UEFI boot: no Qubes OS option

51lieal · February 13, 2022, 9:55pm

simply add uefi entry menu by booting into your qubes os installation medium, rescue qubes os, wait and type 3 to skip shell, lsblk to examine your external ssd, if it’s /dev/sdc then run

efibootmgr -v -c -u -L "TheEnemy" -l /EFI/qubes/grubx64.efi -d /dev/sdc -p 1

-p 1 is stand for partition 1, as default in most os, partition 1 is your efi partition.

TheEnemy · February 13, 2022, 10:55pm

Thanks a lot, ill give it a go

TheEnemy · February 14, 2022, 2:18am

This was the result

there is no sdc directory

the UEFI option disappears when I remove the SSD and plug it back in again
thanks again

51lieal · February 14, 2022, 10:50am

sdc is just an example, you should change it to your actual drive.

^, then from your ss, your external SSD seems to be /dev/sda,

you should run
efibootmgr -v -c -u -L "TheEnemy" -l /EFI/qubes/grubx64.efi -d /dev/sda -p 1

TheEnemy · February 14, 2022, 3:21pm

A new UEFI option was created and after choosing it, it went through OS recovery and repair, it was trying to repair my windows and said no issue found obviously
this is so strange, why is this happening?
Do you mind video calling me or something, please? So I can fix this issue
I am prepared to pay for your time you spend in helping me
thanks a lot

51lieal · February 14, 2022, 7:38pm

boot like before, and make sure your external ssd is /dev/sda (it could change, run lsblk first, if it’s still /dev/sda then no need to change command below, if it was /dev/sdb or /dev/sdc, change the /dev/sda below to /dev/sdb or /dev/sdc).

mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/efi
cp /mnt/efi/EFI/qubes/grubx64.efi /mnt/efi/EFI/boot/bootx64.efi
cp /mnt/efi/EFI/qubes/grub.cfg /mnt/efi/EFI/boot/bootx64.cfg
efibootmgr -v -c -u -L "TheEnemy1" -l /EFI/boot/bootx64.efi -d /dev/sda -p 1
reboot

boot into your uefi settings, change the uefi order, TheEnemy is your first order, TheEnemy1 is second.

TheEnemy · February 15, 2022, 7:18pm

That did it
thanks a lot

enmus · February 16, 2022, 12:55am

Please consider to flag the post as solution, for the sake of other users with the same issue, at least.

TheEnemy · February 16, 2022, 7:32pm

how do i do that please?

enmus · February 16, 2022, 7:59pm

There should be an icon somewhere beside the “heart” icon, below @51lieal’ resolving post.

51lieal · February 16, 2022, 8:33pm

he’s not the thread starter, so can’t.

enmus · February 16, 2022, 9:15pm

Oh I terribly apologize to both of you. I obviously overlooked who the OP was while focused on a solution itself.

gem2 · September 25, 2022, 4:46am

Hi,

Your replies have been very helpful so far.

efibootmgr -v -c -u -L “TheEnemy1” -l /EFI/boot/bootx64.efi -d /dev/sda -p 1

Unfortunately results in EFI variables are not supported on this system.
Any idea how to fix this? Thanks.

51lieal · September 25, 2022, 12:55pm

looks like you didn’t boot the recovery using uefi, check again.
or if you using debian based to recovery you need to load efivars modules.

monkey-trickster · October 31, 2022, 4:02pm

Your commands have been very helpful, all tho I think they dont work for me, can you take a look at what commands I should do instead?

Photos: 425.8 KB folder on MEGA

When I was doing the installation I kept everyting on automatic and only put my passphrase.

PrinceXaahid · March 6, 2023, 3:52pm

I was stuck with it for a while, tried almost everything that people suggested. But none of them work.

Thanks to you for the method worked well, you are an incredible person.

rahulchandel · July 11, 2023, 10:22am

Worked like a charm! Thanks for the help👍

maradrash · October 6, 2023, 2:48am

I needed to create an account just to congratulate this one… Very nice. I was months trying to install qubes, this was my last attempt… Now I am logged in.

THANK YOU!!!

msm · October 6, 2023, 9:54am

github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues

Document UEFI drive removal behavior and workarounds (if drive is unplugged, UEFI removes associated boot entries)

opened 09:26AM - 02 Jun 22 UTC

mehrexe

T: enhancement C: doc P: default

[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.

This issue explains more about UEFI boot entries missing. There are also instructions there for fixing UEFI

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

efibootmgr -v -c -u -L Qubes2 -l /EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi -d /dev/sda -p 1

Asterium · November 7, 2023, 5:44pm

You can use such an option where you don’t have to copy grubx64.efi again every time after kernel update or changes in configuration files.

mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/efi
cp /mnt/efi/EFI/qubes/grubx64.efi /mnt/efi/EFI/boot/bootx64.efi
efibootmgr -v -c -u -L "Default" -l /EFI/qubes/grubx64.efi -d /dev/sda -p 1
efibootmgr -v -c -u -L "Recovery" -l /EFI/boot/bootx64.efi -d /dev/sda -p 1
efibootmgr -o 0000 (instead of 0000, you must specify the number of the created boot record named Default so that it will be loaded first)
reboot