The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Sony VAIO S and Linux EFI troubles

    Discussion in 'VAIO / Sony' started by rohandhruva, Jun 13, 2012.

  1. rohandhruva

    rohandhruva Notebook Geek

    Reputations:
    27
    Messages:
    97
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    I bought a new Sony Vaio S series laptop. It uses Insyde H2O BIOS EFI, and trying to install Linux on it is driving me crazy.

    Code: 
    root@kubuntu:~# parted /dev/sda print
Model: ATA Hitachi HTS72756 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 640GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: gpt

Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name                          Flags
 1      1049kB  274MB   273MB   fat32        EFI system partition          hidden
 2      274MB   20.8GB  20.6GB  ntfs         Basic data partition          hidden, diag
 3      20.8GB  21.1GB  273MB   fat32        EFI system partition          boot
 4      21.1GB  21.3GB  134MB                Microsoft reserved partition  msftres
 5      21.3GB  342GB   320GB   ntfs         Basic data partition
 6      342GB   358GB   16.1GB  ext4         Basic data partition
 7      358GB   374GB   16.1GB  ntfs         Basic data partition
 8      374GB   640GB   266GB   ntfs         Basic data partition
    What is surprising is that there are 2 EFI system partitions on the disk. The sda2 partition is a 20gb recovery partition which loads windows with a basic recovery interface. This is accessible by pressing the "ASSIST" button as opposed to the normal power button. I presume that the sda1 EFI System Partition (ESP) loads into this recovery.

    The sda3 ESP has more fleshed out entries for Microsoft Windows, which actually goes into Windows 7 (as confirmed by bcdedit.exe on Windows). Ubuntu is installed on sda6, and while installation I chose sda3 as my boot partition. The installer correctly created a sda3/EFI/ubuntu/grubx64.efi application.

    The real problem: for the life of me, I can't set it to be the default! I tried creating a sda3/startup.nsh which called grubx64.efi, but it didn't help -- on rebooting, the system still boots into windows. I tried using efibootmgr, and that shows as it it worked:

    Code: 
    
root@kubuntu:~# efibootmgr 
BootCurrent: 0000
BootOrder: 0000,0001
Boot0000* EFI USB Device
Boot0001* Windows Boot Manager
root@kubuntu:~# efibootmgr --create --gpt --disk /dev/sda --part 3 --write-signature --label "GRUB2" --loader "\\EFI\\ubuntu\\grubx64.efi" 
BootCurrent: 0000
BootOrder: 0002,0000,0001
Boot0000* EFI USB Device
Boot0001* Windows Boot Manager
Boot0002* GRUB2
root@kubuntu:~# efibootmgr
BootCurrent: 0000
BootOrder: 0002,0000,0001
Boot0000* EFI USB Device
Boot0001* Windows Boot Manager
Boot0002* GRUB2
    However, on rebooting, as you guessed, the machine rebooted directly back into Windows.

    The only things I can think of are:
    1. The sda1 partition is somehow being used
    2. Overwrite /EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi and /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi with grubx64.efi [but this seems really radical].

    Can anyone please help me out? Thanks -- any help is greatly appreciated, as this issue is driving me crazy! :confused:
     
    rohandhruva, Jun 13, 2012
    #1