my laptop does not boot after modified something grub

4 respuestas [Último envío]
Masaru Suzuqi -under review-
Desconectado/a
se unió: 06/06/2018

I generally followed this instruction.
https://libreboot.org/docs/gnulinux/grub_cbfs.html
And the X60 does not boot after that. Or it might boot and it might not load it. Anyway it did not and does not load the installed Trisquel 8. I reinstalled Trisquel 8 again on it. I could use a bootable USB key to use "try Trisquel without installing" or something like that to install it again. After installed it, it did not boot nor load the re-installed OS neither. Libreboot or grub or something requires a passphrase which I think I have not set when it boots or loads.
Is external flashing only way to make it normal state again? Thank you very much.

nadebula.1984
Desconectado/a
se unió: 05/01/2018

Since you already have libreboot/coreboot, the write protection of SPI flash (on which the boot firmware is stored) is no more. You don't need to disassemble it. Use a Live media to re-flash the last known good firmware image.

Masaru Suzuqi -under review-
Desconectado/a
se unió: 06/06/2018

I am not sure if I was trying to do write protection. I was just following the instruction vaguely, though, maybe while I was trying to do other thing, I found the instruction and I started to do that, maybe. Then it happened again. But thank you, I will try to re-flash it with the Live media. I have probably tried that but my way might have been wrong. It seems that there is not that much difference between libreboot and lenovobius, maybe it is because I don't know well, though. I wanted to try write protection.

typo: Intel ME > lenovobios

koszkonutek
Desconectado/a
se unió: 03/19/2020

Biggest difference between the 2 (from the user's perspective) is that traditional bios loads and executes some first 446 bytes from chosen disk's MBR (Master Boot Record - sector at the beginning of the disk), which are supposed to contain your bootloader's initial code. The bootloader then loads the rest of itself and loads it's configuration file from appropriate filesystem. With coreboot/libreboot a payload (in this case - GRUB) as well as it's config are loaded from computer's ROM.

This way coreboot/libreboot allows you to have your entire hard drive encrypted ;)

So when You install Trisquel (or other distro) using an automated installer, I think (I never actually installed Trisquel this way) it shall also install grub in MBR, despite MBR not being used... Nevertheless, this won't cause problems by itself.

My strategy was to modify the GRUB config in cbfs to first ask for password to decrypt the first partition on my hard drive and then load another config from there. This way, I could do further changes to GRUB menu without re-flashing the ROM again :) (Although it required me to use GRUB command line when I forgot about it and wiped the partition later)

Masaru Suzuqi -under review-
Desconectado/a
se unió: 06/06/2018

Hm, if I understand correctly, that's that that's why the SSCeL does not boot nor load the kernel first. I see. It might make sense. But even if so, there still does not seem to be that much difference. If so, there would be the difference between Coreboot and Lenovobios (or Deapth charge), though. Anyway if I do not need external flashing, it is OK.