Re: [PLUG] UEFI Boot order

Ok, so I need to break down your message and reply inline, or I'm going to get tumbled, or you'll think I'm answering a different question.

I am trying to rescue a neighbor’s computer, it is an HP Pavilion G7 running Windows 8 (yea I know, but too late now).

I am so sorry to hear that. Hope you make it better.

Which does not indicate where the hard drive is in the order, unless it is in OS boot manager, which generally would not be first in the order.

Well, "OS Boot Manager" is one of the standard nametags that the Windows UEFI loader wears, and it's a hostile, useless POS, won't boot anything but Windows and doesn't even do that very well. Not likely to be helpful.

(Removed stuff about hardware failures for brevity of reply)

I'm glad you got the memory errors sorted. Those can make any OS useless. Makes the rest of this simpler.

Now for my questions for you. You mention a couple of times "USB HD". Do you actually mean a hard disk connected via USB, like an external/portable hard disk, or are you using a thumb drive? If the former, it's not likely a UEFI install. If the latter, make sure to grab 14.04.1 or newer (14.04.3 recommended) for some early UEFI fixes Canonical applied. Specifically I think 14.04.0 had some Secure Boot issues, which could be relevant.

If you're using an existing Ubuntu install on a portable hard disk, you'll probably need to put the firmware into 'legacy mode' in order to boot it. This won't hurt anything, just make sure to turn it off before reinstalling WIndows in the future (I assume you're going to). Alternately, you can leave legacy mode on, since you're reinstalling. The big advantage of UEFI at the moment, for folks who aren't dual/multi-booting, is more resistance to malware and rootkits. Windows needs all the help it can get on those topics, I'm sure you know.

So the short version, aka TL;DR, I'd grab a fresh 8GB USB 3.0 thumb drive from Micro Center, since they're sub-10$ and any excuse works for me, and I'd grab the 14.04.3 ISO from Ubuntu and put it on via dd from a known good Linux machine. I'd actually probably use Linux Mint or Xubuntu, but that's another advocacy. Once that's done, you'll have a known-working UEFI boot device, and can build forward from there. Also, once you're done recovering data from that hard disk to somewhere else, I'd zap it with a drill and discard/destroy. Might be a good time for an SSD upgrade as well.

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 10:18 AM, Eric H. Johnson <ejohnson@camalytics.com> wrote:

Hi all,

I am trying to rescue a neighbor’s computer, it is an HP Pavilion G7 running Windows 8 (yea I know, but too late now). I have Ubuntu on a USB stick, but cannot get it to boot ahead of the hard drive. The BIOS is selected for UEFI boot order and if I revert to legacy mode, it indicates that it may not be bootable for some operating systems, including Windows 8. The UEFI boot order specified is:

OS boot manager
Internal CD/DVD ROM drive
USB Diskette on Key/USB hard drive
USB CD/DVD ROM drive
Network adapter (disabled)

Which does not indicate where the hard drive is in the order, unless it is in OS boot manager, which generally would not be first in the order. There is also a selection for secure boot which was enabled. I disabled it, but made no difference as to booting to USB.

Anyone know what the appropriate BIOS settings are to boot Ubuntu 14.04 from a USB? Alternatively, do I select legacy mode anyway, or will the HD be inaccessible even if I get Ubuntu to load?

Incidentally, here are the symptoms I am encountering. The machine would eventually boot to Windows 8, but runs incredibly slow. It can take ½ hour to get past the login. Even Windows isn’t that slow. J

I ran the HP diagnostics which indicated problems with both the memory and the hard drive. Presuming the memory error was contributing to the hard drive error, I replaced the memory. The memory error went away, but the hard drive error remained. I have tried several times to run the create recovery image, but have yet to get it to run anywhere close to completion, so I am now just trying to get something to boot that will allow me to copy off the files. I have also been able to boot to a command prompt to run chkdsk, but it returned with only very insignificant errors, which I was able to repair, but otherwise made no difference.

Any ideas are appreciated.

Regards,
Eric

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