[SOLVED] Laptop install 6 fails on reboot "no bootable disk"

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[SOLVED] Laptop install 6 fails on reboot "no bootable disk"

Postby canadaist » Aug 10th, '18, 14:11

I have a ten year old laptop ACER Travelmate 6594G-6492 i7 2.8ghz. After using a usb install stick, wiping and using entire disk, on reboot it says "this is not a bootable disk" - I 'live booted' a gparted thumb and it says that mageia wiped the hd's, installed a lot of software in / and /home, and that the 270 mb dos partition mounted on /boot/EFI is bootable.

I have tried multiple methods including switching between ACHI and IDE. That is, I have done several full installs including checking to make sure the drive was bootable with gparted, and I have searched this forum unsuccessfully for hints.

Why is the boot process not finding my partitions?
Last edited by canadaist on Aug 11th, '18, 02:01, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Laptop install 6 fails on reboot "no bootable disk"

Postby doktor5000 » Aug 10th, '18, 15:04

canadaist wrote:I have a ten year old laptop ACER Travelmate 6594G-6492 i7 2.8ghz.
[...]
and that the 270 mb dos partition mounted on /boot/EFI is bootable.
[...]
Why is the boot process not finding my partitions?

Because it seems it has booted the installer in what seems like UEFI mode and hence did an UEFI install, but I don't believe that your laptop actually supports UEFI boot at all.

What does the install bootloader look like? (compare with https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Installing_o ... boot_media )

If it really boots in UEFI mode and there's no option in your BIOS to change that, I'm afraid one of the few options you have is to install mga4 and then upgrade to 5, then 6.
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Re: Laptop install 6 fails on reboot "no bootable disk"

Postby benmc » Aug 10th, '18, 17:06

if the install is in UEFI mode, ie, you let the installer take care of partitioning and it created /boot/EFI, it would imply the unit is UEFI capable.
that being said, there are some uefi bios that are not LInux friendly.

Dual booting?

silly question time. you did disable "Secure Boot", and "TPM" (trusted platform module) if these options are in the bios.
you may need to create security password to do these, then when done, change the password back to empty.

Unless there is a pressing reason to use UEFI, have you tried to switch to "Legacy" or "CSM" (compatibility support mode) boot mode?
You would need to re-run the installer, change the /boot/EFI to type "boot bios" (does not need a mount point).
If using the Classical installer, you also do not need to format your / or /home etc partitions.

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Re: Laptop install 6 fails on reboot "no bootable disk"

Postby canadaist » Aug 10th, '18, 19:26

What does the install bootloader look like?

It says:
"Welcome to grub" then presents a graphic with
"Mageia 6 UEFI"

Boot Mageia 6 Live
+ use non free drivers...
Install Mageia 6 Live
+ use non free....

then I get a partial black screen
then it does some graphic flashing then it asks for my time zone


(compare with https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Installing_o ... boot_media )

If it really boots in UEFI mode and there's no option in your BIOS to change that, I'm afraid one of the few options you have is to install mga4 and then upgrade to 5, then 6.[/quote]
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Re: Laptop install 6 fails on reboot "no bootable disk"

Postby canadaist » Aug 10th, '18, 19:37

silly question time. you did disable "Secure Boot", and "TPM" (trusted platform module) if these options are in the bios.
you may need to create security password to do these, then when done, change the password back to empty.

All the security lines end in "clear" or "create"

Unless there is a pressing reason to use UEFI, have you tried to switch to "Legacy" or "CSM" (compatibility support mode) boot mode?

I see no place to choose either
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Re: Laptop install 6 fails on reboot "no bootable disk"

Postby canadaist » Aug 10th, '18, 19:43

If it really boots in UEFI mode and there's no option in your BIOS to change that, I'm afraid one of the few options you have is to install mga4 and then upgrade to 5, then 6.

After flashing it produces a full screen Mageia logo (with swirlies) and the language question, then the install proceeds as normally and says reboot to finish. But on reboot it says no disk.

Edit - Install from 4 and then upgrade to 5 and Six?
This will work? I'm ok with that.
Last edited by canadaist on Aug 10th, '18, 20:06, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Laptop install 6 fails on reboot "no bootable disk"

Postby canadaist » Aug 10th, '18, 19:47

Also are there recommended methods to upgrading this way? Download links?
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Re: Laptop install 6 fails on reboot "no bootable disk"

Postby doktor5000 » Aug 10th, '18, 20:48

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Re: Laptop install 6 fails on reboot "no bootable disk"

Postby canadaist » Aug 10th, '18, 21:13

DL'ing 4.1 and 5.1
Be back soon
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Re: Laptop install 6 fails on reboot "no bootable disk"

Postby canadaist » Aug 10th, '18, 22:28

4.1 installed and booted, updating fully before moving to 5
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Re: Laptop install 6 fails on reboot "no bootable disk"

Postby canadaist » Aug 11th, '18, 02:00

5 installed and booted, auto-upgrade offered by Mageia, upgraded to 6 and booted. Nice.

Thanks Doc, again.
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Re: [SOLVED] Laptop install 6 fails on reboot "no bootable d

Postby Ken-Bergen » Aug 11th, '18, 02:41

Did you report this as a bug or is a kludge fix good enough?

Also why didn't you try Installation media instead of Live media?
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Re: [SOLVED] Laptop install 6 fails on reboot "no bootable d

Postby canadaist » Aug 11th, '18, 22:24

Ken-Bergen wrote:Did you report this as a bug or is a kludge fix good enough?


From what I've seen this is a well know problem with UEFI, very well known, I may know less than anyone. The cure for "motherboards of a certain age" -- is to install 4 then 5 then 6. Mageia coders worked for weeks to overcome this, as I understand the blog and delays of 6's release.

I dont know about upcoming Mageia 7.

Also why didn't you try Installation media instead of Live media?


I left out discussing other install methods I tried, because Mageia 6 Live media worked best, standard Mageia DVD media (on USB) didn't proceed through install as well as the Live media. I used both: Boot then Install, and also with Install directly. Outcomes for both were the same. I tried to use gparted for example to take the boot tag off and then add it back in, hoping that was the problem. But it did not work.

I had no trouble with Mageia 4.1 install, and 5 went swimmingly fast, one CLI command. On the first boot of 5 Mageia offered to begin the transition to 6, which went quickly without problems. The laptop did the work, I only spent minutes.
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Re: [SOLVED] Laptop install 6 fails on reboot "no bootable d

Postby martinw » Aug 12th, '18, 23:18

canadaist wrote:From what I've seen this is a well know problem with UEFI, very well known, I may know less than anyone. The cure for "motherboards of a certain age" -- is to install 4 then 5 then 6. Mageia coders worked for weeks to overcome this, as I understand the blog and delays of 6's release.

Speaking as one of the people who worked on getting Mageia 6 ready for release, this is news to me!
I dont know about upcoming Mageia 7.

When the first beta release becomes available, please test it and report any problems. Open a bug report - I'm likely to be too busy fixing bugs to read the forum then.
I left out discussing other install methods I tried, because Mageia 6 Live media worked best, standard Mageia DVD media (on USB) didn't proceed through install as well as the Live media. I used both: Boot then Install, and also with Install directly. Outcomes for both were the same. I tried to use gparted for example to take the boot tag off and then add it back in, hoping that was the problem. But it did not work.

UEFI boot doesn't (normally) pay any attention to the partition bootable tag. The BIOS should store information in the motherboard non-volatile memory to tell it where to find EFI boot images. If you run the 'efibootmgr' command (as root user), you can see what has been stored. But there are lots of buggy and non-standard BIOSs out there that don't work quite as they should.
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Re: [SOLVED] Laptop install 6 fails on reboot "no bootable d

Postby canadaist » Aug 12th, '18, 23:41

Speaking as one of the people who worked on getting Mageia 6 ready for release, this is news to me!

I remember reading things at the time like this from the blog in the run up to 6:

"The big Cauldron news is that ISO testing for Mageia 6 RC is well under way, new images were generated that will hopefully fix the EFI implementation and some grub config issues."
Link
https://blog.mageia.org/en/2017/03/31/w ... 7-week-13/

When the first beta release becomes available, please test it and report any problems. Open a bug report - I'm likely to be too busy fixing bugs to read the forum then.

Sure! ~ looking forward to it.

But there are lots of buggy and non-standard BIOSs out there that don't work quite as they should.

Quite, I think that's what we have here.
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Re: [SOLVED] Laptop install 6 fails on reboot "no bootable d

Postby martinw » Aug 13th, '18, 09:41

canadaist wrote:
But there are lots of buggy and non-standard BIOSs out there that don't work quite as they should.

Quite, I think that's what we have here.

Indeed. But if you can get Mageia 6 running via the upgrade route, we ought to be able to figure out a way to do it from a clean install - even if it does involve a bit of manual intervention.

But good to hear the upgrade route worked flawlessly for you. Fixing that was one of the other things that delayed the Mageia 6 release.
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Re: [SOLVED] Laptop install 6 fails on reboot "no bootable d

Postby canadaist » Aug 13th, '18, 19:27

But good to hear the upgrade route worked flawlessly for you. Fixing that was one of the other things that delayed the Mageia 6 release.


Yes indeed. Nailing bugs can be immensely satisfying, but I too have had frustrating hours searching less important code, for things that should not matter.
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