Thank you both so much for these solutions.
So far no success yet using the recovery tool, trying both solutions. I may need to try the first again on a real os, but I expect it’ll probably do the same. My bios supports UEFI or UEFI+Legacy modes, and I use the latter, not sure if that’s relevent.
Here’s the result:
I will need to learn some more about these errors. Happy to have some place to start troubleshooting again though. Grateful for all help.
from the partition i can see that you are installing with uefi, perhaps you boot qubes os rescue with bios ?
Oh thank you for that tip – now it works!
My understanding is:
I was using the UEFI installer, switched boot order to use legacy installer instead.
Just did a fresh install this way.
That’s it, then it just works.
Thank you all for the amazing help and guidance, it has made me so happy to get this running again.
I am having this no bootable device found problem with a Dell Latitude 7290, Qubes 4.1.2
I tried this fix from the docs and the one in the post above above but the problem I’m having is the /boot directory does not contain the EFI folder as the instruction suggest. All it contains is a symlink initramfs-5.15.94.1.qubes.fc32.x86_64.img ->/run/install/repo/images/pxeboot/initrd.img
Any hints greatly appreciated.
EDIT. OK I needed to mount /dev/sda1 first - but now I find there is no xen.cfg file in efi/EFI/qubes/ am I getting closer?
I don’t think Qubes OS r4.1.2 has a xen.cfg … I think it was [only] Qubes OS r4.0 that had xen.cfg.
I think you should be looking for grub.cfg. 
Ah thanks - I’ll check that out tomorrow.
Nope, I’m stumped. I’ve tried everything I can find online but no joy. Has anyone had any success in getting over this one?
Do you have an USB stick with an alternate/recovery/live OS? - and can you boot from that?
If so, could you try and boot and share the output of:
fdisk -l /dev/sda
fdisk -l /dev/sdb
fdisk -l /dev/nvme0n1
?
– is your issue something like in:
?
OK (this is after I manually partitioned /dev/sda). sdb is the qubes install USB
Device Boot Start End Sectors Size id Type
/dev/sda1 * 2048 41365503 41363456 19.7G 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 41365504 5000117503 458752000 218.8G 83 Linux
/dev/sdb1 * 0 12044287 12044288 5.8G 0 Linux
/dev/sdb2 808 5427 4620 2.3M ef EFI
no such device for nvm0n1
That is … unexpected … :-/
What do you get with:
ls /sys/firmware/efi
?
If I understand correctly, then the /dev/sdb/ is your Qubes [install] USB stick … and /dev/sda/ should be the internal hard drive (~ 240G hdd/ssd?) - do you have more than one hard drive in the system?
The /dev/nvme0n1 would have been if you had NVMe drives in the machine.
Glad it’s not me!
ls /sys/firmware/efi
gives
files: config_table, fw_platform_size, systab, and dir efivars
Missed this. No, just the one sdd
From unexpected to wierd … :-/
When you boot the installer, it runs in a UEFI environment … but the installed OS is Legacy boot - I had expected to see a EFI System somewhere:
Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/some_device 2048 1230847 1228800 600M EFI System
Do you have a /dev/sdc - so you get something with:
fdisk -l /dev/sdc
?
No, there’s no /dev/sdc. I’ve tinkered with all the BIOS settings, UEFI on/off. Legacy on/off, auto/manual partitioning, but it always seems to come to this point. I’m sure I’m missing something as it’s a bog standard laptop, but what that thing is I don’t know. Anyway, thanks for taking the time to help.
I’ve always been (so I am?) lazy and just picked auto [“magical”] partitioning and got something that works - my lenovo still needs the
efibootmgr -c -d /dev/nvme0n1 -p 1 -L "QUBES" -l '\EFI\qubes\grubx64.efi'
– but the EFI partition is on the NVMe, so still very easy … and I don’t have a legacy BIOS install, so I’m not sure what partitions to look for … :-/
Well this is just the latest iteration of my trials. I’ll try again with everything set to default and see what comes of that. Anyway, thanks again for your help!
Right, I’m over that hurdle. In case it helps others, here are the BIOS settings that allowed me to continue the installation.
Boot list option - UEFI
Advanced boot options - legacy rom and legacy boot both selected
UEFI path security - always
Integrated NIC - enabled with pxe
SATA - AHCI
Drives - SATA-2 and M2-PCIe both selected
USB - enable boot support and enable external USB both selected
Secure boot - off, Secure boot mode - audit # this mode selection is one of the changes I made before the successful reboot, but I doubt if it made a difference since SB is off
Key management - pk
Intel SoftwareGuard - Software controlled
Virtialisation - Intel enabled, VT for direct I/O enabled, Trusted execution enabled. # Trusted execution was disabled previously. I think this might have been the culprit
This worked for me. Thanks for your help!
PS: in my case I have lost an existing Qubes OS installation when disabled and enabled SSD in BIOS.
I was in a world of pain trying different permutations of setttings in the BIOS until I found your post. Thanks, it got me over that hump.
Glad it helped!