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On Saturday, 21 July 2018 19:47:25 BST Jack wrote: |
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> On 2018.07.21 13:46, Mick wrote: |
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> > Hi All, |
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> > |
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> > A slightly off-topic question arising from a different distro, which |
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> > may |
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> > replicate itself on Gentoo. |
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> > |
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> > I installed Mint-Linux, in a VM. The host PC MoBo has a legacy BIOS |
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> > system. |
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> > I used a GPT scheme to create partitions on the virtual disk. The |
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> > first 1M on |
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> > the virtual disk was left empty by gdisk. I thought GRUB can use |
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> > this for its |
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> > core image. Note, I did not create a partition in this 1MB empty |
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> > space at the |
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> > start of the disk. |
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> > |
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> > While running the Mint Installer I got a warning from its partition |
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> > manager |
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> > telling me I had not specified a BIOS_grub partition and the |
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> > installation may |
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> > fail. I ignored the warning and continued with the installation, |
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> > which |
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> > completed successfully. |
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> > |
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> > A few weeks later I ran an update which among other packages updated |
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> > grub2- |
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> > common. An ncurses menu popped up warning me: |
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> > |
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> > "The GRUB boot loaders was previously installed to a disk that is no |
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> > longer |
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> > present, or whose unique identifier has changed for some reason". |
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> > |
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> > It offered to install in /dev/vda, /dev/vda1, or /dev/vda2. I |
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> > selected /dev/ |
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> > vda which represents the virtual disk. It failed to install in |
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> > /dev/vda |
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> > because the device did not contain a BIOS_grub partition. |
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> > |
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> > I tried 'grub-install --force' and --boot-directory options, but in |
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> > all cases |
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> > it failed to install. At the end I had to create a new 1M partition |
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> > with |
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> > gdisk and set its type to ef02 (BIOS boot partition), before grub |
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> > would |
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> > install its core image successfully. |
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> > |
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> > |
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> > QUESTIONS: |
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> > |
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> > Why/how the initial installation succeeded without an ef02 partition, |
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> > but a |
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> > grub package update would not proceed without it? Where did the Mint |
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> > installer store the grub core image to be able to continue with the |
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> > installation? |
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> |
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> Are you sure this wasn't fallout from the recent grub problems in the |
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> Mint ISO? (https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3620) I thought I got the |
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> link to that on this list, but I can't find the relevant message, so |
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> I'm not sure where I saw it. However, it seems like the issue was that |
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> installing Mint messed up Grub and left the PC unbootable. |
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> |
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> Jack |
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|
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Thanks Jack, I posted this blog entry on another thread, but the GRUB problem |
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described there breaks EFI installations when the live session is connected to |
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the Internet. Mine installed fine at the time. So, I don't think the blog |
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entry is related to my case above. |
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|
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-- |
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Regards, |
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Mick |
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