper mainboard and it seems the EFI boot option is for CD/DVD only. The usb stick only boots in legacy mode (the menu with the Fn keys), and it seems that there is no option to boot the stick in EFI mode.
I even burned the opensuse iso again on another DVD and again it fails to boot because it cannot load the kernel, the same happens with the live system DVD, both iso-images only work when written on a usb stick, but those cannot boot in efi mode.

Any idea why the burned DVDs did not work.
The error is something like:


Loading linux...
error: failure reading sector 0x20
#15

Hi
You can check to ensure the iso images are configured for efi boot via;


/sbin/fdisk -l <iso_image>

The first part of the image should have an Id of type ef and the System column should be EFI (FAT-12/16/32).

#16

On 2014-07-22 00:06, sabo007 wrote:

> Any idea why the burned DVDs did not work.
> The error is something like:
>
> Code:
> --------------------
>
> Loading linux…
> error: failure reading sector 0x20
>
> --------------------

Well, that usually means bad DVD. Maybe the burn had a problem, maybe
the DVD was bad, maybe the burner is faulty or too old… DVD writers
have a tendency to suddenly fail, and not say that they need replacing.
You simply start seeing errors, and you typically suspect something else.

Sometimes burning at a slower speed works. Or using a different media brand.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.

(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))

#17

Hi i made another bunch of installation DVDs at work using three different DVD writers and another kind of writable DVDs (new ones i bought).
Now iam at home and just tried it agian but the same error occurs (i checked the installation iso images before, the checksums are correct).
But i took some photos of the screen and can post the exact error now.
The pc boots from the DVD right into the EFI loader (i am sure because it is the different one) there are three options no matter which one i take, the following output is the result:


Loading kernel ...
error: Can't read kernel /boot/x86_64/loader/linux
Loading initial ramdisk ...
error: you need to load the kernel first.

Press any key to continue...

After that when taking any of the given three options (after pessing a key i get back to the menu) the message only differs a little,
instead of showing


error: Can't read kernel /boot/x86_64/loader/linux

it shows


error: failure reading secotr 0x20 on cd0

I thing the problem are not that the dvd are broken but something else.
If have read something about a different intel EFI implementation or that it has to do with the name or path of the kernel which changed recently… i do not know whats that means though.

#18

Hi
What I suggest is grabbing a copy of the openSUSE 13.1 rescue cd and use imagewriter to put it onto a USB device, I know this will boot in secure mode. Else if you have an 8GB USB device, burn the install DVD to that and try, rather than using the dvd’s.

#19

Thats what i did at first, after burning the isos to DVD and both failed to load the kernel in the EFI boot menu (but i did not knew that back then, i just thought it where writing errors, that my writer or the dvds are broken). I wrote both the rescue image and the opensuse 13.1 64 bit installation image on different USB sticks (i have a 16 gb one and for the rescue image my 4 gb stick was large enough because the image was a lot of smaller) using imagewriter!
But the problem is that my mainboard does not allow to boot from USB sticks in EFI mode, only in legacy mode. It has a normal bios but with a EFI boot option for DVD/CD and obviousliy HD (but the only EFI option in my bios is named “CD/DVD EFI boot”) there is no option for EFI usb boot.
I can, instead of pressing DEL to open the bios settings, press F12 to open some kind of boot menu (in addition to the normal boot order settings in the bios) and can choose between a number of booting devices, but i can only select a device, there is nor extra EFI/legacy selection or something like that.

And when booting from usb stick i only get to see the legacy loader, there seems to be no way to get to the EFI loader/menu.

#20

Hi
Hmmmm, not really sure then, the dvd or usb device should boot in efi mode.

Maybe someone else can offer their thoughts…