Qubes external SSD

savi · August 17, 2024, 2:50pm

It’s not easy to describe what’s going on, I just turned off the qubes normally, it’s on an external SSD, today normally I started it to the computer and it’s like it doesn’t detect the usb ? nothing happens after start no boot option , as if there was no usb I checked on another qubes via qube usb and the disk itself seems to be working so what is wrong maybe you have a solution

it is also strange that when trying start on the computer where qubes is , it does not find this external disk when booting. so it starts booting for this qubes that is on this computer, only that the boot screen itself is then moved to the right side almost outside the screen and not as usual in the middle, strange. without this disk boot screen is normal

apparatus · August 17, 2024, 2:57pm

Try to boot from some other USB device connected to the same USB port for a test.

savi · August 17, 2024, 3:40pm

I tested different and they work

apparatus · August 17, 2024, 3:42pm

What’s the Qubes OS version of the system installed on the external SSD?
If it’s Qubes OS 4.2 then is it upgraded in-place from Qubes OS 4.1 or a clean Qubes OS 4.2 installation?

apparatus · August 17, 2024, 3:48pm

If you’re booting in EFI mode then try to add the Qubes OS EFI boot entry manually:

But I think it’ll disappear again when you disconnect your external SSD from your PC and boot it without it connected.
In Qubes OS 4.2 this issue was fixed:

github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues

Fall back to UEFI shell if Qubes boot entry is missing

opened 09:26AM - 02 Jun 22 UTC

closed 03:55AM - 12 Mar 24 UTC

mehrexe

T: enhancement P: default pr submitted r4.2-host-stable 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.

And you no longer have to manually create a fallback EFI path but if you’ve upgraded in-place then maybe you’ve missed this fix and you need to manually add the fallback EFI path as described in the issue.

savi · August 17, 2024, 5:03pm

Exactly , ok I’ll let you know how I do this advice

savi · August 17, 2024, 7:36pm

That’s fckd up … now i have broke grub in main Qubes too…

[shell] : efibootmgr -v -c -u -L "Qubes OS" -l /EFI/qubes/grubx64.efi -d /dev/nvme0n1 -p 1

change -d <which drive?> and -p <which efi partition?>.

something went wrong here because I don’t know exactly how to check what the drive and partition name will be, and I entered it incorrectly but I definitely didn’t provide the one that is on the main qubes …

I got the main qubes back only configfile(hd1,gpt2)/grub2/grub.cfg
when I turn it on without qubes installation media there is an error 1962 on start

so I tried to start similarly boot therefore qubes externall but it could not read it at all with the command configfile (hd3 TAB

apparatus · August 18, 2024, 8:16am

Check the output of fdisk -l command to find the correct disk and partition number.
Also change the label from "Qubes OS" to some unique name so you won’t get confused with boot entries with the same name.
Check the list of current EFI boot entries with this command:

efibootmgr

savi · August 18, 2024, 12:15pm

I deleted the incorrect command with the entry

sudo efibootmgr -v -b 0000 -B (cause name is Boot0000*)
next check lsblk
sda1 /boot /efi
sda2 /boot
sda3 main disk

So, this means that the correct command is
sudo efibootmgr -v -c -u -L Qubes -l /EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi -d /dev/sda1 -p 1

now it’s fine, so do the same for ext disk ?

apparatus · August 18, 2024, 12:36pm

The correct one is this:

sudo efibootmgr -v -c -u -L Qubes -l /EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi -d /dev/sda -p 1

Notice that the disk is /dev/sda, the /dev/sda1 is a partition.

Yes, but maybe it’ll be /EFI/qubes/grubx64.efi instead of /EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi. Check if you have /EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi file there first.

savi · August 18, 2024, 12:53pm

something this disk is not quite right … I added it to qubes via sys usb and it does not display it at all in a current qubes.
in disk there is only this disk and where volumes " no media" and there is only an option in additional partition option " edit mount options"
in lsblk not found and fdisk - l the same

apparatus · August 18, 2024, 1:06pm

I’m not sure if attaching USB devices from sys-usb to dom0 is supported.
But even if it’s supported, the USB block devides initialization is blocked by USBGuard.
Boot from some Live USB (e.g. from Qubes OS installer and enter shell with Ctrl+Alt+F2) and use efibootmgr there.

savi · August 18, 2024, 7:43pm

Boot0008* Realtek (name device) 1.00 BBS(HD,0x0)AMBO