Hello. I've just set up rEFInd and I'm trying to put my USB drive and CD/DVD rom drive before rEFInd in the boot order but my attempts have been unsuccesful. Every time I restart rEFInd it puts itself before the USB drive and CD/DVD rom drive and pushes them farther down the boot order.
I've tried using 'efibootmgr' and 'bcfg' and they temporarily work so when rEFInd boots up it ups it shows my live USB devices and CD stuff, but running 'bcfg' and/or 'efibootmgr' shows that the devices have been pushed back down the boot order. When I restart at that point the USBs and CDs are no longer shown.
Here is the output of 'efibootmgr' before a restart with clarification commented in:
BootCurrent:0001Timeout:0secondsBootOrder:2001,2002,0001,3001,0002,0000,2003Boot0000*ubuntu#UbuntuBoot0001*rEFIndBootManager#rEFIndBoot0002*WindowsBootManager#Windows8Boot0003*InternalCD/DVDROMDrive(UEFI)#Notsure,maybeHPbootmgrBoot2001*USBDrive(UEFI)#USBBoot2002*InternalCD/DVD ROM Drive (UEFI) #CD/DVDBoot3000*InternalHardDiskorSolidStateDisk#ProbablyUbuntuvmlinuzfileBoot3001*InternalHardDiskorSolidStateDisk#ProbablyUbuntuvmlinuzfileBoot3002*InternalHardDiskorSolidStateDisk#ProbablyUbuntuvmlinuzfileBoot3003*InternalHardDiskorSolidStateDisk#ProbablyUbuntuvmlinuzfile
Here is the output of 'efibootmgr' after a restart with clarification commented in:
BootCurrent:0001Timeout:0secondsBootOrder:0001,3001,2002,0002,0000,2001,2003Boot0000*ubuntu#UbuntuBoot0001*rEFIndBootManager#rEFIndBoot0002*WindowsBootManager#Windows8Boot0003*InternalCD/DVDROMDrive(UEFI)#Notsure,maybeHPbootmgrBoot2001*USBDrive(UEFI)#USBBoot2002*InternalCD/DVD ROM Drive (UEFI) #CD/DVDBoot3000*InternalHardDiskorSolidStateDisk#ProbablyUbuntuvmlinuzfileBoot3001*InternalHardDiskorSolidStateDisk#ProbablyUbuntuvmlinuzfileBoot3002*InternalHardDiskorSolidStateDisk#ProbablyUbuntuvmlinuzfileBoot3003*InternalHardDiskorSolidStateDisk#ProbablyUbuntuvmlinuzfile
If there's something I'm missing in my post that I should provide (ie: output of 'bcfg boot dump') please say so. Sorry aswell if this question has already been asked, I searched around but couldn't find much about making rEFInd NOT first in the boot order.
Have a good day/night!
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Chances are your EFI is removing the removable disks from the boot order whenever you shut down, or maybe even just reboot, the computer. This is one of the subtle (or not-so-subtle) differences between EFI and BIOS. I'm afraid I don't know of a true fix for this issue; it seems that some EFI developers just don't consider it reasonable to want to set the default boot option to be a removable device.
That said, there is a possible workaround, albeit an awkward one: You can install rEFInd (or some other boot manager) on the hard disk as the first boot option and configure it to boot to a removable device first by default, with a short timeout period. If you want a longer timeout period if a removable device is not present, then you could install a second rEFInd, but keep it out of (or later in) the EFI's boot order, but configure it with a longer boot timeout than the first one. This setup might not work as desired in all cases, though, since the identification of the removable devices is likely to differ from one device to another -- that is, a bootable Windows installer will look different from a bootable Ubuntu installer, which in turn will look different from a bootable FreeBSD installer, etc. If you want to boot just a few removable devices, though, this workaround might be adequate.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Hello. I've just set up rEFInd and I'm trying to put my USB drive and CD/DVD rom drive before rEFInd in the boot order but my attempts have been unsuccesful. Every time I restart rEFInd it puts itself before the USB drive and CD/DVD rom drive and pushes them farther down the boot order.
I've tried using 'efibootmgr' and 'bcfg' and they temporarily work so when rEFInd boots up it ups it shows my live USB devices and CD stuff, but running 'bcfg' and/or 'efibootmgr' shows that the devices have been pushed back down the boot order. When I restart at that point the USBs and CDs are no longer shown.
Here is the output of 'efibootmgr' before a restart with clarification commented in:
Readable: USB,CD/DVD,rEFInd,Ubuntu GRUB,Windows Boot Manager,Ubuntu GRUB (primary for booting Ubuntu),Non-existent broken boot device that's unremovable
Extra-readable: USB,CD,rEFInd,Ubuntu,Windows,Ubuntu
Here is the output of 'efibootmgr' after a restart with clarification commented in:
Readable: rEFInd,Ubuntu GRUB,CD/DVD,Windows,Ubuntu GRUB (primary for booting Ubuntu),USB,Non-existent broken boot device that's unremovable
Extra-readable: rEFInd,Ubuntu,CD,Windows,Ubuntu,USB
If there's something I'm missing in my post that I should provide (ie: output of 'bcfg boot dump') please say so. Sorry aswell if this question has already been asked, I searched around but couldn't find much about making rEFInd NOT first in the boot order.
Have a good day/night!
Chances are your EFI is removing the removable disks from the boot order whenever you shut down, or maybe even just reboot, the computer. This is one of the subtle (or not-so-subtle) differences between EFI and BIOS. I'm afraid I don't know of a true fix for this issue; it seems that some EFI developers just don't consider it reasonable to want to set the default boot option to be a removable device.
That said, there is a possible workaround, albeit an awkward one: You can install rEFInd (or some other boot manager) on the hard disk as the first boot option and configure it to boot to a removable device first by default, with a short timeout period. If you want a longer timeout period if a removable device is not present, then you could install a second rEFInd, but keep it out of (or later in) the EFI's boot order, but configure it with a longer boot timeout than the first one. This setup might not work as desired in all cases, though, since the identification of the removable devices is likely to differ from one device to another -- that is, a bootable Windows installer will look different from a bootable Ubuntu installer, which in turn will look different from a bootable FreeBSD installer, etc. If you want to boot just a few removable devices, though, this workaround might be adequate.