On Friday, September 7, 2018 at 5:34:49 AM UTC-5, Marcus Linsner wrote: > On Friday, September 7, 2018 at 12:27:04 PM UTC+2, Marcus Linsner wrote: > > Actually I just looked, my MBR starts with lots of zeroes until the > > partitions are defined > > In fact the MBR contains the definition of only one (dummy)partition, since > it's GPT, like: > > [ctor@dom0 ~]$ sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=here.mbr bs=512 count=1 > 1+0 records in > 1+0 records out > 512 bytes copied, 8.5102e-05 s, 6.0 MB/s > [ctor@dom0 ~]$ fdisk -l here.mbr > GPT PMBR size mismatch (468862127 != 0) will be corrected by w(rite). > Disk here.mbr: 512 B, 512 bytes, 1 sectors > Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes > Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes > I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes > Disklabel type: dos > Disk identifier: 0x00000000 > > Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type > here.mbr1 1 468862127 468862127 223.6G ee GPT > > but this doesn't matter. > > I see the 'Boot' field is present only here (when type is dos, but not when > type is gpt)
Hi Marcus: Thanks so much for your input on this! You're on the right track to think this is a UEFI issue. I've learned more about my problem, so let me explain. I have new hardware and the BIOS that comes w/ it *absolutely refuses* to run MBRs for internal storage (HDD, SSD). Problem is that when I transfer the Qubes ISO over to a USB drive, it sets up the drive with a MBR (fdisk -l shows 'msdos' or 'dos'). Apparently the Qubes installer takes a cue from the install medium and installs with a MBR, not with UEFI / GPT (again, checked with fdisk -l). When I try to run the installation, even though it's all there, the BIOS refuses to treat the installation as a bootable disk--so it boots nothing and throws an error. If I understand your suggestion, it's to set the BIOS to UEFI and try to install. Problem is it will not read my usb drive with the Qubes install on it--because the drive has a MBR and UEFI mode will not read a thumb drive that isn't UEFI / GPT. I therefore looked for instructions on how to convert the Qubes installation USB drive to UEFI / GPT (and then install w/ BIOS set to UEFI). I followed the instructions here: https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/thinkpad-troubleshooting/ Ran into two problems. One is that I get an error at the end of creating the GPT thumb drive saying that there is no grub.cfg file to write out to the USB. [specifically: sed: can't read /run/tgttmp.xI67OE/EFI/BOOT/grub.cfg: No such file or directory] Have no idea what causes that, but perhaps a grub.cfg is not essential. The second problem I run into is that, contrary to the instructions, I see no xen.cfg under .../EFI/BOOT, just a BOOT.cfg. I change the label to BOOT in this cfg file, the only one in that directory. When I try to install, I get a 'Panic on CPU 0' and installation halts before I get to the Qubes GUI install. The error seems to be that Xen can't read the cmos time to set its time. One of the calls is to efi_get_time. When I installed from a MBR USB stick, I got to the Qubes QUI install w/o any fatal errors. So am guessing there's something about efi_get_time that isn't cooperating w/ my computer's hardware. At this point, I don't know whether I should give up because Qubes is not yet compatible with my hardware (Dell Precision 3630), or whether I should continue my efforts, perhaps by finding alternative instructions for creating UEFI USB sticks for installation. Best, Guy -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "qubes-users" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/qubes-users/69b40cae-32f4-465c-8936-38ddc782ce45%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
