unable to boot anymore from disc

[Francisco]

Good day,
I have two SATA discs [SSD and HDD], each of them with my favourite distro installed. I use only one of them at a time.
I've plugged off one and plugged in the other.
BIOS sees the disc in SATA drives but not in boot options.
I restore the first disc and... the same result! No longer able to boot from it!
I've tried everything: plugging off the power, battery for half an hour, reset BIOS defaults,...
Nothing works.
The only solution is to reinstall from a pen drive. But then, if I plug the disc off, plug the other, and again the first,...unable to boot again.
Any idea?

[odroid]

Very weird. I have no idea.
Which OS distros did you install?

[Francisco]

Distro: trisquel.info (100% free) in the SSD and HDD
I tell an example:
- I'm using the HDD
- I take out the HDD and connect (at the same port) the SDD (with the O.S. installed)
- Doesn't boot
- I take out the SSD and connect the HDD
- It works
- I take out the HDD, and install from pen drive into the SSD
- It works
- Shutdown complete and power off
- power on, and continues working well
- I take out the SSD, connect the HDD and doesn't boot.
- I connect the SSD and works.
I'm going to try another distro and I'll tell you.
Greetings.

[misaz]

UEFI boot requires Boot entries stored in NVRAM. Boot entry contains information about disk signature (id) and path to file with bootloader executable code. When it try to boot it search for that disk. OS installer creates that boot variables but if you install operating system on another computer it wont work. Simple solution is copy bootloader stored in EFI System Partition (on Linux this partition is usualy mounted to /boot/efi) to failback location which UEFI checks whell all other boot options fails. Find file with .efi extension in /boot/efi directory and copy it to /boot/efi/EFI/boot/bootx64.efi. Maybe you will need to create /boot/efi/EFI or /boot/efi/EFI/boot derectory.

Code: Select all

sudo cp /boot/efi/someDirectory/maybeAnotherDirectory/someFile.efi /boot/efi/EFI/bootx64.efi

For debian it is

Code: Select all

cp /boot/efi/EFI/debian/shimx64.efi /boot/efi/EFI/boot/bootx64.efi

EDIT: Path to bootloader can be printed using

Code: Select all

sudo efibootmgr -v

[fvolk]

By default when Linux distros install onto an internal+fixed disk they assume the disk is not moved and boot order&config is kept in NVRAM with UEFI.
If one installs onto removable media, such as an USB stick, the install is slightly different to make the media "plug-in and boot"-able.

For example in the case of Grub as bootloader, see man page of grub-install(8):

--removable
the installation device is removable. This option is only available on EFI.

So if you want to force bootable AND moveable between different PCs it must be installed like that.

[Francisco]

Thanks to all for your information. I'll use it eventually.

I have no idea of UEFI nor even know that NVRAM exists. I'm a simple user. Not computer specialist.

Doing some tests, I've tried Mint 19.1 and the problem has disappeared. I have it installed in both disks and I can swap them without problem. I like this distro so much that I'm going to continue working with it. Dead problem.

Sometimes (only sometimes), the problem persists, but it's easily solved with a power off-on cycle.

Greetings. I'll continue enjoying working with my wonderful H2.

[Francisco]

Sorry, after some more work on this subject, I think the simple reason was a loosy SATA power connector. I was using a floppy disk connector and it didn't fit enough tightly.
I'm working back with Trisquel distro.

[Francisco]

Perhaps there was also another problem: I realize now that I had a (incredible) faulty SATA data cable!

[odroid]

Is it working now with another cable?
That faulty SATA data cable seems to be quite rare case.