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Re: Failed Debian 12 install, need help with boot loader re-install



On Mon, Nov 04, 2024 at 05:34:49AM -0500, Felix Miata wrote:
> Chris Green composed on 2024-11-04 10:03 (UTC):
> 
> > I just tried to install Debain 12 onto my Fujitsu Esprimo Q957 system
> > (was running xubuntu previously).  I have installed Debian 12 using
> > the same USB stick on two other systems so the installation media are
> > OK.
> 
> > The whole installation ran without any problems but it simply fails to
> > boot, I just get a blank black screen with a prompt at the top left
> > cormer.
> 
> What kind of prompt?
> 
Sorry, just a cursor, not a prompt.


> > I'm attempting to re-install the boot loader using the graphical
> > rescue from the USB stick but it's not at all clear which partition I
> > should be installing it on.
> 
> "Re-installing" bootloader has a different meaning with UEFI booting. One does not
> normally grub-install /dev/sda or /dev/nvme0n1 on UEFI systems.
> 
> > The system has two SSD drives - /dev/nvme0 and /dev/sda.  I'm
> > installing Debian on /dev/nvme0.
> 
> > When I go to re-install the boot loader I'm offered /dev/nvme0n1p1,
> > /dev/nvme0n1p2 or /dev/nvme0n1p3 (plus /dev/sda of course but I don't
> > want it there) but there's no indication which one of these I should
> > put the boot loader on.
> 
> > On one of the systems where I have installed Debian 12 without
> > problems it has:-
> 
> >     Filesystem                Type 1M-blocks   Used  Avail Use% Mounted on
> >     /dev/mapper/t470--vg-root ext4    936644 197158 691835  23% /
> >     /dev/nvme0n1p2            ext2       456    121    311  29% /boot
> >     /dev/nvme0n1p1            vfat       511      6    506   2% /boot/efi
> 
> The UEFI BIOS initiates boot by loading one or more files from the VFAT
> filesystem, termed ESP, which mounts to /boot/efi/.
> 
Ah, that doesn't seem to have happened with this install.  Presumably
that's the problem.  How do I fix it ?


> > Presumably the new/failed install will have a similar configuration
> 
> > The xubuntu installation worked fine from /dev/nvme0 so I don't think
> > there's can be anything fundamentally wrong.  Are there any BIOS
> > settings I should check?
> 
> It's usually a good idea to disable CSM support (legacy/MBR booting), by whatever
> term your particular UEFI BIOS labels it.
> 
> > Thanks for any/all help.
> 
> Boot installation or rescue media in UEFI mode and provide us output from parted
> -l, lsblk -f and efibootmgr -v, plus content of fstab.

When I boot from the installation USB stick in UEFI mode I just get a
'grub>' prompt so I can't run commands there.

Just going to non-UEFI rescue mode I can get to a shell, then:-

'parted -l' shows 3 partitions for /dev/nvme0n1:-

1 primary ext2
2 exgtended
5 logical       lvm

/etc/fstab has:-
/dev/mapper/q957--vg-root       /       ext4
/dev/mapper/q957--vg-swap_1     none    swap


lsblk -f shows a tree with all the right bits of nvme0n1 on it, much
too difficult to manually copy to here.

I can't find efibootmgr anywhere.


-- 
Chris Green


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