Installation Failure of BootIt UEFI

[sram0001]

Hello:

I need help in installing BootIt UEFI. I purchased through our purchasing dept the BootIt Collection and Drive Image suite, and I'm unable to install BootIt UEFI on a Dell Latitude 5491 laptop.

I have a brand new 2-TB disk, and my intention is to dual boot the laptop into either Windows 10 or RHEL-7. I have made Image For Linux (IFL) images of a Windows 10 and a RHEL-7 partitions that I would like to restore into the BootIt dual-boot scenario.

When I get to the dialog prompt of "Install boot files to the default UEFI boot directory?" I select Yes, and also select "Yes" on the next two dialogs. After trying to install, I get a warning dialog saying it couldn't install the files in the \EFI\BOOT directory, but it is going to install them in the \EFI\BootIt directory, and it should not be a problem... BTW, the very first install it said it was formatting the brand new disk, and then verifying the sectors (or something like that).

I reboot the laptop and it is unable to launch BootIt from the disk.

I'm very familiar with using IFL's console and its ability to mount and examine disk partitions. Running Image For Linux (IFL) I see that there were two partitions created on disk, the first one is a "Microsoft Reserved Partition" of about 16 MB long, with flags "msftres"; the second partition is a FAT-32 type, ~420 GB EFI System partition, with flags "boot, esp". If I mount the EFI partition, I can see that in the folder /EFI/BootIt/ the only file that was saved by the BootIt install is BOOTIT.INI; there is no *.efi in there at all.

In the laptop BIOS, I can see that it's trying to launch: \EFI\BOOTIT\BOOTX64.EFI -- obviously there is on bootx64.efi file saved in there.

I tried to manually copy the bootx64.efi from the BootIt UEFI installation folder into the /EFI/BootIt directory. When rebooting I get the message that it's unable to load the BOOTIT.DAT file. Again I copied manually the BOOTIT.DAT file from the BootIt UEFI installation folder, and now it says it's unable to load the grubx64.efi. I can't find that file in BootIt UEFI installation folder, so I don't know where to go from there...

It seems the problem is that the BootIt UEFI installation program is just not writing the needed files to /EFI/BootIt. I did try the "No" response to the dialog prompt of "Install boot files to the default UEFI boot directory?", but no luck... I looked at the manual's instructions on disabling any type of boot record protection on the BIOS, but could not find any setting like that. The fact that the installation is writing at least the BOOTIT.INI file means that it is capable of writing to the /EFI/BootIt directory.

Please help!!

[TeraByte Support]

First, ensure the firmware is up to date.

Second, consider deleting the directory and installing again. If same issue, the firmware may be taking over the partition, consider rebooting and trying to install again. Also, look in the firmware for any option that may prevent updating the efi system partition.

[sram0001]

Yes, I did a BIOS update to the latest one a couple of days ago. It's got v 1.27.1, the latest one available for the Latitude 5491.

I've scoured the BIOS setup to disable anything that might remotely hint at protecting the boot sectors, but still no luck.

No luck on getting BootIt UEFI to install after erasing directories and rebooting many times. I erased the \EFI\BOOTIT directory, and still the installation program only writes BOOTIT.INI and version.txt to \EFI\BOOTIT, but no bootx64.efi or any other *.efi files. Trying again after a reboot runs into the same problem.

The strange thing is that the installation program can write BOOTIT.INI and version.txt to \EFI\BootIt, but it can't copy the *.efi files. That tells me the "EFI System" partition is indeed writable.

I was even able to manually create a new NTFS partition about 1-TB long, which now shows as a 3rd partition on disk, which means again the disk is writable; the Partition Work portion of BootIt can write to the disk. It's just the installation program runs into some error when copying the *.efi files. Could it be a lower/upper case problem? I don't know if EFI is case-sensitive. I notice the "BootIt UEFI" entry in the BIOS Setup screen calls for execution of file "\EFI\BOOTIT\BOOTX64.EFI", while in a place of the BIOS setup where I can browse for files to execute (if I manually add a boot entry) the directory shows as \EFI\BootIt" (i.e. BootIt in camel case); same thing if I mount the partition with IFL console window. Could it be the install program is trying to copy the *.efi files to \EFI\BOOTIT and it's running into a case-sensitivity problem because the directory is actually \EFI\BootIt? Or could it be a permissions problem?

[TeraByte Support]

it sounds almost like it's not providing the list of files that it copies, if there was an actual error reported by the firmware it would report it. My bet is it dismounts the file system at some point so it looks like no files. Can you get to scripting from the boot media (cancel setup to get to the desktop). If so, try it again after installing (escape). It may be that a new option similar to the installed version is need for accessing the file system directly instead of relying on UEFI support.

[sram0001]

Thanks for the help so far. Eventually we'll get it.

I'm afraid the scripting option is not available after hitting Cancel or Esc. There is no icon for scripting, and under the Utilities menu the scripting entry is grayed out.

If I do the "Run" icon/menu option, I get a browsing dialog that shows C:, but there's nothing underneath that (double-clickig it gets nowhere). Could it be that somehow I'm losing access to the CD/DVD disk?

Also, I was wondering if there is a procedure where I could manually copy the appropriate *.efi files into /EFI/BootIt -- I can do that with the console in IFL after mounting the EFI partition. As I mentioned before, I've tried that, but got stuck in the file grubx64.efi, which is not in the BootIt EFI source directory -- Is that a file renamed from something else like BootIt.efi? Does the BootIt install program modify the *.efi files in some way to adapt them to the computer it's being installed?

BTW, the laptop is a 64-bit one, so I need the x64 version. Both the Win 10 and the RHEL-7 images come from x64 systems.

[TeraByte Support]

Try using a UFD first .. see if that works for install.

[sram0001]

What's UFD? Or did you mean Image For Dos (IFD)?

Or, USB Flash drive... I got it. Trying out

[Bob Coleman]

Usb Flash Drive

[sram0001]

SUCCESS!!!

It worked by using the USB flash drive. I suppose the lesson is that at some point the BootIt install environment would lose access to the mounted CD/DVD file system. It would load the program from there correctly, but later on it could not read the *.efi and ancillary files to copy. I was using an external Dell USB DVDRW drive. I don't know if the fact that I had made my install disk on a CD-R had anything to do with the problem (i.e. if I had recorded to a DVD disc would it have worked?...). Anyway, Thankfully the USB flash drive option worked!

Thank you so much for your help.

[TeraByte Support]

It would depend on the firmware, it's UEFI that is providing that file access.