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After switching to rEFInd, booting from USB edits the boot order in nvram

General Discussion
Not Today
2020-01-28
2020-02-09

  • Not Today

    Not Today - 2020-01-28
    • I installed rEFInd (and deleted Grub and some artifacts of systemd-boot).
    • All works fine, multibooting several Linux distro's using rEFInd, EXCEPT if I boot from a USB. When I boot from a USB, the boot order gets edited and rEFInd gets REMOVED from the order. Then of course, on subsequent boot attempts, boot fails because it can't find a boot manager or loader.
    • Attached is the output of efibootmgr when all is working, and then after booting from USB:
      Notice that in the first view, rEFInd (boot0000) is listed in the "boot order", and in the second view, it is not.

    Thoughts???

     
    Thumbnail
    bootorder.jpeg

  • Roderick W. Smith

    Roderick W. Smith - 2020-02-09

    This is a variant on a boot coup; please read that linked-to page for details. My suspicion is that this is a bug in your firmware, so it's possible that a firmware update will fix the problem. OTOH, manufacturers seldom bother to fix this sort of bug in their firmware, so maybe not. You may need to resort to using fallback.efi/fbx86.efi, or conceivably some other workaround.

     

  • Not Today

    Not Today - 2020-02-09

    Thanks, I was realizing this is likely an issue with the UEFI boot firmware. I'll investigate the boot coup documentation. My temporary (and likely long term) fix was to disable "boot from USB" in UEFI firmware, then assuming rEFInd detects the bootable USB, just use rEFInd menu to select USB. Works fine for the few times I've done this so far.

    I did try reverting to earlier firmware version, and also of course updating back to current version. None of those worked.

    Thanks for the help, and for rEFInd!

     

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