[RESOLVED] Installed 23.10 on a usb disc and lost boot access to main (onboard) hard disc.

[spiderman]

Installed 23.10 on a usb disc and lost boot access to main (onboard) hard disc. > > > Here's the deets.

I have an apple Macbook Air. Wiped out apple O/S and put 22 LTS which has been upgraded as distros are released. Currently on 23.10 Had some software issues on that regarding Openshot video editor, but that is the only problem with that disc. Needed a separate Kubuntu to run a trading plan without interference from other running browser tabs or apps, so I installed a fresh copy of 23.10 on a SSD USB 3.0 disc (Macbook Air) and now the only bootable option is to boot to the USB drive. Without it plugged in, It brings up some type of GRUB menu. I assume I need a GRUB editor on one of the discs. Either a bootable 23.10 install disc or that USB 3.0 disc. I searched for GRUB on this forum and didn't see anything right away. If there is a GRUB editor that can give me dual boot capabilities, that would be awesome. Please HELP!

OH btw, I can see the original install disc in Dolphin and may be able to mount it. I didn't touch that because I didn't want a FUBAR situation to occur.

[Snowhog]

See https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-ins...n-a-hard-drive

[spiderman]

Wow, that's kool. ttyl

[spiderman]

This is what I have for the Fdisk command - I have to go run an errand, but as I think about this, I think my grub-install needs to happen on /dev/sdb1 2048 1050623 1048576 512M EFI System & /dev/sdb1 2048 1050623 1048576 512M EFI System but I'm not sure at this point. That is why I posted all the text that came out in terminal.

stefanso@stefanso-MacBookAir:~$ sudo fdisk -l
[sudo] password for stefanso:

Disk /dev/sda: 113 GiB, 121332826112 bytes, 236978176 sectors
Disk model: APPLE SSD SM0128
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 30D803A5-4067-4681-A03D-0111EF95ED03

Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sda1 2048 1050623 1048576 512M EFI System
/dev/sda2 1050624 236976127 235925504 112.5G Linux filesystem


Disk /dev/sdb: 232.89 GiB, 250059350016 bytes, 488397168 sectors
Disk model: 00SSD1
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 96174EE0-D8E6-4F3F-8C4B-03A2F1CA5D23

Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sdb1 2048 1050623 1048576 512M EFI System
/dev/sdb2 1050624 488396799 487346176 232.4G Linux filesystem

[Snowhog]

Ignore all the /dev/loopx devices. Disk /dev/sda: 113 GiB is your first internal storage device (Apple brand SSD). It contains an installed Linux OS on /dev/sda2. You have a second SSD on /dev/sdb: 232.89 GiB. It also contains an installed Linux OS on /dev/sdb2.

You'll want to reinstall Grub to one of these, either /dev/sda or /dev/sdb (note that you don't install Grub to the drives partition).

If you want, wait until others jump in here, especially oshunluvr who is quiet knowledgable with multi-boot OS setups.

[spiderman]

OK,@snowhog : that makes sense because while I was out I began to think that I need a boot menu that shows the 2 options. I will wait for oshunluvr because in a day or two I will have to go back to the apple drive to do banking... While out, I was thinking about just editing the old grub file to show those options; however, I have no experience with editing a grub file. Ideally I'd like to have a dual boot, but I may have to settle for fixing the original boot drive.

[oshunluvr]

Unfortunately, I'm not well versed when using EFI booting, but generally you only want/need one EFI partition. I'm not sure the effect, if any, when you have two of them. claydoh and jlittle know more about EFI than I do.

As far as the boot loader itself, you should be able to install it to either or both drives without ill effect. Then whichever of them you boot to, run "sudo update-grub" and it should read the EFI folder(s) and add those to the boot menu.

I suggest you take it one step at a time:

1. Get grub booting from /dev/sda
2. Boot into the Linux install on sda.
3. Run "sudo update-grub"
4. Report results.

IMO, that link does tell the full story about re-installing grub. Again, not an EFI expert so I may have this wrong a bit, but I believe;

You need to boot to the USB stick in EFI mode so that you're running grub-efi instead of regular grub.
Then mount the linux filesystem on sda1 somewhere.
Then run "sudo grub-install --/boot/directory=<path-to-/boot-on-sda1> /dev/sda"

So if you mount /sda1 at /mnt, the <path-to-/boot-on-sda1> would be /mnt/boot so the command would be:

sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
sudo grub-install --/boot/directory=/mnt/boot

Note that with EFI you do not specific a device because the EFI boot loader doesn't use space on the drive, it resides in your UEFI system.

This page on the Arch Wiki (best place to get any accurate info) https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GRUB in section 2.1 has full EFI installation instructions.

Regardless, I think someone with EFI knowledge should confirm or refute the above. With two EFI partitions, it might be more complicated. I think claydoh has done this.

Also, I assume you have any important data backed up and your install is new so not much invested in time if you need a full re-install.

I like the idea of both disks being bootable in case one fails - all my computers that has more than one disk are bootable on at least 2 of them - but I'm unsure of EFI and how that would work.

[oshunluvr]

This might help:

https://superuser.com/questions/1666...to-wipe-one-di

[spiderman]

https://www.kubuntuforums.net/member/35692-oshunluvr - TYVM for your input. I wanted to get a boot menu picture to y'all. This is what I get without the usb drive attached. I don't know if I can type something to boot from /sda or not. When I plug in USB drive I get this menu now
and I am able to boot to /sda or /sdb in the menu, so I'm happy now. I plan to do a new install of 23.10 on /sda later. I will post a question about that...new thread. SO Many thanks to all who contributed. I appologize for my stupidity, I am recovering from open heart surgery...challenged thinking.

[claydoh]

Multiple EFI partitions on multiple drives doesn't really complicate things, other than maybe keeping track of where things are, maybe, possibly?

The installer by default will use the existing one on the first drive, unless one does a manual partition setup. It is just simpler, and ,suits the vast majority of situations.

Based on the images, there is no EFi partition on sdb, which is normal, and usually quite fine.
When dual booting with multiple *buntu installs, using separate partitions on each drive is actually vital, if not simply the best and easiest path. Ubuntu and its children all have the exact same grub bootloader setups and layouts. Installing the second *buntu OS, and using the existing EFI partition (again, the default, unless setting things up manually) , the original grub stuff is replaced by the one from the new install. (I am 95% positive, but may be wrong here)
SO, the current grub setup (on sda) is griping because the bootloader files that the stuff in the EFI partition point to (on sdb) aren't there when the USB drive is unplugged.

So to dual boot multiple *buntus it is best/easiest to use multiple drives, and to manually create the partitions on that, and make sure to point the grub bootloader install to /dev/sdb, as it will default to sda, otherwise.

One could use boot-repair (with the USB unplugged) to restore the 22.04 grub. Then, boot to 22.04 and update grub - the os-prober should detect the 23.10 install and add an entry to the now-working 22.04 grub.

But, 23.10 won't boot if plugged into another computer (or if sda is removed), since the core boot files are on sda. If this isn't desired, then things are OK, I think.
One can resize sdb and create and set up an efi partition there, and manually install grub to it (from 23.10), but if this is never going to be a useful situation for your case, it may not be worth the effort.

[oshunluvr]

...Based on the images, there is no EFi partition on sdb...

You sure about that?

Copied from #4 above:

Disk /dev/sda: 113 GiB, 121332826112 bytes, 236978176 sectors
/dev/sda1 2048 1050623 1048576 512M EFI System
/dev/sda2 1050624 236976127 235925504 112.5G Linux filesystem


Disk /dev/sdb: 232.89 GiB, 250059350016 bytes, 488397168 sectors
[B]/dev/sdb1 2048 1050623 1048576 512M EFI System[/B]
/dev/sdb2 1050624 488396799 487346176 232.4G Linux filesystem​

[claydoh]

You sure about that?

Um....no, musta been wearing my other glasses.
Actually I was reading on mobile, and just somehow didn't see the partitions

However, if the 23.10 installation put its boot files on sda1, and overwriting the existing 22.04 boot files, everything I mentioned will still be valid.
This is what I suspect has happened.

[spiderman]

Thanks gang! I'm just happy I am able to boot to both installs now. I wish the default was /sda instead of the /sdb... but it is no big deal. I can pay bills and then swithc to trading on the other drive and isolate the two processes. Trading takes too many rescources to run on the same install as a regualar system. I will also be able to use Openshot for video editing when not trading on /SDB.

[spiderman]

Am now going to boot my Kubuntu 23.10

[Qqmike]

From your OP,

I installed a fresh copy of 23.10 on a SSD USB 3.0 disc (Macbook Air) and now the only bootable option is to boot to the USB drive.

For the future, a note:
To make that USB (23.10) an independent device (that boots 23.10 using its own EFI) -- independent of your existing EFI(s), BEFORE you install 23.10 to your USB, you should * turn off * the other EFI(s) (by using GParted or something to remove the boot flags on those EFIs -- only temporarily). Then after installing 23.10 on that USB (with its own EFI on that USB), you can go back and turn on the boot flags to your other EFIs. You can have as many EFIs as you want, located anywhere you wish, no problem (except knowing where-TH everything is!).