Effect on Bios

[martin]

After installing 'refind' I can no longer start the computer from a live usb stick or use programmes like SuperGrub2 or SysRescue.

The Bios start sequence shown is:
USB
CD
Refind boot manager
HDD
etc of no interest.

Is the expected behaviour?

martin welsh

[martin]

Some details of the BIOS/machine;

BIOS Menu
Main

The screen provides date, time and boot features settings, as well as basic system information:
System Information

BIOS Version: SBCFP4_3.0.0.312_9.3 X64 (example)
Build Time: MM/DD/YYYY
Platform Type: fit-PC4
Platform Revision: 1.2 (example)
Processor Type: AMD GX-420CA SOC with Radeon(TM) HD Graphics (example)
Processor Speed: 2.00 GHz (example)
System Memory Speed: 1600 MHz (example)
L2 Cache RAM: 2048 KB
Total memory: 8192 MB
    [1]: 4096 MB (DDR3-1600) @ DIMM 0 (example)
    [2]: 4096 MB (DDR3-1600) @ DIMM 1 (example)

    martin welsh

[Roderick W. Smith]

Some EFIs are flaky, and installing a new boot program can make others (such as external media) no longer work. Resetting to factory defaults may clear this problem, but doing so will also likely remove rEFInd from the boot options, necessitating a re-install (or at least re-running efibootmgr or a similar tool to add the existing rEFInd back), which risks a recurrence of the problem.

rEFInd itself should be able to launch any EFI-bootable USB drive, assuming the firmware initializes the USB ports. It may be necessary to hit the Esc key to re-scan boot loaders, though, since sometimes they don't all appear when rEFInd first starts up.

If the disks in question are set up to boot in BIOS mode, you should be able to make them appear in rEFInd by adjusting the scanfor line in refind.conf: Uncomment the line and ensure that biosexternal is among the options (or cd for optical discs). You may also need to uncomment the uefi_deep_legacy_scan line, but I recommend doing so only if you find it's needed.