[Discuss] Need help to get a Dell Inspiron to boot

[John Blomfield]

Hi Yuuri,

I have just spent the last couple of days installing Windows and Fedora 
28 on a new mini-PC NUC from Intel and I encountered an issue that I had 
not seen before and which may help you.

The PC is "bearbones" that I built from parts adding RAM, SSD and HD. I 
installed the OS's on the SSD and I am planning to use the HD for data 
storage. I installed Windows first because its fussy about being on the 
primary drive. Then I installed Fedora using a "Live Fedora KDE spin" on 
a USB drive. This went well until Fedora tried to install the bootloader 
when it "hung" and would not go further. For further info, Windows was 
installed as UEFI and secure boot. Most Linux USB installers are UEFI 
compatible these days so that is not usually a problem.

I have found in the past that a Linux usb installer would appear not to 
complete and hang at the bootloader stage but booted into the OS just 
installed just fine. However, on this occasion when I rebooted it just 
produced the Grub prompt and when I rebooted with the Fedora Live USB it 
could not find the SSD. Neither Gparted, KDE partition manager nor fdisk 
could find the SSD. In desperation I tried booting with the Windows 
installation USB but the Windows repair tools did not work either. I 
then tried re-installing Windows with the USB and surprise, surprise 
Windows installer recognized the SSD. So with a new Windows installation 
working I tried again with the Fedora USB and this time checked all the 
BIOS settings and the installation settings. Same result, no bootloader 
menu, just the grub prompt.

After a google search I found a comment about what appears to be a 
duplicate menu item in the BIOS (UEFI) boot menu. That is, the Fedora 
USB Live is repeated but with closer inspection one gives the USB make 
etc and OS Part 1 and the other OS Part 0. The default has the Part 1 
first in the boot order and Part 0 further down. After making OS Part 0 
first in the UEFI boot order the installation went fine. So I now have a 
perfect dual-boot system.

I don't know whether any of the above helps but this dual boot item 
comes up with several Linux Live / Installers.

John



On 2018-07-09 10:09 AM, Yuuri wrote:
> Hi Ron and Alan,
>
> thank you for getting back to me.
>
> On 2018-07-09 01:36, Ron  De Beck wrote:
>> Computer Bios pointing at wrong device for boot.
>
> See my relatyed comment further down...
>
>> Boot Flag not set on the Linux Partition.
>
> Hm... this I need to follow up on, since I don't recall doing anything 
> about setting a boot flag. I also don't see it being mentioned in the 
> BIOS menu - is that something Grub needs to be told about?
>
>> I don't recall Grub errors reporting this way.
>
> I think it is the BIOS talking to me - this is the wording of the 
> message:
> "No bootable devices --
> strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utility. Press F5 to run onboard 
> diagnostics."
>
> F2 and F5 lead to the same "Aptio Setup Utility", which looks like 
> your typical BIOS set up.
>
> On 2018-07-09 02:05, Alan W. Irwin wrote:
>> Does your laptop have an old-fashioned BIOS or UEFI?
>
> It gives me a choice: "UEFI" and "Legacy" - currently set to "Legacy" 
> and reporting "BIOS Version 4.0.7". There is no mention of "device" 
> anywhere, however, when "Legacy" is chosen, there is a boot priority 
> submenu, which shows the following selection: "1 USB, 2 CD, 3 Hard 
> Disk, 4 Diskette, 5 Net". This boot priority submenu does not show up 
> when "UEFI" is chosen.
>
> There is also a menu item "secure boot", which I recall reading about 
> at the time and set to "disabled", as someone had advised. I will 
> check that out once more, as well.
>
>> If the latter, there are some tricks to installing Linux
>> [...] I attach some notes
>
> Thanks for the notes! Let me first try to fix the problem by following 
> up on the boot flag and "secure boot" questions and then I'd like to 
> try the UEFI route...
>
> Thanks again - I'll be back soon!
>
> Yuuri
>
>
>
>
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-- 
John Blomfield
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