Resolved: How to Dual boot with UEFI Windows?

[alan stone]

Great plan if Lenovo actually provided me with the windows installation disks...

Create installation media for Windows

[rupertlssmith]

As mentionned in the Debian installation guide :

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cp debian-xxx.iso /dev/sdX

sdX being the USB drive with all partitions removed first, then unplugged and plugged again.

So I did the above:

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cp debian-9.2.0-amd64-netinst.iso /dev/sdc

This gave me a bootable installer - however I then run into the perennial "cannot find the CD-ROM" problem.

netinst.iso is looking for a CD-ROM device, but fails to find one. I tried opening a shell and "mount /dev/sda1 /cdrom" but that says it cannot find the /cdrom directory despite the file system showing it is there..?

I am using a USB HDD device rather than a USB memory stick. I wonder if that affects things? AFAIK, the netinst installer is supposed to be dual purpose in that it can work from a CD-ROM or a USB device.

[p.H]

The error message may be misleading. IIRC the mount command from busybox included in the Debian installer requires to specify the filesystem type (iso9660) with -t.

I am using a USB HDD device rather than a USB memory stick. I wonder if that affects things?

It should not. Check which /dev/sdX device name the USB drive gets.

[rupertlssmith]

The error message may be misleading. IIRC the mount command from busybox included in the Debian installer requires to specify the filesystem type (iso9660) with -t.

I am using a USB HDD device rather than a USB memory stick. I wonder if that affects things?

It should not. Check which /dev/sdX device name the USB drive gets.

Thanks. That works:

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mount -t iso9660 /dev/sda /cdrom

There were 2 partitions on the file system /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2. However it seems to be the root device /dev/sda that needs to be mounted. After that the installer finds its components.

[rupertlssmith]

So now I get the installer running.

When I come to the step 'Install Base System' it fails with the message 'Failed to determine the codename for the release.' Any suggestions?

I think I now understand why Linus Torvalds says he is not technical enough to install Debian...

[rupertlssmith]

So now I get the installer running.

When I come to the step 'Install Base System' it fails with the message 'Failed to determine the codename for the release.' Any suggestions?

I think I now understand why Linus Torvalds says he is not technical enough to install Debian...

Strangely, /cdrom seemed to unmount itself during the installation process. The device for it also changed from /dev/sda. So I had to drop to a shell and then mount /dev/sdb on /cdrom, and now it is finding the base system to install.

[rupertlssmith]

I am using a USB HDD device rather than a USB memory stick. I wonder if that affects things?

It should not.

It would seem that a USB HDD versus a USB flash drive does make a difference. I now put the netinst.iso on a USB flash drive, and the issue with detecting the CD-ROM goes away; it finds the installer files automatically.

Going down the USB HDD route - it kept on failing to find the cd-rom during installation and eventually hung. But now that I have a USB flash drive, it seems to be going ok.

[rupertlssmith]

Ok, I've now got it dual booting into Windows and Debian with EFI.

To summarize,

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cp debian-9.2.0-amd64-netinst.iso /dev/sdX

Making sure that /dev/sdX is a USB flash drive, and not a USB HDD drive.

Boot that and install to a partition on the main disk. It sets up grub for EFI mode all by itself and dual booting works.

Thanks for all the help. It wasn't so hard in the end, but I appreciate the things I learned along the way.