Qubes Boot Loader Help #7542

Tim · January 6, 2024, 5:49pm

I am experiencing what I believe to be issue #7542. I have been learning Qubes for approximately 2 months and I think it’s great. However I can’t commit because each time I get comfortable I loose all my work. If I unplug change remove anything the ssd then I can no longer boot. This is driving me crazy. So I just reinstalled, again. Please tell me 1) how to back up to my hdd so I can stop losing all my dayum information. 2) How to confirm that my data is r/rw (maybe) protected. From reading I see UEFI tends to act this way. Please help me make sure this is my last install of qubes. I can’t take the pain of starting over, again………

apparatus · January 6, 2024, 6:01pm

Did you try to fix it as stated in that issue?

boot my install media, run Anaconda rescue and:

Mount the bootloader partition
Copy the contents of /mnt/EFI/qubes/ to /mnt/EFI/BOOT/
Rename grubx64.efi to bootx64.efi
Rename grub.cfg to bootx64.cfg

github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues

Fall back to UEFI shell if Qubes boot entry is missing

opened 09:26AM - 02 Jun 22 UTC

mehrexe

T: enhancement P: default pr submitted C: boot

[How to file a helpful issue](https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/issue-tracking/) #…## Qubes OS release Latest as of posting, 4.1.0 ### Brief summary I manually unplugged every drive on my computer except for the target drive for the installation, which was all free space unpartitioned. Installer ran typically, chose automatic for the installation type. Booted into the OS' configuration and then the full OS. GRUB is verified to have worked because I managed to see it when initially booting for configuration and because of a later restart due to a display artificating and then system lockup problem I had that I attribute to Nvidia. After using another drive and then unplugging it, and plugging the Qubes drive back, there was no detectable boot source. I booted a live OS and found that the partition structure was intact but didn't investigate further and reinstalled Qubes. I then got the idea to see if this issue happened if I BIOS disabled drives instead of unplugging them. I disabled my Qubes drive and enabled another, and booted into it fine. I then disabled my other drive and reenabled the Qubes drive and the same issue happened again where my system does not see any boot entries. The system does see the drive, and switching on CSM and legacy boot I can boot from the drive but get an error screen saying to boot from proper media. This second time, I _kind of_ fixed it but I must do these steps every time I remove the drive or disable it in BIOS. I lose the option to boot without the Xen hypervisor and the boot hiccups. I essentially have to boot my install media, run Anaconda rescue and: 1. Mount the bootloader partition 2. Copy the contents of /mnt/EFI/qubes/ to /mnt/EFI/BOOT/ 3. Rename grubx64.efi to bootx64.efi 4. Rename grub.cfg to bootx64.cfg 5. efibootmgr -v -c -u -L Qubes2 -l /EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi -d /dev/sda -p 1 ### Steps to reproduce I believe the best way to reproduce this issue is to do a fresh install of Qubes on hardware similar to mine: Asus Prime Z-390-A Motherboard Intel i7-9700K CPU 16GB DDR4 RAM 1TB HDD Most notably, this motherboard. I will be filing a compatibility report soon, but I believe this motherboard may have something to do with how it reads the GRUB bootloader as it's configured for Qubes. Further, these are the only non-stock BIOS settings: - Disabling the Intel LAN Controller (it causes a PCI reset error and ends the last step of the configuration, doesn't matter since I don't use it, and I believe the fact that it's unplugged is the reason this issue happens) - Enabling Virtualization - Enabling Vt-d - Disabling all other drives ### Expected behavior The GRUB bootloader is supposed to appear after the BIOS initializes regardless of whether the drive was previously unplugged from the system or not (safely of course). ### Actual behavior Please read above. After unplugging the drive or disabling it in BIOS, the entry for GRUB is missing.

Tim · January 6, 2024, 10:10pm

I tried but finally gave up. That is why I installed fresh and have it updated and working. I just want to ensure I don’t loose everything if I move ports or anything happens.

Tim · January 6, 2024, 10:15pm

I guess I’m asking in Dom0 is there a way to make sure the boot files are there and working prior to shutting down?

ChrisA · January 6, 2024, 11:59pm

Hi Tim - and welcome to the forum!

My interpretation of your situation is:

You have successfully installed Qubes on SSD, connected via USB
After installation, you can boot and run Qubes without issues
If you unplug/move the USB connection to a different port and boot the computer, then you cannot boot Qubes again

– is that a correct description of your issue?

If so, then you should be able to follow the instruction from @apparatus, by opening an terminal in dom0 and copy the files around:

sudo -i
cd /boot/efi/EFI
cp -r qubes/* BOOT
cd BOOT
mv grubx64.efi bootx64.efi
mv grub.cfg bootx64.cfg

If you are currently unable to boot Qubes, then you could try the following:

Connect the SSD drive via USB to the computer
Connect the USB installation stick to the computer
Select the Installation stick as the boot medium
When you see the “Install Qubes OS R…”/“Test media and …”/“Troubleshooting - …” menu, hit c to got grub> prompt
Type configfile ( and hit the Tab key on your keyboard
You should get a list of “Possible devices are” - eg. hd0 hd1 hd2
Test each possible device, by typing configfile (hd0, and hit Tab - it should give you a list of partitions on each drive - eg hd0,gpt1 hd0,gpt2 hd1,gpt1 hd1,gpt2 hd1,gpt3
You need to find the partition that has the file /EFI/qubes/grub.cfg - so in my example, I should try each of:

configfile (hd0,gpt1)/EFI/qubes/grub.cfg
configfile (hd0,gpt2)/EFI/qubes/grub.cfg
configfile (hd1,gpt1)/EFI/qubes/grub.cfg
configfile (hd1,gpt2)/EFI/qubes/grub.cfg
configfile (hd1,gpt3)/EFI/qubes/grub.cfg

– with a little luck, you’ll find the GRUB menu for you qubes installation and be able to boot into Qubes OS. Once you have Qubes OS running, you can open a terminal in dom0 and do the steps above.

Tim · January 7, 2024, 3:08pm

Yes, this is the way! If anyone has a fresh install it is way easier to copy them from Dom0.

Dogg · March 2, 2024, 8:46am

hi, i have the same issue except for some reason my /mnt/efi/BOOT does not exist in my boot loader partition anymore??? I don’t know much about coding but i’ve spent many hours trying to figure this out with this being where i’ve become stuck.

not just that, a lot of the file locations where i am told to go come back as not existing. this partition has to be the boot loader partition it has /mnt/efi/qubes but nothing else i really don’t know what to do.

Is there a way to wipe and reinstall the boot loader partition altogether?

I can elaborate more tomorrow as it’s really late and my brain is completely fried.

ChrisA · March 3, 2024, 8:11am

Hi Dogg – welcome to the forum!

I think it is “a similar, but slightly different” problem …

When you have had time to rest/relax, could you explain in more details where you are stuck, what you have tried and the output from the commands?

Some quick guesses/questions for the post:

Is your computer set to UEFI boot or Legacy boot?
If you are able to boot your computer, then what do you get with: ls /sys/firmware?
Were you able to use the GRUB from the install stick to find the GRUB-config on the harddrive?
What did you get, when you typed: configfile (hd and then pressed the Tab-key?