On Sun, 2025-08-17 at 13:46 -0700, David Christensen wrote: > On 8/17/25 12:31, Van Snyder wrote: > > I upgraded the BIOS in my Dell Latitude E5470 from 1.19.3 to > > 1.34.3. > > > Before upgrading: > > 1. Did you run Setup and document the settings?
I didn't write down all the settings. The important one was whether booting was Legacy or UEFI. > 2. Did you backup the OS configuration files? > > 3. Did you backup the data? > > 4. Did you take an image of the HDD/SSD? I cloned the HDD onto an NVME using dd, then added the EFI boot partition and expanded /home to fill the rest of the "disk." > After upgrading: > > 1. Did you run Setup and reset the settings to factory defaults? Not yet. I'll try that. > 2. What is the Setup setting for the firmware mode -- e.g. > BIOS/Legacy, > EFI/UEFI, etc.? What was it previously? > > 3. What is the Setup setting for Secure Boot -- e.g. On, off, etc.? > What was it previously? > > 4. What is the Setup setting for disk drive -- e.g. RAID, AHCI, > etc.? > What was it previously? > > 5. What are the Setup boot entries and what is their order? What > were > they previously? They were previously USB, CD, HDD, PXE. After, the BIOS chose a random order which I changed to that. > What OS(s) are on the HDD/SSD? Using a Debian live distribution, > rescue > shell, etc., please run the following command as root and post the > console session -- prompt, input command, and output displayed: > > # lsblk With my annotations about what each partition is used for NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS loop0 7:0 0 809.5M 1 loop /run/archiso/sfs/airootfs sr0 11:0 1 898M 0 rom The systemrestore CD nvme0n1 259:0 0 953.9G 0 disk |-nvme0n1p1 259:1 0 350M 0 part Win 10 System |-nvme0n1p2 259:2 0 29.6G 0 part Win 10 |-nvme0n1p3 259:3 0 1014M 0 part /boot |-nvme0n1p4 259:4 0 1K 0 part extended |-nvme0n1p5 259:5 0 48.8G 0 part / |-nvme0n1p6 259:6 0 7.8G 0 part Linux swap |-nvme0n1p7 259:7 0 4.7G 0 part /rescue |-nvme0n1p8 259:8 0 545M 0 part /boot/efi (FAT32), marked bootable |-nvme0n1p9 259:9 0 861.1G 0 part /home >From fdisk -l: Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 953.87 GiB, 1024209543168 bytes, 2000409264 sectors Disk model: SPCC M.2 PCIe SSD Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disklabel type: dos Disk identifier: 0xf1177557 Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type /dev/nvme0n1p1 2048 718847 716800 350M 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/nvme0n1p2 718848 62795775 62076928 29.6G 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/nvme0n1p3 62795776 64872447 2076672 1014M 83 Linux /dev/nvme0n1p4 64874494 2000408575 1935534082 922.9G 5 Extended /dev/nvme0n1p5 64874496 167274495 102400000 48.8G 83 Linux /dev/nvme0n1p6 167276544 183660543 16384000 7.8G 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/nvme0n1p7 183662592 193428216 9765625 4.7G 83 Linux /dev/nvme0n1p8 * 193429504 194545663 1116160 545M ef EFI (FAT-12/16/32) /dev/nvme0n1p9 194547712 2000408575 1805860864 861.1G 83 Linux > If you press the boot menu hot key during POST, can you boot the OS > on > the HDD/SSD? > > > > > > I could no longer boot. So I decided to upgrade from Debian 12 > > Bookworm > > to Debian 13 Trixie. > > > > All went well until the end when grub install failed. > > > Please post the console session. All I get is a blank blue page inviting me to type grub commands. > > > > I have an EFI partition. It's formatted for FAT32. It has an EFI > > tag — > > I told the "partition" step to use that partition for EFI. > > > > I found a twelve year old recommendation to run > > > > sudo dosfsck -r /dev/sda2 > > > > but of course I can't do that if it won't boot. So I ran it in a > > system > > rescue disk and it didn't complain. > > > > Now when I boot grub gives me an empty screen and wants me to type > > in > > all the commands. > > > STFW "grub prompt": > > https://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub/grub.html > > > > > > I found a page that says "The error has been seen when the > > /EFI/ubuntu > > directory is corrupted (bug 1090829)." Of course, I'm trying to > > install > > Debian but maybe there's a clue there — if only I knew where to > > read > > about bug 1090829. > > > STFW "ubuntu bug 1090829": > > https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/1090829 > > > > > > Is there more modern advice somewhere to get Trixie installed? > > > > Or, can I downgrade my Dell BIOS back to 1.19.3? > > > STFW "site:dell.com Latitude 5470 firmware downgrade": > > https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000130652/downgrading-the-system-bios-on-a-dell-system > > > > > > — Van Snyder > > > David >
