Re: about debian installation on gpt and mbr hard drive
On 3/11/20, Linux-Fan <Ma_Sys.ma@web.de> wrote:
> kaye n writes:
>
>> Hello Friends!
>>
>> Can someone please confirm to me once and for all if I'm correct with
>> these
>> assumptions regarding debian installation on hard drives:
>>
>
> In case a FAT32 partition is needed for booting (see further below), it
> needs to be detected by your UEFI firmware. It seems quite possible that
> there exists firmware which has some special requirements for the partition
>
> being at the "beginning" of the disk. If that is the case, it is not Debian-
>
> specific though.
>
> How big: I do not know, I think values between 100 MiB and 500 MiB are
> common. I am not using any systems booted by UEFI yet, nor have I done any
My apologies, my mind is focused off elsewhere, but this caught my eye
because I've been FIGHTING it for approximately a year. Mine USED to
boot FINE, **NO** PROBLEMS, with something likely similarly different
per each of us as users with our hardware. I booted Buster and
Bullseye a few times..
THEN, WHAM, everything permanently went to pot on the first reboot
after I upgraded GRUB last year, somewhere approximate around April.
I've got something like 8TB total of useless BRICK with respect to
having bought them specifically to have a blast loading them up then
booting AND REBOOTING every bit of Linux I could get my grimy hands
on..
OK... THAT said.... Yes, this needs planted as far left as you can
swing it. Use your favorite search engine to find something that tells
you within so many gigabytes of the start or so much percentage to the
left.
Just keeping it as absolute far left as you can is a win. My first
"several" attempts, it was WAY to the right where my free space
naturally resided.. Heartbreakingly WRONG.
No, based on my research on this (too), it doesn't have to be absolute
first on the hard drive. It just has to be within a super early spot
there. The FLAG and suggested formatting, yada-yada, is then supposed
to be the successful boot clinchers that are sought out, NOT that it
has to be in "THIS EXACT POSITION HERE OR ELSE".
N.B.! I've been catching spurts of this chatter the last few days. I'm
HOPING MAYBE on my very last attempts, I had already done ESP and
FAT32 on separate occasions by themselves but MAYBE never did them
together.
My point is I'm going to try this yet again myself. When I do, I'm
hoping at least that one page I tripped over bubbles back up. I felt
like it ALMOST got me there but not quite so maybe dredging it back up
and setting it up alongside this chatter might do something positive..
Size-wise, I've seen variances. Mine's something like a gigabyte just
because..... It might even be 2..? I did that because I encountered
someone saying something about a gigabyte something or other yada-yada
back when I was actively trying to boot my own. :)
Formatting-wise, for the most part I kept battling over the various
destructions around the Net that kept saying it needed to be
UNFORMATTED... and so I did. Then I remember possibly ending at...
gack, I don't know, I actually don't remember now how it finally ended
when I threw in the towel MANY months ago now.
>> Please confirm my assumptions and answer some of my questions (in number
>>
>> one).
>
> Here is my take on the requirements for FAT32 partitions in booting:
>
> A FAT32 partition for booting aka. ESP "EFI system partition" needs to be
> present on at least one of the attached drives if and only if you are
> booting in UEFI mode.
Somewhere in here I need to insert that MINE GRIPED repeatedly with a
message that I FINALLY translated to mean....
For some important part of this, this deal needs to be on the same
hard drive that's feeding the menu that's being booted from...
SOMETHING LIKE THAT... It's been a while and it will be MANY hours
before I can take another intended shot at this again...
One of my issues became that something got borked badly in the middle
of it such that the hard drives, ALL OF THEM, WOULD NOT get to the
menu. I'd get stuck at a GRUB prompt ad nauseam...
So I never got to see if the last part of solving it was simply
booting from within the hard drive holding the ESP'y partition..
> In this case, it is (in theory) unimportant whether the drives are using a
>
> MSDOS or GPT partition table. However, Windows demands the following
> equivalences:
>
> * boot drive formatted GPT <=> boot using UEFI
> * boot drive formatted MSDOS <=> boot using BIOS/CSM "legacy"
For my experience in this, I have no Windows booting on any of the
affected hard drives....
There's an aspect of this that gets me over the top "ill" with this
each time I try to mess with it. We'll call it a running theme because
one keeps running into it __all around the Internet__.
Glass Half Empty: A little too convenient...
Glass Half Full... Hero to the rescue out of coincidental need....?
I almost attempted, through to the point of installation, then
something about its warnings scared the doodles out of me so I aborted
mid-installation and never looked back.......
If it's something that CAN and DOES work, then it should be more
readily available.....
Translation: I.e., in the "pure" Main Debian repository...
Otherwise, my keyboard's neck keeps feeling like it's being squeezed a
little way too tight for my liking on this. I can remember making a
statement here on Debian-User at some point a ways back that... you
got no way to boot in, you got no Linux........ you got no computer.
And that is exactly what is happening to some of us out here right now.....
For me, it goes straight back to THE FIRST REBOOT after that GRUB
update early last year.
*not amused*
AND YES.... Always in my pile of "Ok, WHAT HAPPENED?!" is PEBKAC... PEBCAK...
Devil's Advocate: Except that... My chair's not the only one
experiencing this exasperating experience. THAT is a
sanity-maintaining checkpoint, actually, in that.
We are not alone..... :)
Cindy....... :)
DISCLAIMER: I've been playing with computers since ~1994, but I'm
doing so with ever progressively progressing cognitive issues. This is
a *win* because it means I'm making all kinds of newbie mistakes but
am *somewhat* able to then come back around at those mistakes with the
hands on experience of a seasoned user.
--
Cindy-Sue Causey
Talking Rock, Pickens County, Georgia, USA
* runs with birdseed *
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