SOLVED Windows 10 Dual Boot but MX Linux doesn't show up

[fehlix]

Lenovo's usualy have the F12 key to be pressed during the start-up phase (when the Lenovo logo is visible on the screen) in order to get into the UEFI/BIOS boot menu. Not sure I read OP's posts correctly and the Boot-menu was already shown and MX18 was selected to boot into - but booted nevertheless into WinOS...

[ronjnk]

Hi Fehlix. I'm back in for the day and as soon as I refortify myself I will tackle the computer. You are correct though. I was able to use f12 at boot and I was able to see windows and MX18 as choices. The problem is, even if I highlighted and selected MX18 it still went direct to windows. I did set up the latest MX18 download and it's beautiful. I will still get you the answers to your earlier command queries.

[fehlix]

Hi Fehlix. I'm back in for the day and as soon as I refortify myself I will tackle the computer. You are correct though. I was able to use f12 at boot and I was able to see windows and MX18 as choices. The problem is, even if I highlighted and selected MX18 it still went direct to windows. I did set up the latest MX18 download and it's beautiful. I will still get you the answers to your earlier command queries.

OK, that was my impression too. Moveing the UEFI-bootmenu entries, with help of the linux efibootmgr, would probably not sort the issue,
as manualy selection with F12 didn't succeed.
Yes, please redo the precedure with the final MX18, and if still not booting from UEFI-F12-bootmenu.
Try the alternative rEFInd- work arround - if that would do it, we would be one step further to a solution, which would include using rEFInd bootmanager to boot into MX-Grub menu. Note: I have expirienced those exact misbeaving of UEFI-implementation already a couple of times,
in moste cases only rEFInd sorted it to circumvent those UEFI-kind of bad implementatio of the UEFi standard.

[Stevo]

Well I don't have a lenovo and can only comment from what I had to do on the acer laptops.

All these steps are under the security tab of the Setup (F2 during boot with the acer):
- First I had to set a supervisor password. This gives additional entries that are otherwise gray or unavalable
- Then I have an entry "Select an UEFI file as trusted for execution"
- There I see the HDD with a directory EFI and an entry for every System
- I selected grubx64.efi and gave it a name

Now I can reboot and the well known grub selection comes up. Currently I have on one system 3 different distros.

One important point is that the partition with the updated grub has to be the first in the efibootmgr. Just run "efibootmgr" from a terminal to check. After the first Linux install I had to switch the boot order with "efibootmgr -o1,2" or Windows would always come up.

Entering efibootmgr from any Linux (even live when booted in UEFI mode) gives something like:

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BootCurrent: 0000
BootOrder: 0000,0001,0002,2001 ...
Boot0000: Windows Boot Manager
Boot0001: Fedora
Boot0002: MX-18
Boot2001: EFI USB Device
...

Please note the names are just an indication but should show what to look for.

Yup, exactly the same thing with the Acer I have. Major Windows or BIOS updates also have the nice effect of restoring the default boot to Windows 10 only, so you have to go back in and do the changes all over again.

[ronjnk]

fehlix... I did a fresh install of the latest MX18. Nothing has changed as far as the operation. Still refuses to start. Here are the responses to your query commands.

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root@mx1:/home/demo# inxi -Fxrz
System:    Host: mx1 Kernel: 4.19.0-1-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 6.3.0 
           Desktop: Xfce 4.12.3 Distro: MX-18_x64 Continuum Dec 20  2018 
           base: Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch) 
Machine:   Type: Desktop System: LENOVO product: 10SQCTO1WW v: ThinkCentre M720t 
           serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: LENOVO model: 312A v: SDK0J40700 WIN 3258124425837 serial: N/A UEFI: LENOVO 
           v: M1UKT21A date: 10/24/2018 
Battery:   Device-1: hidpp_battery_0 model: Logitech Wireless Mouse M325 charge: Normal 
           status: Discharging 
CPU:       Topology: 6-Core model: Intel Core i5-8400 bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Kaby Lake rev: A 
           L2 cache: 9216 KiB 
           flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 33696 
           Speed: 800 MHz min/max: 800/4000 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 800 2: 800 3: 801 4: 801 
           5: 800 6: 800 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.19.2 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
           resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel UHD Graphics 630 (Coffeelake 3x8 GT2) 
           v: 4.5 Mesa 18.2.6 direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1f.3 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.19.0-1-amd64 
Network:   Device-1: Intel driver: e1000e v: 3.2.6-k port: efa0 bus ID: 00:1f.6 
           IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Intel driver: iwlwifi v: kernel port: efa0 bus ID: 01:00.0 
           IF: wlan0 state: down mac: <filter> 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 721.04 GiB used: 6.88 GiB (1.0%) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Samsung model: MZ7LN256HAJQ-000L7 size: 238.47 GiB temp: 22 C 
           ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: Seagate model: ST500DM002-1SB10A size: 465.76 GiB temp: 29 C 
           ID-3: /dev/sdc type: USB model: 058f USB Disk size: 1.88 GiB 
           ID-4: /dev/sdd type: USB vendor: Lexar model: USB Flash Drive size: 14.93 GiB 
RAID:      Hardware-1: Intel SATA Controller [RAID mode] driver: ahci v: 3.0 bus ID: 00:17.0 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 6.07 GiB used: 24.6 MiB (0.4%) fs: overlay dev: ERR-102 
           ID-2: swap-1 size: 15.98 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda7 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 29.0 C mobo: N/A 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Repos:     Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/antix.list 
           1: deb http://la.mxrepo.com/antix/stretch stretch main
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list 
           1: deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ stretch-updates main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list 
           1: deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ stretch main contrib non-free
           2: deb http://security.debian.org/ stretch/updates main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list 
           1: deb http://mxrepo.com/mx/repo/ stretch main non-free
           No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/various.list 
Info:      Processes: 225 Uptime: 3m Memory: 7.66 GiB used: 568.6 MiB (7.2%) Init: SysVinit 
           runlevel: 5 Compiler

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 root@mx1:/home/demo# sudo lsblk -f
NAME   FSTYPE          LABEL     UUID                                 MOUNTPOINT
loop0  squashfs                                                       /live/linux
sda    isw_raid_member                                                
├─sda1 vfat            SYSTEM    66A3-D4DE                            
├─sda2 isw_raid_member                                                
├─sda3 ntfs            Windows   16C0A67FC0A664A9                     
├─sda4 ntfs            WinRE_DRV 6E86A6D886A6A057                     
├─sda5 ext4            rootMX18  ed46701e-61d5-4583-855b-11ee327e535b 
├─sda6 ext4            homeMX    3383b7d6-15c7-4625-83fb-67fc66223ec1 
└─sda7 swap            swapMX    7ad053ec-4b59-47ac-83a7-91901cf8ea49 [SWAP]
sdb                                                                   
├─sdb1                                                                
└─sdb2 ntfs            Data      BC20A9FF20A9C12E                     
sdc                                                                   
└─sdc1 vfat            ANTIXLIVE AE72-AAB3                            /live/boot-dev
sdd                                                                   
└─sdd1 vfat            SBLIVE    DCDB-4390                            /media/demo/SBLIVE
sr0                     

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root@mx1:/home/demo# sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 238.5 GiB, 256060514304 bytes, 500118192 sectors
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: 8727269E-15C1-401F-85AF-40777BAE33EB

Device         Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sda1       2048    534527    532480   260M EFI System
/dev/sda2     534528    567295     32768    16M Microsoft reserved
/dev/sda3     567296 293269503 292702208 139.6G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sda4  498069504 500107263   2037760   995M Windows recovery environment
/dev/sda5  293269504 359624703  66355200  31.7G EFI System
/dev/sda6  359624704 464566271 104941568    50G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda7  464566272 498069503  33503232    16G Linux filesystem

Partition table entries are not in disk order.

Disk /dev/sdb: 465.8 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
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: 0733C8C2-3BB4-4F1F-85CB-5B5CD281CB54

Device      Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sdb1    2048    264191    262144   128M Microsoft reserved
/dev/sdb2  264192 976773119 976508928 465.7G Microsoft basic data

Disk /dev/sdc: 1.9 GiB, 2013265920 bytes, 3932160 sectors
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: 57E8390E-531B-4A21-9F20-7ED64B59B511

Device     Start     End Sectors  Size Type
/dev/sdc1   2048 3932126 3930079  1.9G Microsoft basic data

Disk /dev/loop0: 1.3 GiB, 1415163904 bytes, 2763992 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Disk /dev/sdd: 14.9 GiB, 16026435584 bytes, 31301632 sectors
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: dos
Disk identifier: 0x191d2069

Device     Boot Start      End  Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sdd1  *     2048 31301631 31299584 14.9G  c W95 FAT32 (LBA)

I'm going to try to respond to people in the order they've written so I don't overlook someone's suggestions. Thank you fehlix! I hope this offers a clue. I'm starting to think this is mission impossible which would be a real bummer.

[fehlix]

Thanks, I have feeling that this is wrong

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Device         Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sda1       2048    534527    532480   260M EFI System
/dev/sda5  293269504 359624703  66355200  31.7G EFI System

You have two EFI System partions on one disk ... you shall better only have one, to avoid confusion , you need only one ..
Will look further ...

[fehlix]

fehlix... I did a fresh install of the latest MX18. Nothing has changed as far as the operation. Still refuses to start. Here are the responses to your query commands.

To identify where the error with two ESP (EFI System Partions) comes from could you let us know whehter, you have set the partion-flag to ESP/EFI manually?

OK: Now let's try to fix this bit.
Open from the running LiveMedia Gparted from the Menu
-> right click on that /dev/sda5 (rootMX18)
-> Manage flags and remove this "esp"-flag and any other if any.
-> now try with MX-boot-repair and do select EFI and reinstall ( which you have now only one ESP/EFI partion on that disk sda!)

[ronjnk]

fehlix... It has always bothered me that ESP was grayed out at installation for the GRUB since I thought the installer would automatically detect that first EFI partition and do whatever it's supposed to do there. That's just from all the reading and youtube stuff I've researched.

Great catch on flags. I did not do a thing with flags in my partitioning or installation. I followed the directions to the letter to shrink volume and make 3 partitions for the installation and simply let the installer do it;s thing. But I was winging it with the MX Boot Repair and maybe that's where the flags came from? I am still confused here on the MXBoot repair.

I did as you asked and was able to remove those 2 flags. /dev/sd5 has no flags.

Now I am in MX boot repair and I am baffled by the choices. MBR is selcted, location says sda 235.5G Samsung MZ7LN256 (my choices in the dropdown menu are sda Samsung, sdb 465.8 G ST500 hard drive, sdd 1.9Gig USB disk)

I have selected sda In the select boot location I have lots to choose from sda1, sda2, sda3, sda4, sda5,sda6, sda7, sdb1,sdb2, sdd1 I am thinking it has to be sda1 260M vfat /tmp/tmp.12NLNSmBD4 SYSTEM

I try to apply and get the following error message "could not set up chroot environment. Please double check the selected location"

I'm stumped!

[ronjnk]

asqwerth... Thank you for jumping in to help. Great idea. I read the article you linked to and it was well done and clear. I then tried to rearange the boot order with sudo efibootmgr -o 0001,0000,000B,0009,000A,0008,0007 command and confirmed that it did change the boot order by closing terminal and doing efibootmgr again.

However, after I rebooted, I tried the system and it still went direct to windows. I stuck the live USB back in and the boot order reverted back to windows as the first to boot. If I understand this command correctly, when I rearrange the boot order with the sudo efibootmgr, the order should be permanently changed in BIOS? I have no idea why it reverted back to windows as first boot. But fehlix is on to something and found that I had 2 efi partitions. Where that came from, I do not know since I'm clueless on flags and certainly did not manually set flags at partitioning. You had a great idea and I appreciate your support. Ron

[fehlix]

I'm stumped!

Suggets to ask before doing things wrongly, you are unsure about, .
Start LiveUSB again: MX Boot repair:
Reinstall Grub
select ESP
select Location /dev/sda1 EFI partition
Select /boot /dev/sda5 (rootMX18 ) this is your "/"-root-partition which will of a /boot subfolder
After this have been done , try to reboot and note there is still some debris to tidy up left
EDIT: this is the layout:

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NAME   FSTYPE          LABEL     UUID                                 MOUNTPOINT
├─sda1 vfat            SYSTEM    66A3-D4DE                             EFI/ESP-partition
├─sda5 ext4            rootMX18  ed46701e-61d5-4583-855b-11ee327e535b   root-partition which has /boot subfolder