Installing Debian Jessie on HP z240 with NVME (m.2)

[Ronald_]

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to install Debian Jessie (debian-live-8.6.0-amd64-mate-desktop. Need this one with Mate for specific software it is going to run) on a new HP z240 and i'm running into some problems.

Specs z240:
HP Workst.Z240 TWR E3-1245v5/256GBPCI-e/DVDRW/W10P
16GB DDR4 PC4-17000 2133Mhz NON ECC RAM Z240
NVIDIA Quadro K420 2GB PCI-E x16 Dual Head

First time i tried to install it came up with an "unable to install grub" error. Searched al over the web and figured out that to correctly use my NVME card i had to boot and install in UEFI-only mode.
After a lot of trial and error finally managed to boot from USB into Debian Live and from there on install Debian. The harddisk (hardcard?? ) gets recognised bij the installation and the Debian installer automaticly suggests the right partitions (gpt). This all seems to go wel.
After installing the files, the same GRUB error comes op. Found some simalar cases online and tried as they suggested:

http://www.poweredbyjeff.com/2015/10/29 ... an-Jessie/
this was the first one i tried. Didnt work so tried a lot of variations; with and without kernel update; with and without backports. With and without target (grub-install /dev/nvme0n1) and what not.

http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=131613
Same info here, tried this too...

Every time the manual Grub installation seems to go well. No errors or strange behaviour. After manual grub install i continue installation and reboot.
But then it just comes up with:

BootDevice Not Found
Please install an operating system on your hard disk.
Hard Disk - (3F0)

Bios seems to only recognize the harddisk in legacy mode. It doesn't show up in the boot order list in UEFI only in legacy. I am able run diagnostics on the disk from within bios in UEFI.
The only way i can get the harddisk to show up is in the live boot from Debian. I can enter the filesystem partition and all files on it. The Debian live install also recognizes the harddisk in UEFI mode.
Updated the bios to the latest version, but same results...

What is happening? Seems like the harddisk isn't setup for booting in UEFI propperly? Or maybe the HP Bios is locked to only boot with windows in UEFI??
How can i make this work?
Since i'm a Linux beginner i probably am doing something wrong, but i can't seem to find any more info on this subject that isn't total developer abra-cadabra for me... I'm willing to dig into all this, but it would be really helpfull if someone can show me the right directions or guide me through this.

Thnx in advance!

[Dai_trying]

I had the same problems with the live xfce iso, I am guessing there is an issue with the installer. Try using the netinst.iso (if you have network access) or the standard iso and select mate from the desktops when installing. This worked for me.

EDIT: also you might need to install grub-efi

[sunrat]

What Dai_trying said above. Live iso is unable to install in UEFI mode.

[Ronald_]

I had the same problems with the live xfce iso, I am guessing there is an issue with the installer. Try using the netinst.iso (if you have network access) or the standard iso and select mate from the desktops when installing. This worked for me.

EDIT: also you might need to install grub-efi

Thx for your response! I went on and tried it with debian-8.7.1-amd64-netinst.iso. But had the exact same error. All goes well during install, then GRUB fails to install. I execute the shell, install grub manually:

cd /target
mount --rbind /proc proc/
mount --rbind /sys sys/
mount --rbind /dev dev/
mount --rbind /run run/
chroot . /bin/bash
apt-get update
apt-get install grub-efi-amd64
update-grub
grub-install

no errors or strange behaviour as far as i can see. After that i close the shell and continue installing without bootloader and reboot:

BootDevice Not Found
Please install an operating system on your hard disk.
Hard Disk - (3F0)

Maybe i can try this https://wiki.debian.org/EFIStub ?
Any other ideas?

[Dai_trying]

That could be worth trying, also have you disabled secure boot?

[pylkko]

I believe HP is one of those manufacturers whose Efis are known to work in bizarre ways, meaning that in order to boot the grub EFI file it need to be in some specific path and have some specific, often quite unintuitive name (windows for example). You might want to search for that

[Ronald_]

That could be worth trying, also have you disabled secure boot?

Secure Boot is disabled, it's mandatory for booting in UEFI mode. The boot menu shows the thumbdrive with the UEFI prefix... So i guess booting in UEFI is not the issue.

I'm trying the EFIStub method right now.

I believe HP is one of those manufacturers whose Efis are known to work in bizarre ways, meaning that in order to boot the grub EFI file it need to be in some specific path and have some specific, often quite unintuitive name (windows for example). You might want to search for that

It could be something like that. It seems to me the partition isn't recognized as bootable by the HP EFI for some reason because i can access it in a shell from the installation disk. I can even run the bios' built in diagnostics on it..
EDIT: found some info in this http://h20565.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/publ ... -c01564727

EDIT 2: Finally i booted into debian! Renamed the boot partition to HP_TOOLS. Still the same BootDevice Not Found error, but the bootmenu is now able to access the disk. This enables me to boot from file: /boot/efi/debian/grubx64.efi and voilà.
Buuuuuttttt. Stil not booting by itself into Debian; i still get the BootDevice Not Found error. But i think by moving the file to the right directory might do the trick -> have to dig into this some more.
And a 2nd buuuuuuttt: for some reason i am not able to login when in debian... both the root password or useraccount i setup during install are invalid. Gonna reinstall once again, maybe i did a double typo... twice...

EDIT 3: That did the trick, i can now login. I think the last time the installer didn't finish after the grub error but just exited. Noticed it now did something to users when finishing the installation without bootloader. Still have to manually select the file from the EFI menu, but at last... i'm in.
So what i did:

Boot install iso from usb in UEFI mode.
Normal Install (seems to be much slower than the graphic install??)
GUIDED Partitioning of /dev/nvme0n1
changed name of the ESP partition to HP_TOOLS
install
When GRUB fails to install i open a shell from within the installer:

cd /target
mount --rbind /sys sys/
mount --rbind /dev dev/
mount --rbind /run run/
chroot . /bin/bash

apt-get update
apt-get -t jessie install grub-efi
update-grub
grub-install

exit
exit

Now where back in the installer and continue without bootloader
Install will finish and reboot

On boot still have this error:

BootDevice Not Found
Please install an operating system on your hard disk.
Hard Disk - (3F0)

ignore and open boot menu and select Boot File
select the /boot/efi/debian/grubx64.efi and hit enter

now i can boot into Debian!

--> Now i'm going to try to make the system boot to debian right away without the BootDevice Not Found error
Hopefully this makes sense: http://h20565.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/publ ... -c01564727

EDIT 4 - Solution:

SOLVED! -> this helped me to understand how HP UEFI boot is working http://fomori.org/blog/?p=892

after booting into debian i moved the file
/boot/efi/debian/grubx64.efi
to
/boot/efi/EFI/Boot/Bootx64.efi

had to manually add it to the bootorder:
in terminal:

efibootmgr

this returns a list of all boot entries. Look for "\EFI\Boot\Bootx64.efi" and manually entered a new bootorder (only entered the ones i need: "\EFI\Boot\Bootx64.efi", usb, sata, boot menu and system menu)

sudo efibootmgr -o [entries here]

looks something like this:
sudo efibootmgr -o 000A, 000B, 000F, 0004, 0001

after reboot it now boots into the OS!