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Re: How to BIOS-boot from NVMe device?



OK, now I _really_ messsed things up, to the point where I have to
write this using the old spinny-rust!  Kernel is at least a month
out of date!

I tried to run gpt biosboot (and specified -i 1 for the partition)
and I also ran installboot.

Result: an unbootable system.  :(  Just goes back to the BIOS boot
page without any messages.

On a positive front, the BIOS seems to now recognize the NVMe as
having a UEFI OS.  Trying to boot it takes me down some new path
having to do with SecureBoot, and I don't have time for that now.

Any suggestions on how to get my legacy boot stuff back?


On Wed, 7 Sep 2022, Paul Goyette wrote:

On Thu, 8 Sep 2022, Robert Elz wrote:

Do you have evidence that the motherboard can boot from nmve at all?
If the motherboard in question is of a similar vintage to those 10 year
old boxes of rust, then it might not be able to, and you might need some
kind of SATA (or perhaps USB) device to boot.

Well, the AMI BIOS talks about UEFI so I just ass-u-me'd ...

 | I'm guessing I need to install some primary boot blocks, but I do
 | not know how to do this for gpt drives (ie, wedges).  I know how to
 | handle on disklabel'd drives, but not gpt.

See the biosboot sub-command in "man gpt", that's all it has ever taken
for me, perhaps along with a suitable installboot (I'm not sure if gpt
installs that one or not, it does install the PMBR boot code).

OK, I apparently tried this a long time ago, and I have a copy of
x86 BIOS Boot from vintage 9.99.82 or so...  :)  With no disks
attached, the system boots that code.  Nothing seems to indicate
that any UEFI boot attempt was made.

Some bios's apparently require the PMBR partition (that is, the protective
MBR partition) to be marked "active" in order to boot from it.

Looks like that was already done, too.

If the BIOS can do UEFI booting, as Michael suggested, (and it works)
then that's a better way.

 | PS I _do_ have a msdos/efi partition on the nvme, but I don't know
 | what to put there!  :)

For BIOS booting it would be irrelevant.

I guess that once I update to newer BIOS Boot, it will process my
boot.cfg file appropriately.


+--------------------+--------------------------+----------------------+
| Paul Goyette       | PGP Key fingerprint:     | E-mail addresses:    |
| (Retired)          | FA29 0E3B 35AF E8AE 6651 | paul%whooppee.com@localhost    |
| Software Developer | 0786 F758 55DE 53BA 7731 | pgoyette%netbsd.org@localhost  |
| & Network Engineer |                          | pgoyette99%gmail.com@localhost |
+--------------------+--------------------------+----------------------+

!DSPAM:63195ac554638293983044!



+--------------------+--------------------------+----------------------+
| Paul Goyette       | PGP Key fingerprint:     | E-mail addresses:    |
| (Retired)          | FA29 0E3B 35AF E8AE 6651 | paul%whooppee.com@localhost    |
| Software Developer | 0786 F758 55DE 53BA 7731 | pgoyette%netbsd.org@localhost  |
| & Network Engineer |                          | pgoyette99%gmail.com@localhost |
+--------------------+--------------------------+----------------------+


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