Boot drive suddenly won't boot but drive is fine- best path back?ath

[bking]

Ran into an odd issue that I'm not sure I know how to repair.

 

System: ASUS Z97-Deluxe, 32 GB Ram, i7-4790K, Samsung SSD as boot drive running Mint 19.3, 2nd SSD with Windows 1 in DualBoot setup. This setup has run fine for well over a year.

 

Background:  While doing a little planning prior to expanding my root partition, I was running from a GParted Live CD to make backup copies (dd to an img file) of my root and home partitions with the plan to steal some space from home to add to root.  I DID NOT actually do anything other than getting used to the Live CD  AFAIK, but after I removed the CD and restarted my machine to "get back to work", I was unable to boot as my system (ASUS Z97-Deluxe) would simply freeze on the BIOS splash screen. It would NOT let me go into the BIOS to select the Live CD as my boot media. Nothing I tried would get me into the BIOS. So, I decided to grab a new SSD just in case the drive was badly hosed and restore from backups, which brings me to....

 

Current state:  I added the new SSD (unformatted) and moved the problem SSD to an external USB case, put a Mint Live CD in the DVD drive, and everything boots to the Live CD just fine. When I look at the old drive in GParted, everything looks exactly like I expected - all partitions are fine and I can view their contents without any problem. I'm considering running Boot Repair (default) to see if that fixes the issue, but I've never run it before and I had questions.

 

1. If I run it with the the old drive showing as /dev/sdc, will BootRepair change things around so that everything now expects THAT to be the boot disk, and will things work when I move that drive back to its old spot in the drive bay?

2. If not, what's the best way to (a) decide what exactly is wrong with the drive config, and (b) fix it.

 

I know I have the option to simply partition the new drive as desired ansd reinstall OS that way, then restore things fro my backups, but since the backups are 3-4 hours out of date for email, etc and the old drive has everything up to the minute, I want to take the best way to get back to where things were prior to the problem.

 

I've attached the BootRepair report in case that helps. Any help is GREATLY appreciated.

Boot-Info_20200301_2300.txt

[Sauron]

5 minutes ago, bking said:

It would NOT let me go into the BIOS to select the Live CD as my boot media. Nothing I tried would get me into the BIOS.

If you're stuck out of the BIOS then there's probably something wrong with your motherboard, not with your drive. It could just be some sort of glitch that happened when you booted from the disc drive and was fixed by changing what drives were attached to the motherboard, try putting your old ssd back in and see if you get the same problem again. Maybe try different sata ports just to be sure it's not a problem with those.

[bking]

13 minutes ago, Sauron said:

If you're stuck out of the BIOS then there's probably something wrong with your motherboard, not with your drive. It could just be some sort of glitch that happened when you booted from the disc drive and was fixed by changing what drives were attached to the motherboard, try putting your old ssd back in and see if you get the same problem again. Maybe try different sata ports just to be sure it's not a problem with those.

I had tried putting the old drive back in before posting and got the same results. Mildly concerned about trying another SATA port, as my experience on these ASUS boards is that you end up having to change several things to get the drives all showing up in the same order as before and I don't trust myself to undo it if it doesn't work. I can give it a try if I can confirm that I have the proper BIOS changes well-documented and won't make things worse. I'll go play with the BIOS and report back.

 

Meanwhile - would this be a viable path back?

1. Go ahead and install Mint on the new drive and confirm that will boot ok and that my dual boot config was identified properly.

2. If so, then dd everything (root and home) back from the old drive as sort of a brute force Timeshift restore.

 

I've never done a root restore that way, but it seems risk-free as I can always reformat the new drive

[jdfthetech]

what does lsblk say in your system currently?

 

 

[Sauron]

37 minutes ago, bking said:

Meanwhile - would this be a viable path back?

1. Go ahead and install Mint on the new drive and confirm that will boot ok and that my dual boot config was identified properly.

2. If so, then dd everything (root and home) back from the old drive as sort of a brute force Timeshift restore.

I wouldn't advise doing things without understanding what the problem is, though I guess it doesn't really matter if the new drive is blank. The only risk is that if whatever is causing this is something on the other drive then using dd to copy everything over would probably just result in the same problem on the new drive as well.

 

You could also check your old drive's SMART status to see if it's reporting anything unusual.

[bking]

55 minutes ago, jdfthetech said:

what does lsblk say in your system currently?

 

 

Running from Live CD as I'm still not bootable.

 

sda is the brand new formatted drive, with a slightly larger root than sdd

sdd is the old boot drive, with sdd5 being root and sdd6 being home

 

mint@mint:~$ lsblk
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
loop0    7:0    0   1.8G  1 loop /rofs
sda      8:0    0 465.8G  0 disk
├─sda1   8:1    0   510M  0 part
├─sda5   8:5    0  25.1G  0 part
├─sda6   8:6    0 179.4G  0 part
└─sda7   8:7    0   7.9G  0 part [SWAP]
sdb      8:16   0 119.2G  0 disk
├─sdb1   8:17   0   100M  0 part
├─sdb2   8:18   0   128M  0 part
└─sdb3   8:19   0   119G  0 part
sdc      8:32   0   2.7T  0 disk
├─sdc1   8:33   0   1.2T  0 part
├─sdc2   8:34   0   1.2T  0 part
└─sdc3   8:35   0 281.5G  0 part
sdd      8:48   0   477G  0 disk
├─sdd1   8:49   0   510M  0 part /media/mint/AB50-6E49
├─sdd3   8:51   0   210G  0 part /media/mint/QuickBak
├─sdd5   8:53   0  18.6G  0 part /media/mint/9a43d5ea-58e3-41c4-b556-5716d76e537
├─sdd6   8:54   0 186.3G  0 part /media/mint/845a956b-39b8-46f9-94a4-bd034554072
└─sdd7   8:55   0   7.5G  0 part
sr0     11:0    1   1.9G  0 rom  /cdrom

 

[bking]

38 minutes ago, Sauron said:

I wouldn't advise doing things without understanding what the problem is, though I guess it doesn't really matter if the new drive is blank. The only risk is that if whatever is causing this is something on the other drive then using dd to copy everything over would probably just result in the same problem on the new drive as well.

 

You could also check your old drive's SMART status to see if it's reporting anything unusual.

 

Duly noted on the risks, so I'll likely do a true Timeshift restore plus selected things from the old drive. Worst case is a loss of time with manual cleanup and hiccups, but without a way to simply fix the old drive, I really need to get back to at least minimal functionality.

 

SMART settings look good, with some value old age and some pre-fail as expected on an 18 month old SSD, but nothing worrisome.

 

Appreciate the time and ideas.

[jdfthetech]

it appears you overwrote your boot partition in SDD

 

that 510 M partition is most likely your boot partition

 

Are you using GRUB or systemd boot?

 

if grub, these commands should get you going:

 

sudo mount /dev/sdd1 /mnt

grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sdd

sudo update-grub

 

[bking]

41 minutes ago, jdfthetech said:

it appears you overwrote your boot partition in SDD

 

that 510 M partition is most likely your boot partition

 

Are you using GRUB or systemd boot?

 

if grub, these commands should get you going:

 

sudo mount /dev/sdd1 /mnt

grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sdd

sudo update-grub

 

Yes, the 510MiB is the boot partition. Using GParted, it shows that it has a 'boot' flag. What is the "tell" that it's been overwritten? The amount of used space is 4.66 MiB.

 

Yes, using GRUB.

 

Using the commands you gave me, would running those cause GRUB (and the boot sequence in general) to assume the boot drive is sdd?  That shows because the drive is currently in an external case - it should be sda if I put it back in the drive bays.

 

BTW, here's the current contents of sdd1:

 

mint@mint:~$ ls /media/mint/AB50-6E49/
EFI
mint@mint:~$ ls /media/mint/AB50-6E49/EFI
BOOT  ubuntu
mint@mint:~$ ls /media/mint/AB50-6E49/EFI/BOOT
BOOTX64.EFI  fbx64.efi
mint@mint:~$ ls /media/mint/AB50-6E49/EFI/ubuntu
grub.cfg  grubx

 

[jdfthetech]

oh boy, yea don't run those commands.

I did not realize the drive wasn't in the correct position of the machine.

the commands rebuild your grub partition in case it's borked.

I am not sure why your efi partition has that AB50-6E49

It should just be EFI/BOOT (might not matter, never changed those before)

I'd put the drive back in the correct location, then update-grub first.
If that doesn't fix it, do lsblk to get your SDx info and then run the commands on the correct drive location

[bking]

3 minutes ago, jdfthetech said:

oh boy, yea don't run those commands.

I did not realize the drive wasn't in the correct position of the machine.

the commands rebuild your grub partition in case it's borked.

I am not sure why your efi partition has that AB50-6E49

It should just be EFI/BOOT (might not matter, never changed those before)

I'd put the drive back in the correct location, then update-grub first.
If that doesn't fix it, do lsblk to get your SDx info and then run the commands on the correct drive location

Sadly, I can't PUT the drive back in the right position. With the drive in the first spot, the computer won't make it past the BIOS splash.

[jdfthetech]

1 minute ago, bking said:

Sadly, I can't PUT the drive back in the right position. With the drive in the first spot, the computer won't make it past the BIOS splash.

not even with a live usb?

[bking]

Just now, jdfthetech said:

not even with a live usb?

Yup.

[jdfthetech]

I have a dell with a weird bios that stores old boot configs, can you access the bios at all and see if you can clear that?

[bking]

24 minutes ago, jdfthetech said:

not even with a live usb?

The way USB Boot works on this ASUS MB, at last as far as I can figure out, requires getting into the BIOS and selecting the drive as Boot device. Can't get that far.

[bking]

20 minutes ago, jdfthetech said:

I have a dell with a weird bios that stores old boot configs, can you access the bios at all and see if you can clear that?

Yeah, I'm tempted to do just that just to completely clear and reset the boot stuff. Last time I did it though, it didn't clear boot order info, just duplicated it.

[jdfthetech]

if it doesn't let you in the bios at all, that seems awfully strange.

 

my dell will get into the bios but it requires hitting F2 or ESC (can't remember which) over and over as soon as it starts.

 

I have a feeling you might have it set to fast boot so it's just not giving you enough time.

[bking]

3 hours ago, jdfthetech said:

if it doesn't let you in the bios at all, that seems awfully strange.

 

my dell will get into the bios but it requires hitting F2 or ESC (can't remember which) over and over as soon as it starts.

 

I have a feeling you might have it set to fast boot so it's just not giving you enough time.

Nah, when I have the new drive (formatted or not) plugged into drive 1, the BIOS screen works fine. It's something specific about having the old drive in that slot now, yet the drive functions perfectly fine in every way EXCEPT booting

 

[jdfthetech]

If that is the case, then I have no clue.

I would consult the mobo documentation, there has to be something storing the UUID in there and locking the boot order up.
You could always try and restore the bios to factory settings and then just plug in the one drive you are having issues with to see if it auto configs.

Another thing you might try is just killing the boot partition completely and rebuilding it.
If you are using ubuntu or mint, I think they come with gparted which should let you do it in a gui.

Alternatively there is fdisk in terminal

[bking]

21 hours ago, jdfthetech said:

If that is the case, then I have no clue.

I would consult the mobo documentation, there has to be something storing the UUID in there and locking the boot order up.
You could always try and restore the bios to factory settings and then just plug in the one drive you are having issues with to see if it auto configs.

Another thing you might try is just killing the boot partition completely and rebuilding it.
If you are using ubuntu or mint, I think they come with gparted which should let you do it in a gui.

Alternatively there is fdisk in terminal

I've been down this road before, but the Boot Device management on the ASUS Z97 boards is fairly borked. Things like this event are a PITA to recover from completely.

 

For example, now that I've pulled the old SSD (Samsung 850 PRO 512GB) and replaced it with a Samsung 860 EVO 500GB, the SATA Information that appears on the main screen shows all drives properly identified, with P1 showing Samsung 860 EVO 500GB. However, when you go to the boot menu to see/set Boot Priority, the new drive doesn't show at all. So, you have to go to the Boot Menu to select the device to boot from, and the new drive shows as the last item after a number of deprecated entries like the old drive.  Tech support says to pull the battery and let the BIOS reset to factory, but even that doesn't always clean the cruft.  ASUS boards have always been the most reliable for me overt the years, but there's always something that just never works or gets patched.

[bking]

On 3/2/2020 at 11:38 AM, Sauron said:

I wouldn't advise doing things without understanding what the problem is, though I guess it doesn't really matter if the new drive is blank. The only risk is that if whatever is causing this is something on the other drive then using dd to copy everything over would probably just result in the same problem on the new drive as well.

 

You could also check your old drive's SMART status to see if it's reporting anything unusual.

Quick update for you - fresh install of Mint on the new drive. Tried doing a Timeshift restore but it stomped on the new disk boot/grub stuff. I went back and redid the fresh install and manually restored /home, plus selected updates to root (stuff like cron jobs, fstab mounts for other drives, etc) and I'm 99% whole.  Thanks for the help though.

[jdfthetech]

glad to hear you got it fixed . . . somewhat

 

 I am still curious as to what has caused the issue, but it certainly sounds like the board has some weird problems.

 

If it were me, I'd just mark this board as 'don't mess with it anymore' and just move on to another system.

That dell I was discussing?  I shipped that to my Dad with Xubuntu on it and just said 'go to town'.

[bking]

18 minutes ago, jdfthetech said:

glad to hear you got it fixed . . . somewhat

 

 I am still curious as to what has caused the issue, but it certainly sounds like the board has some weird problems.

 

If it were me, I'd just mark this board as 'don't mess with it anymore' and just move on to another system.

That dell I was discussing?  I shipped that to my Dad with Xubuntu on it and just said 'go to town'.

Yeah, it's time for a hardware refresh to a newer rig (i5 or i7, newer ASUS board like a Z390 and DDR4 memory, but things are a wee bit tight at the moment. Trying to milk a few more months out of this rig.

[Nayr438]

To me it sounds like the partitions got misaligned or a bad Legacy Grub install. Some Distros install both Legacy and EFI for fallback. If its the first boot device the system finds, some boards will hang if it cant find what its looking for at the position the drive told it. You can test for a Legacy Grub issue if your board supports turning off Legacy Support.