UEFI install does not work on two older UEFI systems
-
I am brand new and not very experienced with UEFI.
So please bear with me on this-I encountered two different systems this week that I cannot get 2.7.0 to install on that are UEFI
based.Installer is creating a non-bootable UEFI system.
One system is an older (2011) Piece of s-** ACER all-in-one PC with what I would call
a very finicky at best bios.
It does not let you turn off secure boot or tell you see if it is on or not.
I have a very long and messy Acer Forum post while trying to figure that one out if anyone wishes to sort through it.I finally did get PFsense 2.7.0DEV to be bootable but by manually partitioning at install time
choosing UFS instead of ZFS and making the EFI partition 100MB instead of the default size.
That combination is NOT the fix but where I left off and got it to work.
I'm not (yet) sure which variable or thing that I tried made it bootable.I am running into a similar problem with a Dell R410 server from 2010.
It also has what I might call an earlier implementation of UEFI.
However it is "much cooler" than the UEFI on the ACER PC, as it has something of
a file browser where you can drill down/ look at the .efi files in the EFI partition and "try"
to execute them. Or configure the NVRAM to what you want to boot and boot order etc.The manual partitioning and trying UFS on the Dell server has not worked for me.
However the problem seems similar to the Acer PC in that you can do a fully auto ZFS install and it all looks to go well but leaves you with a non-bootable UEFI install.
On the dell server, I can file browse the EFI partition and see what we have after install:At the root we have <efi>
Then efi\freebsd
and
efi\bootunder freebsd we have a file
loader.efiunder boot we have a file
bootx64.efiThis "file browser" lets you try to execute them just by selecting and hitting enter.
Executing either of these gives the same exact result of a screen with some
"trying" lines for each partition and ending in :
"ERROR: cannot open /boot/lua/loader.lua: device not configured.-Steve
-
Forgot:
FreeBSD14(current) auto-installs zfs whole disk and works on the ACER PC.
But does not on the Dell Server.
Error and EFI files look the same. -
If you just accept the defaults and install ZFS how does it fail exactly?
-
@stephenw10 On reboot I get one page nearly full of ---
If there's a way to scrollback in FreeBSD at boot time I have not yet figured it out.
I don't think there's a scrollback buffer.First thing I see is No boot device available
Current boot mode is set to UEFI
Ignoring Boot0003 Only one DP foundThree sets of "trying" (lots of text about device Pci GPT (with long ID)
*looks like it tries or looks to each partition.
Along with "setting currdev to disk0p1 next try is disk0p2, the disk0p3 then
goes back to Setting currdev to disk0p1
and stops at "Failed to find bootable partition"I feel more like I do now.
-
Hmm, not very useful. I assume those systems don't boot legacy or you're just trying to use EFI there to see if it works?
-
@stephenw10 Yes I'm trying to get familiar with UEFI and the newer PFSense and how it works with it.
The ACER will not boot legacy.
The Dell server will but I'm trying to figure this out and get it to work UEFI.
Also for what it's worth 2.6.0 installs and boots fine on it UEFI.Something's up with FreeBSD(current) it seems.
Also I'm not all that awesome with understanding UEFI yet.
But I've learned a ton in a day or two.
For a lot of years I have ignored it.
Figured it's time to pay attention and get familiar with it.
Actually been installing stuff on it a lot in the past few years and not having much of a clue how it works.
Well - not much more than a clue.
Other than it can (or does) load stuff from a fat32 partition basically. -
More fun-
Upgrade from 2.6.0 to latest dev.
Same distorted text on initial boot menu.
Looks just like the bad one that crashes when upgrading UEFI from 2.6.0 before.
But no hang and no reboot.
System boots.So now this system is booting UEFI/GPT
Bit after installing from 2.6.0 and upgrading to latest dev.I wonder if that crash on boot thing was fixed or if my old DELL server is working for some reason without crashing.
First time I have seen this upgrade in this way not crash. -
Link will take you to a page where you can easily click on product specs.
Would not let me link directly to it. -
When did you first test that? There have been some EFI boot loader changes gone in relatively recently but probably not for a new weeks.
-
@stephenw10 said in UEFI install does not work on two older UEFI systems:
When did you first test that? There have been some EFI boot loader changes gone in relatively recently but probably not for a new weeks.
Just now..
Last time when it didn't work maybe 1.5-2 weeks ago? -
I'll need to test on another system that was known to fail last time I did it.
It was failing on everything I was trying back then.
Hyper-V and some hardware/PCs etc. -
Hmm, I think that was probably after the changes went in then but certainly worth retesting.
-
@n8lbv said in UEFI install does not work on two older UEFI systems:
@stephenw10 On reboot I get one page nearly full of ---
If there's a way to scrollback in FreeBSD at boot time I have not yet figured it out.
I don't think there's a scrollback buffer.It depends on how far it gets, but you can press the Scroll Lock key on the keyboard and then Page Up/Page Down to scroll back on the console. That wouldn't get you output from before the kernel, though.
-
@stephenw10 said in UEFI install does not work on two older UEFI systems:
Hmm, I think that was probably after the changes went in then but certainly worth retesting.
To make matters more comlicated I just recently noticed that there are
different combinations of UEFI install.
GPT UEFI
and GPT BIOS + UEFI
I think default is the BIOS + UEFI
This is probably for compatibility and will boot either mode.
I now have to keep that in mind if the upgrade issue happens again and try both.
Lately I have been installing GPT/UEFI to make sure I'm not creating a bios bootable system.Any reports in the past were all using the default fully automatic partitioning install.
