UEFI info question

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lightman47
Posts: 1522
Joined: 2014/05/21 20:16:00
Location: Central New York, USA

UEFI info question

Post by lightman47 » 2023/11/25 19:10:37

I have an older computer (stats below) whose BIOS boasts it is UEFI. I "rebuilt" it as dual boot Win10/RHEL8 (on sda) a few years ago, thinking it was installing UEFI. This morning, while trying to run efibootmgr, I found out it was not! While this is no tragedy, I'd like to not repeat my mistake next time - which will be soon as Win10 is broken/fails to update. I'll probably also replace RHEL8 with RHEL9 at that time. Both OS's will again be on separate 1TB partitions on the same 2TB drive.

Fdisk currently reports Win has DOS partition labels and RHEL's were GPT. Therefore, I suspect my error back then was that I merely DELETED the Win partitions last time without creating a new GPT partition for Windows .. and Windows (first installed) did whatever it wanted. My plan this time is to use gparted to delete the partition and create a GPT partition for Windows prior to install.

Info request/questions:

1. Am I 'on track' with my suspicion/is m thinking correct?
2. If not, how can I 'force' a UEFI Win 10 install so that RHEL will follow suit?
3. Am I 'stuck' with BIOS installs due to my old hardware (doing all I need it to do)?

Thank you. As usual, no rush.

jje

---

inxi machine specs:

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System:
  Kernel: 4.18.0-513.5.1.el8_9.x86_64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 Console: N/A Distro: Red Hat
    Enterprise Linux release 8.9 (Ootpa)
Machine:
  Type: Desktop Mobo: ASUSTeK model: P8Z77-V LE v: Rev X.0x serial: <filter>
    BIOS: American Megatrends v: 0706 date: 11/09/2012
CPU:
  Info: quad core model: Intel Core i7-3770 bits: 64 type: MT MCP cache: L2: 1024 KiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 3711 min/max: 1600/3900 cores: 1: 3711 2: 3711 3: 3711 4: 3711 5: 3711
    6: 3711 7: 3711 8: 3711
Graphics:
  Device-1: NVIDIA GK106 [GeForce GTX 650 Ti] driver: nvidia v: 470.182.03
  Display: server: X.org v: 1.20.11 with: Xwayland v: 21.1.3 driver: X: loaded: nvidia
    gpu: nvidia tty: 80x40
  API: OpenGL Message: GL data unavailable in console for root.
  API: EGL Message:
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel 7 Series/C216 Family High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
  Device-2: NVIDIA GK106 HDMI Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
  API: ALSA v: k4.18.0-513.5.1.el8_9.x86_64 status: kernel-api
  Server-1: PulseAudio v: 14.0-rebootstrapped status: active (root, process)
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet driver: r8169
  IF: enp3s0 state: down mac: <filter>
  Device-2: Intel 82541PI Gigabit Ethernet driver: e1000
  IF: enp5s1 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
  IF-ID-1: virbr0 state: down mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Microsoft Nano Transceiver v1.0 for Bluetooth driver: hid-generic,usbhid type: USB
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 10.92 TiB used: 3.54 TiB (32.5%)
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Seagate model: WDC WDS200T2B0A-00SM50 size: 1.82 TiB
  ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: Seagate model: ST32000542AS size: 1.82 TiB
  ID-3: /dev/sdc vendor: Seagate model: ST4000NM0053 size: 3.64 TiB
  ID-4: /dev/sdd vendor: Seagate model: ST4000DM000-1F2168 size: 3.64 TiB
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 69.97 GiB used: 11.16 GiB (15.9%) fs: xfs dev: /dev/dm-0
  ID-2: /boot size: 1014 MiB used: 703.8 MiB (69.4%) fs: xfs dev: /dev/sda5
  ID-3: /home size: 829.68 GiB used: 7.04 GiB (0.8%) fs: xfs dev: /dev/dm-2
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 11.8 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) dev: /dev/dm-1
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 46.5 C mobo: 19.0 C
  Fan Speeds (rpm): cpu: 1846 fan-1: 0 fan-3: 0 fan-4: 0 fan-5: 0
Info:
  Processes: 304 Uptime: 9m Memory: total: 24 GiB available: 23.2 GiB used: 2.75 GiB (11.8%)
  Init: systemd target: graphical (5) Client: shell wrapper inxi: 3.3.30
Also, lsblk output

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NAME                 MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda                    8:0    0   1.8T  0 disk 
├─sda1                 8:1    0   949G  0 part /mnt/Win
├─sda2                 8:2    0   520M  0 part 
├─sda3                 8:3    0   600M  0 part 
├─sda4                 8:4    0     1K  0 part 
├─sda5                 8:5    0     1G  0 part /boot
└─sda6                 8:6    0 911.9G  0 part 
  ├─rhel_wvideo-root 253:0    0    70G  0 lvm  /
  ├─rhel_wvideo-swap 253:1    0  11.8G  0 lvm  [SWAP]
  └─rhel_wvideo-home 253:2    0 830.1G  0 lvm  /home
sdb                    8:16   0   1.8T  0 disk 
└─sdb1                 8:17   0   1.8T  0 part /mnt/2tb1
sdc                    8:32   0   3.7T  0 disk 
└─sdc1                 8:33   0   3.7T  0 part /mnt/4tb2
sdd                    8:48   0   3.7T  0 disk 
└─sdd1                 8:49   0   3.7T  0 part /mnt/4tb1
sr0                   11:0    1  1024M  0 rom  

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TrevorH
Site Admin
Posts: 33232
Joined: 2009/09/24 10:40:56
Location: Brighton, UK

Re: UEFI info question

Post by TrevorH » 2023/11/26 15:51:26

Usual cause is a USB stick created withe.g rufus or some other utility that erases the hybrid UEFI/Legacy option from the copied iso file so it always boots in legacy mode even when the machine is in UEFI mode. The install then runs and installs in legacy mode.
The future appears to be RHEL or Debian. I think I'm going Debian.
Info for USB installs on http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/InstallFromUSBkey
CentOS 5 and 6 are deadest, do not use them.
Use the FAQ Luke

lightman47
Posts: 1522
Joined: 2014/05/21 20:16:00
Location: Central New York, USA

Re: UEFI info question

Post by lightman47 » 2023/11/26 16:21:34

Puzzling - I only use dd.- and I want to think I've installed other machines from the key and they work fine. I guess I'll just re-burn the key just to be sure.

Thanks!

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