Day 1 BootIt UEFI install to dual boot Win10 & Mint 19.1

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brucebne
Posts: 159
Joined: Sat Jan 19, 2019 11:01 am

Day 1 BootIt UEFI install to dual boot Win10 & Mint 19.1

Post by brucebne »

Lenovo Yoga 720
Dual Boot : Windows 10 home, Linux Mint 19.1
ssd partitioned GPT
secure boot : off

was having issues with windows boot manager continuing to move itself to top of BIOS boot loader list, after I used a bootable usb stick in either legacy or uefi mode.
I would then have to manually changed boot order in BIOS to give control back to grub2, which I prefer.

I tried to put a default Mint boot loader entry in windows boot manager, but found out WBM doesn't permit non windows OSs being default boot on a UEFI system.
Wow, thanks Microsoft, yet again. Another reason to hate you.

I've been using BootIt off and on for maybe 15 years.
I had absolute faith in it.
But then I was sad to see GPT killed its multiboot capacity.....at least until BootIt UEFI..... YAY..... so am trialing now.

The insto went without a hitch....
I was soon back into the oh so familiar interface.
Was disappointed my trackpad and wireless usb mouse don't work.
But am familiar with the kb shortcuts.

All looks good. Will be great to get mouse or touchpad working, but no sweat if not.

Beyond every other imaging app, I place Terabyte's Imaging tech. I've never lost an image via corruption, and have had scripts set up over the years to image the OS partition every week to backup.

My 15 minutes of messing with the multiboot capabilities show WBM has stopped moving itself to top of boot loader list in BIOS, even during and after booting with a bootable usb stick.

I am somewhat disappointed that I cannot boot legacy usb sticks. but I appreciate enabling legacy is probably what opens the door for WBM to mess with things.

I look forward to having a few great weeks of trialing the product, and buying.

The instructions for uninstalling were a little vague....but hopefully I won't have to do that!!!
Brian K
Posts: 2214
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 1:11 am
Location: NSW, Australia

Re: Day 1 BootIt UEFI install to dual boot Win10 & Mint 19.1

Post by Brian K »

Bruce, out of interest, which items appear in your BIU Boot Menu?
brucebne
Posts: 159
Joined: Sat Jan 19, 2019 11:01 am

Re: Day 1 BootIt UEFI install to dual boot Win10 & Mint 19.1

Post by brucebne »

Brian K wrote:
> Bruce, out of interest, which items appear in your BIU Boot Menu?

1. BootIt UEFI
2. EFI Hard Drive
3. any UEFI usb stick when inserted

I don't know why windows boot manager is not appearing, but I am happy not to see it there.
Brian K
Posts: 2214
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 1:11 am
Location: NSW, Australia

Re: Day 1 BootIt UEFI install to dual boot Win10 & Mint 19.1

Post by Brian K »

I think those items are in the BIOS Boot Menu. I meant the BootIt UEFI Boot Menu. The menu you get when clicking Resume. The top left icon.
brucebne
Posts: 159
Joined: Sat Jan 19, 2019 11:01 am

Re: Day 1 BootIt UEFI install to dual boot Win10 & Mint 19.1

Post by brucebne »

Brian K wrote:
> I think those items are in the BIOS Boot Menu. I meant the BootIt UEFI Boot
> Menu. The menu you get when clicking Resume. The top left icon.

ah sorry, I misread your question on arising early.

the BIU menu items are Linux, Windows, and refind.
I installed refind a day earlier, but had uninstalled it, and was surprised to see it come up in the boot options.
____________________________

On another note Brian, I want to resize the linux mint partition, have done so, but cannot now boot into it. The boot process hangs at the mint logo.
I presume this is something to do with grub needing reinstallation?
I cannot find anything on BootIt UEFI knowledge Base on how to manipulate GPT partitions without breaking boot process.

(I did a backup of the mint partition before resizing, and when I restore this, I can boot Mint successfully.)

___________________________

Image for Linux does not appear to have an option to restore images to a smaller partition...so these instructions cannot be applied

https://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=554
Brian K
Posts: 2214
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 1:11 am
Location: NSW, Australia

Re: Day 1 BootIt UEFI install to dual boot Win10 & Mint 19.1

Post by Brian K »

Bruce,

I had the same experience as you. A resized Mint partition wouldn't boot. I'd like an answer too.

In your BIU Boot Menu is the Mint item labelled Linux or Ubuntu? Mine was Ubuntu which I renamed to Mint.

In your Boot Item, Linux, what is in your Boot File field? I have \EFI\ubuntu.001\shimx64.efi. (the shimx64.efi is for Secure Boot support)
brucebne
Posts: 159
Joined: Sat Jan 19, 2019 11:01 am

Re: Day 1 BootIt UEFI install to dual boot Win10 & Mint 19.1

Post by brucebne »

Brian K wrote:
> Bruce,
>
> I had the same experience as you. A resized Mint partition wouldn't boot.
> I'd like an answer too.
>
> In your BIU Boot Menu was the Mint item labelled Linux or Ubuntu? Mine was
> Ubuntu which I renamed to Mint.
>
> In your Boot Item, Linux, what is in your Boot File field? I have
> \EFI\ubuntu.001\shimx64.efi. (the shimx64.efi is for Secure Boot support)



Brian, yeah Linux was originally named ubuntu, and I renamed.

Yes, I have ubuntu.001 as you do. (will check the full address and confirm).
However, I have just been able to get back into Mint after the partition resize.

Let me skim the process and if you need more details, let me know.

- to attempt to rectify, I wanted to boot off Mint on external usb stick. However, the stick is not uefi, so I had to go into bios to change to legacy boot. that got me into the stick, from where I ran "Boot-Repair" sotfware. It gave me a message 'gpt detected' and requested I set up a small partition blah blah.
(I have previously had this problem after resizing before, and from my notes, knew I had to run fsck, but didn't keep comprehensive notes.)

- anyway, I shutdown the stick, set bios back to UEFI....and then I cannot remmeber the steps, but I was able to boot into grub. Maybe I did something that reinstalled grub and this overwrote BIU. From grub I ran Mint in recovery mode, and this brought up file system errors. I think there was a prompt to run fsck manually, which I did, and followed the prompts and fsck fixed half a dozen fs errors, and then I was able to reboot into Mint YAY.

- then I had to reactivate BIU by inserting insto stick. and all is fine now.

So, the lesson here is if you are going to do a Mint partition change (resize, slide) make sure you don't have grub set to 0 second time, otherwise you cannot access Mint recovery menu.
Once you get into Mint recovery you should be able to use fsck to correct fs errors.

If this sounds promising to you, and you want more guidance, let me know, and I'd even be happy to repeat the issue...and take better notes of the steps I correct it via.

However, I am naturally a bit disappointed with BIU that there is no documentation on issues relating from changing GPT partitions (in this case Linux).
I have a decade of experience doing partition operations with embr....but gpt is NOTHING like that...at least for linux.
maybe GPT partition mods don't disrupt windows.....but anyone doing dual boots is likely trying to escape Microsoft.
Gary Seven
Posts: 61
Joined: Mon Sep 05, 2011 2:17 pm
Location: Tarragona, Spain

Re: Day 1 BootIt UEFI install to dual boot Win10 & Mint 19.1

Post by Gary Seven »

Bruce and Brian,

Couldn't resist jumping in here. I too am a long time user of Terabyte products (if I recall correctly since about 1998 or so). The boot manager and partitioning imaging software has always worked as advertised but because of rather esoteric user guides has always been a challenge to master, especially when making mistakes WRT placement of the EMBR, editing said partition, or doing restores with partitions that ended up corrupted due to bad HDD's, memory, or plain old user error. I've always pulled my hair out a little when trying to get help from Terabyte because more often than not their help can be rather cryptic with as few words as possible. However, in the end they DO help!

I wish Terabyte would update their rather old KB and update the current User Guides to reflect OS's of the current decade. I also wish they would make the BootIt BM and Image for (Linux, Windows etc,) easier to read, but also realize it's probably not possible due to the nature of the beast, so to speak. I especially wish there was more info available in the KB wrt BIU. If you saw my OP from January 2 you can see how confused I am about the technology changes with modern BIOS's and Terabyte products. Sheesh!

Ok, enough of that. Bruce, when installing Linux did you make sure to install using the "something else" option and carefully select the "Device for boot loader installation" at the bottom (I'm referring to the grub2 installer here)? Just wondering.
brucebne
Posts: 159
Joined: Sat Jan 19, 2019 11:01 am

Re: Day 1 BootIt UEFI install to dual boot Win10 & Mint 19.1

Post by brucebne »

Gary Seven wrote:
> Bruce and Brian,
>
> Couldn't resist jumping in here. I too am a long time user of Terabyte
> products (if I recall correctly since about 1998 or so). The boot manager
> and partitioning imaging software has always worked as advertised but
> because of rather esoteric user guides has always been a challenge to
> master, especially when making mistakes WRT placement of the EMBR, editing
> said partition, or doing restores with partitions that ended up corrupted
> due to bad HDD's, memory, or plain old user error. I've always pulled my
> hair out a little when trying to get help from Terabyte because more often
> than not their help can be rather cryptic with as few words as possible.
> However, in the end they DO help!
>
> I wish Terabyte would update their rather old KB and update the current
> User Guides to reflect OS's of the current decade. I also wish they would
> make the BootIt BM and Image for (Linux, Windows etc,) easier to read, but
> also realize it's probably not possible due to the nature of the beast, so
> to speak. I especially wish there was more info available in the KB wrt
> BIU. If you saw my OP from January 2 you can see how confused I am about
> the technology changes with modern BIOS's and Terabyte products. Sheesh!
>
> Ok, enough of that. Bruce, when installing Linux did you make sure to
> install using the "something else" option and carefully select
> the "Device for boot loader installation" at the bottom (I'm
> referring to the grub2 installer here)? Just wondering.


Gary, yes it took me years to really get to understand Terabyte's products.
However, I appreciated their power.
Since the early 90s, I've always regularly imaged the OS partition.
It's the most surefire way to keep puters up.
I originally used ghost, which was generally reliable, though I did have some failures.
And there's been others I tried, but Terabyte have been without doubt the most reliable products at doing partition work and imaging/restoring.

I then began to appreciate the value of a multiboot computer.
Years ago I ran a part time IT company - small business and homes mainly.
Families were always getting into trouble when kids would mess with the windows OS and render the computer unbootable.
My solution was to install 2-3 partitions of the OS, and a common data partitions if required.... the kids could boot into one OS partiton, the parents into another with a password. and the third was for me to troubleshoot or as backup. This worked brilliantly for many clients for years.

no other software was as technically brilliant and robust as BING.

I was pretty annoyed when GPT came along. I had spent thousands of hours developing professional skill with MBR and EMBR....and suddenly I could see it was going to be redundant within a few years.
When I saw Terabyte could not do multiboot with GPT I thought well that's the end of an era.

I totally agree Mr Terabyte has a lot of content up that is progressively irrelevant.
The move to GPT is a given, and it appears a lot more convoluted to achieve multiboot and imaging.

I'm getting on in years, close to retirement, and am getting pretty cynical about the whole IT industry and internet.
When I see social media companies screwing clients and businesses, and being prize tax evaders....then turning around pretending how ethical and compassionate they are, but censoring conservative political views.....I am certain within 20 years, the internet will kill a lot of the trust and openess of its early life....and civilization will need alternative means of commerce and socialization.

It's sad, but I was always stunned how quickly people developed the trust to do e commerce with strangers.

So, that's a RANT hey? ! :) But I raise it because I think computers will continue to evolve quickly....but the overlords who control the networks and OSs will progressively get less trustworth, and more invasive...more greedy.....Personally I have moved to Linux because I detest Microsoft's OS leasing system.

OK...enough said!!

BTW, I've spent many evenings messing with Mint installs over the last 6 years, and learned quickly to put grub on the Linux root partition, rather than the EFI partition.
and I always install as 'something else'.....making the ext4 and swap partitions with either Bootit or gparted.
Brian K
Posts: 2214
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 1:11 am
Location: NSW, Australia

Re: Day 1 BootIt UEFI install to dual boot Win10 & Mint 19.1

Post by Brian K »

Bruce, thanks for those instructions. I'll try it but it's not a priority at present.

>
> BTW, I've spent many evenings messing with Mint installs over the last 6 years, and
> learned quickly to put grub on the Linux root partition, rather than the EFI
> partition.

We can't do that with GPT disks. No matter whether you choose Disk, Linux partition or EFI System partition, grub goes to the EFI System partition. Into \EFI\ubuntu.xxx. If you multi-boot several Linux OS you will have \EFI\ubuntu.001, \EFI\ubuntu.002, \EFI\ubuntu.003, etc.
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