rEFInd / Discussion / General Discussion: Epic tale, reduced to Windows won't boot via rEFInd

Paul McNair - 2019-08-29

Hi all. Hoping someone can help with a Windows boot problem. Long story. I was happily running a dual boot of Ubuntu and WIn 10 for some time, with rEFInd as the boot manager. I'm using the current PPA version of rEFInd.

I installed a new verison of Kubuntu alongside Ubuntu and Win10 and was able to use Kubuntu. However, I noticed that Kubuntu had installed GRUB and that was the active boot manager. Also, Win10 wouldn't boot, despite appearing in the GRUB boot order. Ubuntu and Kubuntu both booted ok.

After the trial, I decided to delete Kubuntu, but rEFInd wasn't restored, and WIn10 still wouldn't boot. I tried a restore of a recent Macrium Reflect image containing Ubuntu, Win10 and associated EFI partitions, but Win 10 still wouldn;t boot. I eventually mamaged to reinstall rEFInd and it now is the default boot manager.

When I try to boot Windows, rEFInd comes up saying "booting using " (or similar), snd "load options "". I'm then immediately returned to rEFInd, where the Windows icon has been removed. Ubuntu boots fine.

I'm at a bit of a loss at this point. I suspect it may be a key isuse but I've no idea how to resolve.

Anyone able to offer advice, proposed fixes, investigative steps?

TIA.. haIII

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Paul McNair - 2019-08-29

Gparted output

Screenshot from 2019-08-29 16-25-24.png

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Paul McNair - 2019-08-29

Windows file list.

Screenshot from 2019-08-29 16-24-02.png

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Paul McNair - 2019-08-29

pablo@Ubuntu:~$ efibootmgr BootCurrent: 0000 Timeout: 0 seconds BootOrder: 0000,0001,0003 Boot0000* Windows Boot Manager Boot0001* ubuntu Boot0003* rEFInd Boot Manager pablo@Ubuntu:~$
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Paul McNair - 2019-08-29

pablo@Ubuntu:~$ df /boot/efi Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/sda2 97280 41759 55521 43% /boot/efi pablo@Ubuntu:~$
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pablo@Ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l
[sudo] password for pablo: 
<snip>
Disk /dev/sdb: 1.8 TiB, 2000398934016 bytes, 3907029168 sectors
Disk model: ST2000DM001-1ER1
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: 309E6DB9-A77D-4566-BD3A-646DBE6B9E64

Device      Start        End    Sectors  Size Type
/dev/sdb1      34     262177     262144  128M Microsoft reserved
/dev/sdb2  264192 3907028991 3906764800  1.8T Microsoft basic data

Partition 1 does not start on physical sector boundary.


Disk /dev/sda: 232.9 GiB, 250059350016 bytes, 488397168 sectors
Disk model: Samsung SSD 850 
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 55578D10-4FD8-4174-942E-E26758205780

Device         Start       End   Sectors  Size Type
/dev/sda1       2048    923647    921600  450M Windows recovery environment
/dev/sda2     923648   1126399    202752   99M EFI System
/dev/sda3    1126400   1159167     32768   16M Microsoft reserved
/dev/sda4    1159168 384921722 383762555  183G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sda5  384923648 385994751   1071104  523M Windows recovery environment
/dev/sda6  385996800 471767039  85770240 40.9G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda7  471767040 488396799  16629760    8G Linux swap

rbmorse - 2019-08-29

Paul, the output of efibootmgr looks like the machine is trying to boot from the Windows ESP rather than rEFInd. Can you get into your EFI setup and change the boot device priority to make rEFInd the first option?

efibootmgr might be able to do it:

sudo efibootmgr -o 3,0

The option here is a lower case letter "o" not the number zero (zed).

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Paul McNair - 2019-08-30

Hi rbmorse, thnaks for replying.

You're right, and that's weird since I'd spent time getting the boot order in efimanager correct. rEFInd is definitely the boot manager that appears - see attachment - so that's another confusion.

Corrected version below. The Windows boot problem persists.

pablo@Ubuntu:~$ efibootmgr BootCurrent: 0003 Timeout: 0 seconds BootOrder: 0003,0000,0001 Boot0000* Windows Boot Manager Boot0001* ubuntu Boot0003* rEFInd Boot Manager pablo@Ubuntu:~$

20190830_074721.jpg
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Paul McNair - 2019-08-30

Image of error message that appears when I hit the Windows icon in rEFInd.

20190830_075210.jpg

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Paul McNair - 2019-08-30

Contents of Windows EFI boot folder

Screenshot from 2019-08-30 14-19-56.png

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rbmorse - 2019-08-30

The second image shows you've started the Windows boot process, so rEFInd is doing it's job. Beyond that, I can't say as I haven't used Windows in many years except as a virtual machine on a Linux host, and that's a completely different can of worms.

As for the third image, all I can offer is that it looks like you've collected the whole set. Never seen anything like it. Hopefully Rod or somebody who has actual knowledge will be along shortly and get you going.

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Paul McNair - 2019-08-31

Thanks again. I agree that rEFIns is dong its thing, but Windoes is failing to boot even though all apears ok in terms of Win10 EFI files etc. That was also th case when GRUB was reinstalled during the Kubuntu installation, almost as if that has somehow damaged WIndows. As it stands, neither the root cause, the fix, or even diagnostic steps, are clear to me.

How do I send a Rod Signal? (:-)

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Paul McNair - 2019-08-31

pablo@Ubuntu:~$ ls /boot/efi/EFI/refind BOOT.CSV icons keys refind.conf-sample drivers_x64 icons-backup refind.conf refind_x64.efi pablo@Ubuntu:~$
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Quick update. A new Linux kernel was published today. During its install, I noted that the Windows Boot Manager was detected, but witha "@" character reported on the path to the Windows EFI file that I don't recall seeing in the past. No idea if this is relevant or not, but thought I'd post it anyway.

DKMS: uninstall completed.
/etc/kernel/postrm.d/initramfs-tools:
update-initramfs: Deleting /boot/initrd.img-5.0.0-23-generic
/etc/kernel/postrm.d/zz-update-grub:
Sourcing file `/etc/default/grub'
Sourcing file `/etc/default/grub.d/init-select.cfg'
Generating grub configuration file ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-5.0.0-27-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-5.0.0-27-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-5.0.0-25-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-5.0.0-25-generic
Found Windows Boot Manager on /dev/sda2@/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
Adding boot menu entry for EFI firmware configuration
done
Removing linux-modules-5.0.0-23-generic (5.0.0-23.24) ...

Paul McNair - 2019-09-08

So, this is now resolved. As I mentioned, I had an image backup on my SDD, taken with Macrium Reflect. The rescue disk has a "Fix Windows Boot Problems" feature that I hadn't used. When I did, the system rebooted straight into Windows - problem resolved, whatever it was. It was then just a case of using my rEFInd boot disc to enable me to boot into Ubuntu and run the refind-install script to retore rEFInd as the boot manager. I can now boot Windos or Ubuntu once again.

Thanks to all that read this far.

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Epic tale, reduced to Windows won't boot via rEFInd

An EFI boot manager utility

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Epic tale, reduced to Windows won't boot via rEFInd

Epic tale, reduced to Windows won't boot via rEFInd

An EFI boot manager utility

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Help

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Epic tale, reduced to Windows won't boot via rEFInd