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GPT External HDD not detected as UEFI after clean Debian 11 install

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123sean
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GPT External HDD not detected as UEFI after clean Debian 11 install

#1 Post by 123sean »

Hello everyone, first time poster,

I recently installed Debian 11 using rufus, a thumb drive and the Debian 11.0.0 DVD 1 iso for 64x systems onto a Seagate Basic 1TB hard drive. I went and did all the default stuff for the install minus installing gnome and a desktop environment because I wanted it to be a clean install for XFCE, and for the time the hard disk was connected to the system it would boot no problem.

I would take the drive with me to work every day just to have it on me, but one thing I've noticed is that ever since disconnecting the drive from the original computer, my computers straight-up wouldn't recognize the disk as a UEFI bootable drive, even though it has an EFI system partition and the journaling on the disk is in GPT. It wouldn't even show up as UEFI on the original machine I made it on, only as an MBR style disk, which doesn't make sense as I'm running a BIOS-UEFI system, so it should have detected it as such.

If anyone can help me out on this, that would be greatly appreciated.

p.H
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Re: GPT External HDD not detected as UEFI after clean Debian 11 install

#2 Post by p.H »

If you want a media to be bootable on any UEFI machine, you need to install the boot loader in the so-called "removable device path". By default GRUB is installed in such a way that it will only boot on the machine it was installed on.

In "expert install", the Debian installer offers to install GRUB in the removable device path. After the installation, running

Code: Select all

dpkg-reconfigure grub-efi-amd64
will also offer to do it and remember it for any further GRUB package update. For a removable device, I suggest to select "yes" to the removable device path and "no' to update the UEFI NVRAM.

You can also do it with

Code: Select all

grub-install --force-extra-removable --no-nvram
or copy EFI/debian/shimx64.efi as EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi and EFI/debian/grubx64.efi as EFI/Boot/grubx64.efi in the EFI system partition.
but you will have to do it after each GRUB package update.

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