Install to SSD failed

robin_listas · January 31, 2014, 10:33pm

On 2014-01-31 22:06, gogalthorp wrote:
>
> Right EFI+legacy is neither fish nor fowl. in Theory you can have both a
> legacy and a UEFI based OS on the same drive/machine. UEFI leaves space
> for MBR blocks which can be used for MBR boots but still supports the
> /boot/efi stuff Now that is the theory in practice I don’t think it is
> a real great idea since the computer maker’s implementation of EFI
> standard is not uniform in any meaningful way. Also I don’t think the
> installers really handle this corner case so actual setup may be
> difficult . Bet to use either MBR or EFI/GPT

It means, I guess, that the computer will first seek. If it finds GPT
boot partition it will use it. If it sees an MBR partition it will seek
for the boot sector.

As simple as that.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)

dayfinger · January 31, 2014, 10:39pm

Doing that still would require repartitioning at least the boot disk (to yank the GPT table proper in place behind the protective MBR), and also you would need another partition “BIOS Boot” to cater for the space between MBR table and the first data partition that isn’t there anymore with the arrival of GPT. (If I’m not mistaken, that is what they call “hybrid partitioning”).

However, I cannot see that being put in place after an OS has already being installed. The current OS would need to be reinstalled. I would expect. If anyone is challenging that, I’m really interested :)!!!

Also, if only the boot partition is being repartitioned, there is the problem of mixing MBR and GPT partitioning, which imposes restrictions on its own. Better not mixing MBR/GPT formatting. Disks being made available over USB, though, shouldn’t be any problem for either. I positively know that to be true from my own experience when accessing MBR/USB disks from a UEFI/GPT environment.

I totally agree.

Unless Astralogic (OP) do find a CSM option appearing when enabling UEFI, his choice is pure UEFI or the mixed mode which he is currently using. To be fair, the latter requires openSUSE to accept installing into an MBR disk even though it detects UEFI (which W8 doesn’t - with the same configuration!) to do dual boot, since W8 is already installed and MBR is used all over the place. But I do not know of such a possibility. That, however, doesn’t mean it is impossible - I just don’t know how.

Unless a full system reinstall is acceptable. That, Astralogic is the only one to answer.

In addition, of course, there is the possibility that another distro makes other decicions and offer other options in the same environment.

dayfinger

robin_listas · February 1, 2014, 12:28am

On 2014-01-31 22:46, dayfinger wrote:

> Unless Astralogic (OP) do find a CSM option appearing when enabling
> UEFI, his choice is pure UEFI or the mixed mode which he is currently
> using. To be fair, the latter requires openSUSE to accept installing
> into an MBR disk even though it detects UEFI (which W8 doesn’t - with
> the same configuration!) to do dual boot, since W8 is already installed
> and MBR is used all over the place. But I do not know of such a
> possibility. That, however, doesn’t mean it is impossible - I just don’t
> know how.

Would it work installing using that disk on another computer?

Here are a lot of options for the install media:

SDB:Linuxrc

But I do not see any related to uefi, mbr or gpt. I did not thoroughly
read it, though.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)

Astralogic · February 1, 2014, 12:25pm

I will set the boot mode to UEFI and reinstall Windows. Then will openSUSE install without complaining about my drives?

dayfinger · February 1, 2014, 4:58pm

That’s a good decision in my view!

openSUSE will not complain about your drives if you do - but remember: ALL your drives should be repartitioned/reformatted from MBR to GPT - not just your boot drive. Doing so also means that ALL YOUR DATA (!!!) on that computer will be wiped out. So you better backup whatever you want to keep - and store it externally to the computer somewhere. If you don’t, you may run into conflicts between MBR/GPT partitioned disks residing on the same system.

Also, in good dual/multiboot tradition, there are good reasons to preallocate a larger ESP (EFI) partition for W8 than W8 will allocate for itself. Below is a suggested layout. I limit it to the W8 parts, as the rest will be normal Linux installation procedures, and probably better handled in a new thread if you have questions (a new set of questions = a new topic = new thread = the right set of readers which will offer more and better opinions). Also, you should be in position to directly use the procedures/how-to I’ve already pointed you to.

I assume for the rest of my description that you have UEFI selected - and I suggest you enable SecureBoot too.

SecureBoot:
Remember - SecureBoot does offer extra security, and you can always disable it if you get problems with it. I always have it enabled, but have needed to temporarily disable during certain openSUSE upgrades. You may or may not have to do the same, that depends on your UEFI implementation. Time will show. If you do, ask back in the forums here, and we will assist you as well as we can. At a minimum, W8 should install flawlessly with SecureBoot enabled.

Here’s what to do:

Boot up openSUSE live DVD, and fire up a terminal window.
Enter superuser mode (become “root”-user), then detect which disk is your boot disk. The remaining parts all require root access.
Start gdisk, pointing it to your boot disk
Wipe out the existing MBR partition table completely (from this point on, your boot disk is EMPTY!)
Establish GPT on the boot disk using gdisk
Create an ESP/EFI partition of 300MB
Create an MSR partition of 128MB (W8 require this for GPT disks - openSUSE ignores it)
Create a partition for W8 to use - with the size as you see fit. Half of your SSD is fine, if you want to keep it like that.

The remaining parts of the disk I assume you want for openSUSE. If you go for default openSUSE suggestions, you will have 2GB SWAP, 20GB “/” (root partition) and the rest for /home (where your user data will reside). That is fine for a start, and will allow you to install almost everything available from the install repositories simultaneously. But I do recommend to create a separate /home partition (as is suggested by default). That will come in handy when you want to upgrade to the next openSUSE version. When you get used to it, you may want to change that, but let that be until you know what and why you want to change it for yourself. There is no one solution being correct at that. Your need is always the correct solution.

Here’s the commands to use when you are in the terminal window and to prepare the partitions for W8:
For step 2 above:

linux@linux:~> su -
linux:~ # parted -l

A single disk example from a W8.1 system using MBR disks:

linux@linux:~> su -
linux:~ # parted -l
Model: VMware, VMware Virtual S (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 42.9GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start   End     Size    Type     File system  Flags
 1      1049kB  368MB   367MB   primary  ntfs         boot, type=07
 2      368MB   21.5GB  21.1GB  primary  ntfs         type=07


Warning: Unable to open /dev/sr0 read-write (Read-only file system).  /dev/sr0
has been opened read-only.
Error: Can't have a partition outside the disk!                           
Model: NECVMWar VMware SATA CD01 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sr0: 988MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 2048B/2048B
Partition Table: unknown

linux:~ #

Similarly, you should look for the disk where a partition marked “boot” resides. Note its “/dev/sd”-value. If you have more than one disk with partitions carrying boot-flags, you should be careful and make sure you pick the right one! If necessary, ask back here, providing a dump of your full “parted -l” output. Maybe we can help you decide. Most probably, you have only one boot-flagged partition, and that will be the disk where you will reinstall W8 and also install openSUSE. That should also be your SSD disk.

For step 3 and 4 above:

su -
gdisk /dev/sdb
z
w

I don’t have a dump to show an example for this at this time - sorry.

For steps 5 through 8 above:

linux:~ # gdisk /dev/sdb    # Assuming your boot disk is 'sdb' - You use "sd<x>" as fit for you!
n                           # create new partition
1                           # partition number
<enter>                     # Start sector - select default value
+300M                       # Last sector - make the size 300MB
ef00                        # make the partition an EFI System partition
p                           # Display what has been established so far

n                           # create new partition
2                           # partition number
<enter>                     # Start sector - select default value
+128M                       # Last sector - make the size 128MB - THIS IS A FIXED VALUE! DON'T CHANGE IT!
0c01                        # make the partition a Microsoft Reserved Partition
p                           # Display what has been established so far

n                           # create new partition - This is for W8 normal storage + W8 system files
3                           # partition number
<enter>                     # Start sector - select default value
+126G                       # Last sector - make the size 126GB - you enter what you think is fit for you
0700                        # make the partition a Microsoft Basic Data partition
p                           # Display what has been established so far

w                           # If you think it looks OK, write all your modifications
                            # if not, type "q" to quit without writing to your disk

parted -l                   # (That is a lower case "L") confirm that you have written the new partition table

Here is an example of the procedure above (/dev/sda is the disk used here):

linux:~ # gdisk /dev/sda
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 0.8.7

Partition table scan:
  MBR: not present
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: not present

Creating new GPT entries.

Command (? for help): n
Partition number (1-128, default 1): 1
First sector (34-41943006, default = 2048) or {+-}size{KMGTP}:
Last sector (2048-41943006, default = 41943006) or {+-}size{KMGTP}: +300M
Current type is 'Linux filesystem'
Hex code or GUID (L to show codes, Enter = 8300): l
0700 Microsoft basic data  0c01 Microsoft reserved    2700 Windows RE          
4200 Windows LDM data      4201 Windows LDM metadata  7501 IBM GPFS            
7f00 ChromeOS kernel       7f01 ChromeOS root         7f02 ChromeOS reserved  
8200 Linux swap            8300 Linux filesystem      8301 Linux reserved      
8400 Intel Rapid Start     8e00 Linux LVM             a500 FreeBSD disklabel  
a501 FreeBSD boot          a502 FreeBSD swap          a503 FreeBSD UFS        
a504 FreeBSD ZFS           a505 FreeBSD Vinum/RAID    a580 Midnight BSD data  
a581 Midnight BSD boot     a582 Midnight BSD swap     a583 Midnight BSD UFS    
a584 Midnight BSD ZFS      a585 Midnight BSD Vinum    a800 Apple UFS          
a901 NetBSD swap           a902 NetBSD FFS            a903 NetBSD LFS          
a904 NetBSD concatenated   a905 NetBSD encrypted      a906 NetBSD RAID        
ab00 Apple boot            af00 Apple HFS/HFS+        af01 Apple RAID          
af02 Apple RAID offline    af03 Apple label           af04 AppleTV recovery    
af05 Apple Core Storage    be00 Solaris boot          bf00 Solaris root        
bf01 Solaris /usr & Mac Z  bf02 Solaris swap          bf03 Solaris backup      
bf04 Solaris /var          bf05 Solaris /home         bf06 Solaris alternate se
bf07 Solaris Reserved 1    bf08 Solaris Reserved 2    bf09 Solaris Reserved 3  
bf0a Solaris Reserved 4    bf0b Solaris Reserved 5    c001 HP-UX data          
c002 HP-UX service         ea00 Freedesktop $BOOT     eb00 Haiku BFS          
ed00 Sony system partitio  ef00 EFI System            ef01 MBR partition scheme
ef02 BIOS boot partition   fb00 VMWare VMFS           fb01 VMWare reserved    
fc00 VMWare kcore crash p  fd00 Linux RAID            
Hex code or GUID (L to show codes, Enter = 8300): ef00
Changed type of partition to 'EFI System'

Command (? for help): p
Disk /dev/sda: 41943040 sectors, 20.0 GiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 80511636-26F3-4C65-9232-9D4AE6B96529
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 41943006
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 41328573 sectors (19.7 GiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1            2048          616447   300.0 MiB   EF00  EFI System

Command (? for help): n
Partition number (2-128, default 2): 2
First sector (34-41943006, default = 616448) or {+-}size{KMGTP}:
Last sector (616448-41943006, default = 41943006) or {+-}size{KMGTP}: +128M
Current type is 'Linux filesystem'
Hex code or GUID (L to show codes, Enter = 8300): 0c01
Changed type of partition to 'Microsoft reserved'

Command (? for help): p
Disk /dev/sda: 41943040 sectors, 20.0 GiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 80511636-26F3-4C65-9232-9D4AE6B96529
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 41943006
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 41066429 sectors (19.6 GiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1            2048          616447   300.0 MiB   EF00  EFI System
   2          616448          878591   128.0 MiB   0C01  Microsoft reserved

Command (? for help): n
Partition number (3-128, default 3): 3
First sector (34-41943006, default = 878592) or {+-}size{KMGTP}:
Last sector (878592-41943006, default = 41943006) or {+-}size{KMGTP}: +15G
Current type is 'Linux filesystem'
Hex code or GUID (L to show codes, Enter = 8300): 0700
Changed type of partition to 'Microsoft basic data'

Command (? for help): p
Disk /dev/sda: 41943040 sectors, 20.0 GiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 80511636-26F3-4C65-9232-9D4AE6B96529
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 41943006
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 9609149 sectors (4.6 GiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1            2048          616447   300.0 MiB   EF00  EFI System
   2          616448          878591   128.0 MiB   0C01  Microsoft reserved
   3          878592        32335871   15.0 GiB    0700  Microsoft basic data

Command (? for help): w

Final checks complete. About to write GPT data. THIS WILL OVERWRITE EXISTING
PARTITIONS!!

Do you want to proceed? (Y/N): Y
OK; writing new GUID partition table (GPT) to /dev/sda.
The operation has completed successfully.
linux:~ # parted -l
Model: VMware, VMware Virtual S (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 21.5GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name                  Flags
 1      1049kB  316MB   315MB                EFI System            boot
 2      316MB   450MB   134MB                Microsoft reserved    msftres
 3      450MB   16.6GB  16.1GB               Microsoft basic data


Warning: Unable to open /dev/sr0 read-write (Read-only file system).  /dev/sr0
has been opened read-only.
Error: Can't have a partition outside the disk!                          
Model: NECVMWar VMware SATA CD01 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sr0: 988MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 2048B/2048B
Partition Table: unknown

linux:~ #

Now, exit the openSUSE live DVD and boot using W8 install DVD and select custom install. Select the large partition (125GB?) for W8 to install in, and there you go. Once finished installing W8, access the other disks you want to access from W8 and reformat them if W8 ask you to (they are MBR formatted, so I think W8 will want to converted them to GPT - please inform us of what happens - that’s learning for me/us too ).

When finished with all that (including installing the programs you want to install under W8), you can start installing openSUSE.

Good luck!

dayfinger

Astralogic · February 1, 2014, 5:32pm

I didn’t realize I’d had to format all my drives. I have TB’s of stuff, formatting it all isn’t really practical, neither is backing it all up.

I’ll give Mint Debian Edition a try, if that doesn’t work, there aren’t really any other Linux distros I’ve seen that really attract me.

Quick question, would all this still be the same if I was using W7?

dayfinger · February 1, 2014, 8:41pm

You really should reconsider that (whether you choose to install Linux or not). With no backup (which is what you are implying), you are working against the clock, statistics and physics. Some time in the future something will break. Then you loose data. If you think that doesn’t matter, then rethink why you don’t want to reformat the disks today (iow: if you don’t want to reformat now, you have data you don’t want to loose). Go get yourself some backup media!
Personally, I’ve found external HDs to be sufficient: 2 backup copies to different HDs + the working copies. I rotate the backup HDs off site. If I couldn’t do double HD backups, I would do single copy optical backups moved off site (in practice too slow and cumbersome) or tape rotation incl. off site location (outside my budget). I’m always backing up what I need to keep. (I’m looking into establishing my own private cloud for such use - among other things, but I don’t even consider using clouds located out of my control).

Good luck with that!

Yes. W7 and W8 is the same in this respect. The only real differences in this context are that W7 doesn’t do SecureBoot, nor does it do “Fast Start” (aka “Hybrid Sleep”) - W8 does both.

One thing, though: The culprit here is the way the OS-es detect UEFI and Legacy in your mixed mode UEFI/BIOS setup, and thereby how they choose to partition harddisks. W7 may detect UEFI just the way openSUSE does, so those two OS-es may agree on their view of you BIOS (such differences is within what vendors can be expected to change between OS releases), but that is a test only you can do. If that change, however, it doesn’t change the fact that you still would need to repartition your disks from MBR to GPT. What will not change, is the way openSUSE is reading from your “BIOS”.

In my view, your only options that does not include reformatting disks are to force openSUSE to accept MBR/detect Legacy BIOS (if possible, but I don’t know how - I did follow up on robin_listas’ suggestion above, but didn’t see any solution either. To me, it seems that Yast is the detector here, but I’m not sure. Maybe it is the disk partitioner itself - that means parted, if I’m not mistaken) or find another Linux distribution that do agree with W8 in the way Legacy BIOS is detected.

Again, good luck! Hope to see you back here some time in the future!

dayfinger

robin_listas · February 1, 2014, 9:28pm

On 2014-02-01 20:46, dayfinger wrote:
> Astralogic;2621266 Wrote:

> One thing, though: The culprit here is the way the OS-es detect UEFI
> and Legacy in your mixed mode UEFI/BIOS setup, and thereby how they
> choose to partition harddisks.

Maybe there is a bios update for that machine - forgive me if this was
already mentioned.

> In my view, your only options that does not include reformatting disks
> are to force openSUSE to accept MBR/detect Legacy BIOS (if possible, but
> I don’t know how - I did follow up on robin_listas’ suggestion above,
> but didn’t see any solution either. To me, it seems that Yast is the
> detector here, but I’m not sure. Maybe it is the disk partitioner itself
> - that means parted, if I’m not mistaken) or find another Linux
> distribution that do agree with W8 in the way Legacy BIOS is detected.

More ideas.

Report in Bugzilla the issue. Specify that what is needed is a way to
tell the installer to bypass the UEFI/BIOS detection, and install in
traditional, MBR, method. This may take years (at least, till next
release), unless it already exists. Add a link to this thread.
Installing an openSUSE version that is not UEFI aware because it is
too old. I would suggest 11.4, maybe older. Then it can be upgraded to
13.1 via the offline method. Ask me about the upgrade later if you need.
Try to install with all the hard disks removed, except the
destination disk. Just a wild idea, not based on anything.
Take that hard disk to another computer, which does not have UEFI, or
that can be set in traditional mode. Install openSUSE there, then move
the disk back.
Install from inside vmware player. The destination of the
installation can be a real hard disk, not a file in the host system. I
have done this, it works… When installation of the virtual machine has
finished, that disk can be booted standalone - but first, you have to
change entries in fstab and run mkinitrd, because identificators change.
Use “by-label” if possible. After the system runs, you have to remove
the vmware client modules.

Vmware emulates a BIOS (by default at least), so that the openSUSE
install disk sees BIOS, not UEFI, and will install in MBR mode. Problem:
the host system has to be running in a different disk, and this is not
the case, I understand. I mean, you need an entire real disk to give to
vmware, not some partitions.

??

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)

Astralogic · February 1, 2014, 11:15pm

I’ll give 11.4 a try and let you know how it goes.

VMware is not free right?

robin_listas · February 1, 2014, 11:28pm

On 2014-02-01 23:16, Astralogic wrote:
>
> I’ll give 11.4 a try and let you know how it goes.

Keep us updated

> VMware is not free right?

Vmware player is free for personal use. If you are using it for business
install, then I guess it is not free; but I understand the same trick
can be used with virtualbox. But as I’m not familiar with VB, I can not
give specifics.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)

dayfinger · February 2, 2014, 2:52am

No, I don’t think it was mentioned, but his BIOS was released 12/3/2013 (see the msinfo32-dump). I took that for being US date format, which means December 3rd 2013. Thus, I didn’t mention it at the time. But it is worth checking out.

That would be useful for more people, I think. Preferrably, one would want a way to override the UEFI/BIOS detection either way.

Good call. I like that idea. I can see that may possibly work, but that is provided the upgrade takes the environment for face value and skip detecting it.

I don’t see how that would make detection change behaviour, but it doesn’t hurt to test out.

I agree. That may work too.

The VMWare suggestion: Agree. It seems correct all you say there. To enable UEFI under VMWare Workstation 8 or 9 and up (and also VMWare Player, the two later versions according to what I’ve read but not tried myself) is to add the line ‘firmware=“efi”’ in the VM’s .vmx file. Without that line, you’ll have good old legacy BIOS.

One remark, though. Once the openSUSE is upgraded to current version or the disk is installed from the “other” environment, I see one potential problem: If it is the partitioner that does the checking and that is our real culprit (disk partitioners DO some detecting), then standard openSUSE disk partitioners cannot be used after the final installation without having to specifically compile an old version that is not UEFI/GPT aware for use with the current version of openSUSE.
A sidenote: If I understand it right, gdisk can be forced somewhat, but I don’t know how that would work out in this case, as gdisk is made specifically to handle UEFI.

Nonetheless, if it is the partitioner (parted?) that is the culprit, it would still be useful to have an override in the partitioner itself. Also, it could be easier and/or faster to get the change through the channels. An alternative or additional item to mention when entering the Bugzilla report?

dayfinger

robin_listas · February 2, 2014, 4:08am

On 2014-02-02 02:56, dayfinger wrote:

> robin_listas;2621365 Wrote:
>> * Installing an openSUSE version that is not UEFI aware because it is
>> too old. I would suggest 11.4, maybe older. Then it can be upgraded to
>> 13.1 via the offline method. Ask me about the upgrade later if you need.

> Good call. I like that idea. I can see that may possibly work, but that
> is provided the upgrade takes the environment for face value and skip
> detecting it.

I have not tried on uefi hardware, but on bios hardware, the offline
upgrade method does not checking at all of the boot method. You can do
no change to it at all during the procedure. I understand it simply
reads the current configuration (from /etc) and reapplies it.

For instance, it does no upgrade from grub 1 to grub 2.

You can not do any change to partitioning, either.

Thus I suspect it will not try to verify if the hardware is uefi.

And the online upgrade is just an upgrade of packages using zypper dup…

Of course, somebody has to try this… it is uncharted territory.

> robin_listas;2621365 Wrote:
>> * Try to install with all the hard disks removed, except the
>> destination disk. Just a wild idea, not based on anything.

> I don’t see how that would make detection change behaviour, but it
> doesn’t hurt to test out.

Just my thought

> The VMWare suggestion: Agree. It seems correct all you say there. To
> enable UEFI under VMWare Workstation 8 or 9 and up (and also VMWare
> Player, the two later versions according to what I’ve read but not tried
> myself) is to add the line ‘firmware=“efi”’ in the VM’s .vmx file.
> Without that line, you’ll have good old legacy BIOS.

Ah, I did not know that trick. It will serve me to try uefi.

> One remark, though. Once the openSUSE is upgraded to current version or
> the disk is installed from the “other” environment, I see one potential
> problem: If it is the partitioner that does the checking and that is
> our real culprit (disk partitioners DO some detecting), then standard
> openSUSE disk partitioners cannot be used after the final installation
> without having to specifically compile an old version that is not
> UEFI/GPT aware for use with the current version of openSUSE.

I hope not. :-}

> Nonetheless, if it is the partitioner (parted?) that is the culprit, it
> would still be useful to have an override in the partitioner itself. An
> alternative or additional item to mention when entering the Bugzilla
> report?

Dunno. I don’t know what section does the decision to do a uefi install
or a bios install. It must be done early.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)

Astralogic · February 2, 2014, 12:25pm

Hi, could someone check this post and tell me if I will run into the same problem with 11.4 please.

dayfinger · February 2, 2014, 1:43pm

You may hit the same problem, yes. But you know the answer to it too :). Also, if it comes to that, there are ways to get W8 reclaim its MBR booting as is ATM.

dayfinger

robin_listas · February 2, 2014, 3:38pm

On 2014-02-02 12:26, Astralogic wrote:
>
> Hi, could someone check ‘this post’ (http://tinyurl.com/lvusz93) and
> tell me if I will run into the same problem with 11.4 please.

Dunno.

When installing openSUSE on the same disk as a Windows install, I prefer
these settings:

Do not write generic mbr code
Do not install grub in the MBR
1 & 2 → - ie, leave the Windows boot code in place.

Install grub on the partition that contains “/boot”.
Boot from mbr.
Do not change active mark dynamically. Ie, mark the partition where grub is.

Reason: Windows typically refuse to install some updates (SP) when the
boot code is altered. Just marking the windows partition as bootable
temporarily while the update is made solves the issue. Once done,
marking again the partition that contains grub restores things.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)

Astralogic · February 2, 2014, 6:56pm

I did it! OpenSUSE 13.1 is installed!

I noticed that on my boot menu I get the option of booting my DVD drive in EFI or regular mode, after booting it installed fine.

However I have an annoying problem. I have two monitors, and I need to switch them, because on my second monitor it says “unsupported format” or something as though the resolution is wrong or something, but on my other monitor I only see desktop 2. So I need to modify the display settings of a monitor and switch them around to that I get desktop 1 on the other display. Any ideas how to do that without being able to see the main desktop?

gogalthorp · February 2, 2014, 8:03pm

Maybe boot to rescue mode? I don’t think that mode supports dual monitors so you should only see the main one.

robin_listas · February 2, 2014, 7:58pm

On 2014-02-02 19:06, Astralogic wrote:
>
> I did it! OpenSUSE 13.1 is installed!
>
> I noticed that on my boot menu I get the option of booting my DVD drive
> in EFI or regular mode, after booting it installed fine.

Wow! Congratulations!

> However I have an annoying problem. I have two monitors, and I need to
> switch them, because on my second monitor it says “unsupported format”
> or something as though the resolution is wrong or something, but on my
> other monitor I only see desktop 2. So I need to modify the display
> settings of a monitor and switch them around to that I get desktop 1 on
> the other display. Any ideas how to do that without being able to see
> the main desktop?

Hum.

I’d suggest not to answer this on this thread. I’d recommend to start a
new one with a tittle related to that, like “second monitor does not
work”, so that people knowing on that subject see it.

Lets leave this thread to the uefi/mbr install problem.

Less confusion.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)

Astralogic · February 2, 2014, 9:28pm

OK, I’ll make a new thread. Thanks for the help.

dayfinger · February 3, 2014, 6:10pm

Nice! Congratulations! lol!

That fact is food for thought, though:
If I am not mistaken, it demonstrates that the thought of the OS-es detecting Legacy BIOS/UEFI environment as presented above needs clarification: An OS will only detect the environment being offered by the … let’s call it the “HW configurator” (HWC), the menu you the system administrator enter to configure your PC’s defaults - including which boot environment to offer: Legacy BIOS or UEFI. In your case, this is a combo-choice. It is the HWC that actually does the selection.

In other words: The HWC is offering the OS either Legacy BIOS or UEFI. The OS detects what is being offered. The other alternative is hidden from it. That makes sense, of course, because otherwise if the HWC was offering both environments all the time would run the risk that detection mechanisms returned a different result later on when other pieces of SW needs to detect what they need.

Another iteration of that thought:
Since the HWC-mechanism does detection for its own use (it is common to have quite a few items set at “auto” in the HWC menu), that also includes Legacy BIOS/UEFI when the combo alternative is selected: It detects what environment to offer, and then selects it automatically. Or, when both options appear to be possible, it offers the operator a choice.

The logical extention to this, would be that you, when you installed Windows 8, was offered this choice and that you, when responding, selected Legacy BIOS (thus W8 selected MBR disk partitioning).

Can you confirm that?

If you don’t remember, can you boot off your W8 install DVD and see which options are offered (you can safely power off your computer to interrupt the installation before disturbing what you already have installed)?

Thank you.

Of course, the above is speculation on my part, since I do not have a computer doing Legacy+UEFI available. It would be useful to know that. Your HWC (“BIOS”/UEFI) is AMI (American Megatrends Inc), which is a quite common make. So what is happening on your PC will probably also be the same on many other PCs too - including entirely different brands.

dayfinger