Re: BIOS Can Not Find Disk
On 12/03/17 13:44, Dan Norton wrote:
On 12/02/2017 02:35 PM, David Christensen wrote:
I'm not making progress with this PC so I'll probably abandon GPT. The
disk is 1T and it was handled by the extended partition scheme before
this experiment and it probably can again. I still want to do LVM and
multiboot a few systems though.
STFW I see:
1. https://wiki.debian.org/UEFI
More background information.
2. https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/ch06s03.html.en#di-partition
Note section "6.3.3.3. Manual Partitioning".
I have a computer with an Intel DQ67SWR motherboard that supports UEFI.
So, I pulled the drives, installed a 16 GB SSD, powered up, reset the
CMOS settings to default, set "Boot" -> "UEFI Boot" to "Enable", booted
the Debian 9.1.0 amd64 installer into "Rescue mode", wiped the first and
last megabyte of the SSD, used 'parted' to create a GPT partition table,
and booted d-i again in "Install" mode. I set up the disk with:
- 1 GB ESP partition
- 5 GB partition with LVM PV and matching VG
- 1 GB LV with btrfs /boot
- 1 GB LV with LUKS random key swap
- 3 GB LV with LUKS btrfs root
- 10 GB free space for adding more OS's
Installation proceeded smoothly, until d-i tried to install GRUB:
[!!] Install the GRUB boot loader on a hard disk
Unable to install GRUB in dummy
Executing 'grub-install dummy' failed.
This is a fatal error.
I re-tried the step -- nope.
I proceeded with "Continue without boot loader" and was able to finish
the install.
Needless to say, the disk does not boot using only UEFI.
But, it was not a total loss -- I can now dissect the SSD.
Here is the boot sector:
# dd if=/dev/sda count=1 2>/dev/null | hexdump -C
00000000 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
|................|
*
000001c0 01 00 ee fe ff ff 01 00 00 00 af 40 dd 01 00 00
|...........@....|
000001d0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
|................|
*
000001f0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 55 aa
|..............U.|
00000200
When I mount /dev/sda1, I see:
# mount -o ro /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1
# mount | grep /mnt/sda1
/dev/sda1 on /mnt/sda1 type vfat
(ro,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro)
# df /dev/sda1
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 973952 188 973764 1% /mnt/sda1
# tree -a /mnt/sda1
/mnt/sda1
`-- EFI
`-- debian
`-- grubx64.efi
# ls -l /mnt/sda1/EFI/debian/grubx64.efi
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 178688 Dec 2 23:33 /mnt/sda1/EFI/debian/grubx64.efi
# file /mnt/sda1/EFI/debian/grubx64.efi
/mnt/sda1/EFI/debian/grubx64.efi: PE32+ executable (EFI application)
x86-64 (stripped to external PDB), for MS Windows
I can run various LVM commands to confirm that d-i/partman did what I
told it to do.
The next time I try this, I think I'll go the opposite extreme, feed a
blank disk to d-i, let partman automagically format the whole disk, and
see if GRUB installs, if the installation completes without error, if
the disk boots, and what the SSD contains.
David
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