Hi. I'm experiencing problems that look very similar to the ones described in this bug report (can't boot from USB, changes made in UEFI won't save). This I noticed a couple days ago when trying to install a new distro, that failed with "Installing for x86_64-efi platform. Could not delete variable: interrupted system call. Grub- install:error:efibootmgr failed to register the boot entry: block device required"
I had Ubuntu 17.10 installed last year. To make a long story short, I tried boot-repair and it failed, I tried installing other distros and got the same message. I tried upgrading the UEFI and it failed. It seems I can't even get a grub menu or prompt at startup. My computer boots to the message "no boot device on HDD". I can still boot however, if I pres F9 and manually choose "boot from EFI file" and select the proper .efi file (I can boot into Lubuntu 18.10). My computer is an HP Pavilion 14-n249nf I initially asked about the problem at https://askubuntu.com/questions/1104515. 1. how can I know for sure if this bug is the source of my problems ? 2. I followed the repair method described in the bug description. I can install kernel 4.15 without problems. But with no grub prompt at startup, how can I make sure to boot the right kernel that will fix my issues ? thanks in advance for some answers -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Kernel Packages, which is subscribed to linux in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1734147 Title: corrupted BIOS due to Intel SPI bug in kernel Status in Linux: Unknown Status in linux package in Ubuntu: Fix Released Status in linux-hwe-edge source package in Xenial: Fix Released Status in linux-oem source package in Xenial: Fix Released Status in linux source package in Artful: Fix Released Bug description: An update to linux kernel on Ubuntu 17.10 that enabled the Intel SPI drivers results in a serial flash that is read only in Intel Broadwell and Haswell machines with serial flashes with SPI_NOR_HAS_LOCK set. Symptoms: * BIOS settings cannot be saved * USB Boot impossible * EFI entries read-only. --- Fix: The issue was fixed in kernel version 4.13.0-21 by configuring the kernel so it is not compiled with Intel SPI support. But previous affected machines still suffered from a broken BIOS. Repair: If you still can boot into Ubuntu, you can recover your BIOS with the following steps: 1. Boot into Ubuntu 2. Download http://people.canonical.com/~ypwong/lp1734147/linux-image-4.15.0-041500rc6-generic_4.15.0-041500rc6.201712312330+20170103+1_amd64.deb 3. Install the downloaded package: $ sudo dpkg -i linux-image-4.15.0-041500rc6-generic_4.15.0-041500rc6.201712312330+20170103+1_amd64.deb 4. Make sure the kernel is installed without any error. Once installed, reboot. 5. At grub, choose the newly installed kernel. You can choose the "recovery" mode. 6. Reboot and go to BIOS settings to confirm your BIOS has been recovered. 7. In case your BIOS is not recovered, reboot to the new kernel, then reboot *once again* to the new kernel, do not enter BIOS settings before the reboot. After the second reboot, check BIOS. 8. If your BIOS issue remains, download another kernel from http://people.canonical.com/~ypwong/lp1734147/linux-image-4.15.0-041500rc6-generic_4.15.0-041500rc6.201712312330+clear+debug_amd64.deb, and use dpkg to install it, then repeat steps 4 to 6. After your BIOS is fixed, the kernel packages you just installed are no longer needed, you can remove it by running 'sudo dpkg -r linux- image-4.15.0-041500rc6-generic'. The patch used to build the linux v4.15 kernel in step 8 can be found at https://goo.gl/xUKJFR. --- Test Case: Fix has been verified by our HWE team on affected hardware. Regression Potential: Minimal, it's unlikely anyone is actually doing anything which requires this driver. --- Affected Machines: Lenovo B40-70 Lenovo B50-70 Lenovo B50-80 Lenovo Flex-3 Lenovo Flex-10 Lenovo G40-30 Lenovo G50-30 Lenovo G50-70 Lenovo G50-80 Lenovo S20-30 Lenovo U31-70 Lenovo Y50-70 Lenovo Y70-70 Lenovo Yoga Thinkpad (20C0) Lenovo Yoga 2 11" - 20332 Lenovo Yoga 3 11" Lenovo Z50-70 Lenovo Z51-70 Lenovo ideapad 100-15IBY Acer Aspire E5-771G Acer Aspire ES1-111M-C1LE (fixed following your new instruction (thank you)) Acer TravelMate B113 Acer Swift SF314-52 (Fixed by 4.14.9) Toshiba Satellite S55T-B5233 Toshiba Satellite L50-B-1R7 Toshiba Satellite S50-B-13G Toshiba Satellite L70-A-13M Dell Inspiron 15-3531 Mediacom Smartbook 14 Ultra M-SB14UC (fixed with official fix) Acer Aspire E3-111-C0UM HP 14-r012la --- Affected serial flash devices by manufacturer part number, JEDEC ID (SPI_NOR_HAS_LOCK set in drivers/mtd/spi-nor/spi-nor.c) /* ESMT */ f25l32pa, 0x8c2016 f25l32qa, 0x8c4116 f25l64qa, 0x8c4117 /* GigaDevice */ gd25q16, 0xc84015 gd25q32, 0xc84016 gd25lq32, 0xc86016 gd25q64, 0xc84017 gd25lq64c, 0xc86017 gd25q128, 0xc84018 gd25q256, 0xc84019 /* Winbond */ w25q16dw, 0xef6015 w25q32dw, 0xef6016 w25q64dw, 0xef6017 w25q128fw, 0xef6018 --- Original Description: Basically on Lenovo Y50-70 after installing Ubuntu 17.10, many users reported a corrupted BIOS. It's not possible to save new settings in BIOS anymore and after rebooting, the system starts with the old settings. Moreover (and most important) USB booting is not possible anymore since USB is not recognized. It's very serious, since our machines do not have a CDROM. Lenovo forums at the moment are full of topics regading this issue. Thank you!! To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/linux/+bug/1734147/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~kernel-packages Post to : kernel-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kernel-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
