With Leap 42.1 New Install Cannot Boot Windows 7 (on my desktop)

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Situation.

My desktop is an Asus X-99 Deluxe with Win7 on a DOS formatted SDD and openSUSE 13.2 on a GPT formatted HDD – both OS’s were running very nicely in Uefi, Secure Boot.

When I tried to install Leap 42.1, I could not get the install DVD to boot, so, I changed one of my (many) secure boot options to “allow foreign OS” – and then I could do the install.

The install went well except for: I tried to get the install partitioner to mount the win7 partition (as /win7, no format) and basically it told me it couldn’t (or wouldn’t). Otherwise, the install went very well.

At 1st boot. I found that I only have Leap 42.1 and openSUSE 13.2 OS’s presented – no MS Windows 7!

I find that if I enter the BIOS > Boot Devices and click on MS Windows 7 device, it boots just fine.

The only thing I have tried is to copy the 13.2 Shim to the Leap install & try it – with no change.

(Aside: The reason I have not worked on this issue very much is that I have been trying to recover a really borked win10, Leap laptop; but, that will be another post.)

Desktop fdisk:

   	 	 	 	   # fdisk -l
 
 
 Disk /dev/sda: 238.5 GiB, 256060514304 bytes, 500118192 sectors
 Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
 Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
 I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
 Disklabel type: dos
 Disk identifier: 0x97be5b6a
 
 
 Device     Boot     Start       End   Sectors   Size Id Type
 /dev/sda1  *         2048    731135    729088   356M  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
 /dev/sda2          731136 205531135 204800000  97.7G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
 /dev/sda3       205531136 500117503 294586368 140.5G  c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
 
 
 Disk /dev/sdb: 1.8 TiB, 2000398934016 bytes, 3907029168 sectors
 Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
 Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
 I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
 Disklabel type: gpt
 Disk identifier: 36338E07-B034-4031-B889-D2AD296614A2
 
 
 Device          Start        End   Sectors   Size Type

 /dev/sdb1        2048    1028095   1026048   501M Microsoft basic data
 /dev/sdb2     1028096    9414655   8386560     4G Microsoft basic data
 /dev/sdb3     9414656  156215295 146800640    70G Microsoft basic data
 /dev/sdb4   156215296  553527295 397312000 189.5G Microsoft basic data
 /dev/sdb5   553527296  700246015 146718720    70G Linux filesystem
 /dev/sdb6   700246016 1097558015 397312000 189.5G Linux filesystem
 /dev/sdb7  1097558016 1244362751 146804736    70G Microsoft basic data
 /dev/sdb8  1244362752 1640718335 396355584   189G Microsoft basic data

My Bootinfoscript: http://susepaste.org/49339765
1st, my special thanks to:
| Ulrich Meierfrankenfeld
|
|

| Gert Hulselmans
|
|

| Andrei Borzenkov
|
|

– for the excellent tool!

Well done!
From: https://github.com/arvidjaar/bootinfoscript/blob/master/bootinfoscript

](https://github.com/arvidjaar/bootinfoscript/blob/master/bootinfoscript)

2

I’m not sure what you did.

It sounds to me as if opensuse is installed for legacy booting, and Windows is installed for UEFI booting.

The two do not mix. You need to install opensuse for UEFI booting, or reinstall the bootloader for UEFI booting.

The problem that you had with booting the install media, is probably due to bug 950569. It seems that “shim.efi” is broken, though it works on some hardware. If you had disabled secure-boot, it would have worked for you. But you would then need to have left secure-boot disable, or else you would have needed to use the “shim.efi” from opensuse 13.2 to work around that bug.

And, yes, I realize you brought this up partly because of an issue that Andrei raised on another thread (relating to boot info script).

3

Try that link again, My Bootinfoscri[t: http://susepaste.org/49339765

4

Your Windows is installed in legacy BOOT mode so it cannot work in UEFI.

When I tried to install Leap 42.1, I could not get the install DVD to boot, so, I changed one of my (many) secure boot options to “allow foreign OS” – and then I could do the install.

You cannot change “allow foreign OS” until you have booted install DVD, so I do not understand this sentence at all, sorry.

At 1st boot. I found that I only have Leap 42.1 and openSUSE 13.2 OS’s presented – no MS Windows 7!

As Neil already mentioned, you have legacy Windows and UEFI openSUSE and they do not mix.

5

Got it fixed; Many Thanks guys!

I guess I didn’t say that very well. What I meant to say was that I changed my BIOS settings to allow the DVD to boot; I changed it from “MS efi mode” to “Other OS” (as I could not get it to boot otherwise). The selection on the install DVD is “Probe Foreign OS”

(Aside:
I am still scratching my head wondering how I could have installed 13.2 using grub-efi mode? I didn’t change any bios settings and it was set Uefi + Secure Boot until I changed it for the recent Leap install.
Plus, The release notes say:

Additionally, the UEFI specification also allows legacy MBR (MS-DOS) partitions. The Linux boot loaders (ELILO or GRUB2) try to automatically generate a GUID for those legacy partitions, and write them to the firmware.

But, obviously, you all were right on!

Now on to the Laptop saga…

6

You can mix modes and sometimes it might work but it in the best idea to mix EFI boot with legacy boot