Jacdeb6009
March 15th, 2015, 03:48 AM
I have a new Lenovo Thinkpad T440p with Windows 7 installed. This is a company machine and I cannot install Linux on it ("corporate IT does not support this") and I can (for the same reason) not set up a dual-boot system on the machine's SSD.
With my previous machine (an older Dell Vostro) I simply created an Ubuntu install on a USB flashdrive (15 Gbyte as "/" and 15 Gbyte as "/home"). This allowed me to do the things I needed using Linux.
With the new machine I wished to do the same. The UEFI on the T440p was set to allow UEFI and Legacy boot with UEFI as the first priority, further it was also set to allow CSM support and Secure Boot was disabled.
On startup the machines splash screen displays a message stating "Press enter to interrupt normal boot", ignoring this message boots the machine directly to Windows 7. Presssing enter brings up a menu which allows you to enter the EUFI (BIOS) setup or select a boot device (SSD, DVD or Network).
I selected DVD to boot from an Ubuntu 14.10 (64-bit) disk. This worked well and I could confirm that things worked as I am used to. I then inserted the 32Gb flashdrive I had previously used and proceeded to install Ubuntu in the same way as I always do. The intended set up was to have the boot loader installed on the flash drive so that when it is not connected to the machine, it is a Windows machine, but with the flash drive installed it would be a dual boot (although I would use this only to run Linux).
All went well and the install completed normally. Upon re-booting the machine with the flashdrive connected I got the GRUB menu I expected, selected Ubuntu which booted without problems. I then removed the flash drive and tried booting Windows. This did not work. The screen displays a note saying "Booting in insecure mode" and then displays a GRUB screen (GNU GRUB version 2.02~beta2-15) and a "grub>" prompt.
Going into the UEFI (BIOS), and looking at the Boot priority order, showed the following:
1. ubuntu
2. Windows Boot Manager
3. USB CB
4. USB FDD
5. ATAPI CD HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GU90N (dvd drive)
6. ATA HDD0 SAMSUNG M27TD256HAFV-000L9 (256 Gbyte SSD)
7. ATA HDD1:
8. ATA HDD2:
9. USB HDD
10. PCI LAN (two options IPV4 and IPV6)
With Ubuntu selected as first priority, the machine will boot into Ubuntu off the flash without a problem. Removing the drive and trying to boot Windows results in the appearance of the GRUB prompt. Changing the Boot Order and selecting the Windows Boot Manager as the first priority means that the machine boots Windows whether the flash drive is connect or not.
The two screenshots show the partition setup for the flash drive and the SSD.
From these it appears that the boot loader for Linux (GRUB) is installed on the SSD and not on the flash drive (which is where I thought I had set it to be installed and where on my old machine it used to be installed. The fstab (found on the flashdrive at /etc/fstab and shown below) shows /boot/efi created on the SSD.
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
# / was on /dev/sdb1 during installation
UUID=fe31225f-df58-4373-add3-902ddb58b4bb / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# /boot/efi was on /dev/sda2 during installation
UUID=F0E5-06EA /boot/efi vfat defaults 0 1
# /home was on /dev/sdb5 during installation
UUID=2939ec3b-322e-4b57-a014-4a7b1ac1f3d9 /home ext4 defaults 0 2
# swap was on /dev/sdb6 during installation
UUID=e11653ba-734d-455c-9f3e-2237a552d717 none swap sw 0 0
What I wish to achieve is the following.
1. A machine that will boot Windows directly from the SSD when the flash drive is not connected.
2. A machine that will boot to the GRUB menu the flash drive is connected.
This is how it worked on my old Dell machine (but this had a conventional BIOS and not UEFI).
In my limited understanding of these things, it seems that the Linux bootloader (GRUB) got installed to the SSD and not the flashdrive and that to get things to work in the way I want them to work, the Linux bootloader needs to be "moved" from SSD to the flashdrive.
From this two questions:
1. Is my understanding correct, and if so how do I move the bootloader (without messing up the Windows install)
2. If I have this all wrong, what do I need to do to get things to work in the way I want (as it was on my older Dell).
In the meantime the workaround for me is to set the boot order to the Windows Boot Manager by defualt (number 1) and change the order to have the Linux bootloader as 1 in the UEFI when I wish to run Ubuntu. This will work, but it is a nuisance as one of the things I use Ubuntu for is a daily back up of my computer.
Any advise would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers,
With my previous machine (an older Dell Vostro) I simply created an Ubuntu install on a USB flashdrive (15 Gbyte as "/" and 15 Gbyte as "/home"). This allowed me to do the things I needed using Linux.
With the new machine I wished to do the same. The UEFI on the T440p was set to allow UEFI and Legacy boot with UEFI as the first priority, further it was also set to allow CSM support and Secure Boot was disabled.
On startup the machines splash screen displays a message stating "Press enter to interrupt normal boot", ignoring this message boots the machine directly to Windows 7. Presssing enter brings up a menu which allows you to enter the EUFI (BIOS) setup or select a boot device (SSD, DVD or Network).
I selected DVD to boot from an Ubuntu 14.10 (64-bit) disk. This worked well and I could confirm that things worked as I am used to. I then inserted the 32Gb flashdrive I had previously used and proceeded to install Ubuntu in the same way as I always do. The intended set up was to have the boot loader installed on the flash drive so that when it is not connected to the machine, it is a Windows machine, but with the flash drive installed it would be a dual boot (although I would use this only to run Linux).
All went well and the install completed normally. Upon re-booting the machine with the flashdrive connected I got the GRUB menu I expected, selected Ubuntu which booted without problems. I then removed the flash drive and tried booting Windows. This did not work. The screen displays a note saying "Booting in insecure mode" and then displays a GRUB screen (GNU GRUB version 2.02~beta2-15) and a "grub>" prompt.
Going into the UEFI (BIOS), and looking at the Boot priority order, showed the following:
1. ubuntu
2. Windows Boot Manager
3. USB CB
4. USB FDD
5. ATAPI CD HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GU90N (dvd drive)
6. ATA HDD0 SAMSUNG M27TD256HAFV-000L9 (256 Gbyte SSD)
7. ATA HDD1:
8. ATA HDD2:
9. USB HDD
10. PCI LAN (two options IPV4 and IPV6)
With Ubuntu selected as first priority, the machine will boot into Ubuntu off the flash without a problem. Removing the drive and trying to boot Windows results in the appearance of the GRUB prompt. Changing the Boot Order and selecting the Windows Boot Manager as the first priority means that the machine boots Windows whether the flash drive is connect or not.
The two screenshots show the partition setup for the flash drive and the SSD.
From these it appears that the boot loader for Linux (GRUB) is installed on the SSD and not on the flash drive (which is where I thought I had set it to be installed and where on my old machine it used to be installed. The fstab (found on the flashdrive at /etc/fstab and shown below) shows /boot/efi created on the SSD.
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
# / was on /dev/sdb1 during installation
UUID=fe31225f-df58-4373-add3-902ddb58b4bb / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# /boot/efi was on /dev/sda2 during installation
UUID=F0E5-06EA /boot/efi vfat defaults 0 1
# /home was on /dev/sdb5 during installation
UUID=2939ec3b-322e-4b57-a014-4a7b1ac1f3d9 /home ext4 defaults 0 2
# swap was on /dev/sdb6 during installation
UUID=e11653ba-734d-455c-9f3e-2237a552d717 none swap sw 0 0
What I wish to achieve is the following.
1. A machine that will boot Windows directly from the SSD when the flash drive is not connected.
2. A machine that will boot to the GRUB menu the flash drive is connected.
This is how it worked on my old Dell machine (but this had a conventional BIOS and not UEFI).
In my limited understanding of these things, it seems that the Linux bootloader (GRUB) got installed to the SSD and not the flashdrive and that to get things to work in the way I want them to work, the Linux bootloader needs to be "moved" from SSD to the flashdrive.
From this two questions:
1. Is my understanding correct, and if so how do I move the bootloader (without messing up the Windows install)
2. If I have this all wrong, what do I need to do to get things to work in the way I want (as it was on my older Dell).
In the meantime the workaround for me is to set the boot order to the Windows Boot Manager by defualt (number 1) and change the order to have the Linux bootloader as 1 in the UEFI when I wish to run Ubuntu. This will work, but it is a nuisance as one of the things I use Ubuntu for is a daily back up of my computer.
Any advise would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers,