Unable to boot into Qubes

User Support
1

I installed Qubes on my laptop, which originally had Windows 11 on another SSD. This morning I decided to live boot into Fedora 37 and delete the SSD that held Windows 11.

Now I am unable to boot into Qubes. I see “Qubes OS” as an option but it won’t boot into it. I’m using UEFI.

I got Qubes on a USB and booted into the rescue mode. I entered my LUKS password but it says “No Linux Partition Found”. I was following this guide UEFI boot: no Qubes OS option - #3 by 51lieal to see if I could repair it with those instructions.

Any help would be appreciated!

Update: I was able to use cryptsetup to mount the partition manually and I see all my data. But I am unsure how to repair this.

Update: There is now a $100 bounty for anyone that can help me solve this issue. Bounty will be paid in cryptocurrency

2

it thinks i’m a bot won’t let me type more, it says i am blocked, can’t email you now

3

maybe the partition is corrupt

4

I sent you a PM

5

Have you tried reinstalling qubes?

6

Some people, including some core developers, are interacting with this forum via email. They do not receive the edits made after 10 minutes. For them, it would be useful to make new posts instead of updating the original one. (My current post will let them see the updates).

1 Like
7

Thank you for pointing that out. Just to clarify, I see “Qubes OS” as an option, I guess in the EFI menu when I boot my Thinkpad. But when I select it, it throws me right back into the menu. I do not get to GRUB menu at all. My data is still intact, so I have hope.

I have checked to make sure secure boot is disabled, so BIOS setting doesn’t seem to be a problem. I suspect when I installed Qubes, some of the required boot files were installed on my first SSD, which held Windows 11 at the time. That disk was wiped.

8

How does the partition table look, for the drive (with Qubes OS) you have in your machine? - do you have a EFI partition? … by chance as the first partition?

9

The drive has 2 partitions. The first one is the EFI and the second one is the filesystem LUKS

10

Sounds like you are a /boot/ partition short … :-/

11

Bounty has been claimed by another user. Thank you all that were trying to help. Greatly appreciate everyone being so nice on this forum!

12

And… what the solution was exactly? You should care about users with the same problem… Or you don’t?

1 Like
13

Oh sorry that’s my bad. The solution was the following.

Context
I was missing the boot partition on the drive my Qubes was on. So I installed a new Qubes on the first SSD and then used the boot and efi partition from that to repair my Original Qubes.

My original Qubes is on /dev/nvme1n1 (second SSD) and my new (temp) Qubes is on /dev/nvme0n1 (first SSD)

Instructions

  1. Install Qubes on the first SSD (Not where the original Qubes installation is, make sure you select the right device!)
  2. After installation, boot into Qubes rescue and select option 3 to drop into shell
  3. Mount original Qube’s EFI partition and filesystem from the second SSD (Replace drive number below)
    cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/nvme1n1p2 luks-root
vgchange -ay
mount /dev/qubes_dom0/root /mnt
mount /dev/nvme0n1p2 /mnt/boot
mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt/boot/efi
mount -B /dev /mnt/dev
mount -B /proc /mnt/proc
mount -B /sys /mnt/sys
chroot /mnt
  4. Use the output of blkid -o value -s UUID /dev/nvme0n1p2 (new Boot partition) and replace the UUID in /etc/fstab on the /boot line
  5. Use the output of blkid -o value -s UUID /dev/nvme0n1p1 (new EFI partition) and replace the UUID in /etc/fstab on the /efi line
  6. Execute the command exit to leave chroot
  7. Copy modules folder from Qubes install USB (Use tab to complete the src folder name to get the version you have)
    cp -r /lib/modules/5.15(tab-to-complete) /mnt/lib/modules
    My actual command:
    cp -r /lib/modules/5.15.52-1.fc32.qubes.x86_64/ /mnt/lib/modules
  8. Chroot back into original Qubes - chroot /mnt
  9. Execute the following (tab to complete again)
    dracut -vf /boot/init(tab-to-complete)
    My actual command:
    dracut -vf /boot/initramfs-5.15.52-1.fc32.qubes.x86_64.img
  10. Execute the command exit to leave chroot
  11. Create a new EFI entry for the first SSD (new Qubes installation) - efibootmgr -v -c -u -L "Qubes OS" -l /EFI/qubes/grubx64.efi -d /dev/nvme0n1 -p 1
  12. Reboot and choose “Qubes OS” in EFI menu
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14

Thanks a bunch!

1 Like