RE: Boot dell in uefi mode from usb stick

[John Frankish]

> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: address@hidden
> [mailto:grub-
> > > address@hidden On Behalf Of John
> > > devel-bounces+Frankish
> > > Sent: Monday, June 11, 2012 8:38 PM
> > > To: address@hidden
> > > Subject: Boot dell in uefi mode from usb stick
> > >
> > > I'm not sure if this is possible, but I've been trying to boot a
> > > dell laptop (latitude e6220) in uefi mode from a usb stick without 
> > > success.
> > >
> > > Using:
> > >
> > > $ sudo grub-install --target=x86_64-efi
> > > --boot-directory=/mnt/sdc1/efi --removable Installation finished. No
> error reported.
> > >
> > > ..but on booting the dell in uefi mode, no bootable device is found.
> > > Needless to say, it will boot from a usb stick in legacy bios mode.
> > >
> > > Does anybody know if the above is possible?
> > >
> > >
> > On a USB stick, the grub executable might need to be at exactly
> > /EFI/BOOT/BOOTx64.EFI (and the partition must be FAT of course).  See
> > section 3.4.1.1 of the UEFI 2.1 spec.  You could probably just copy
> > the grub executable to that location from wherever it is.
> >
> >
> In fact the issue seems to have been that the usb stick was partitioned with
> fdisk.
> 
> When I used gdisk to partition the usb stick, grub automatically created
> BOOTX64.EFI, rather than grub.efi, and the usb stick was recognized in uefi
> boot.
> 
> Thanks for the suggestion

Just to confirm, the following copies the required files:

$ sudo grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --boot-directory=/mnt/sdb1/EFI/BOOT 
--efi-directory=/mnt/sdb1 --removable

$ cat /mnt/sdb1/EFI/BOOT/grub/grub.cfg

menuentry "core" {
  linux (hd1,gpt2)/boot/vmlinuz quiet noswap tce=sdb2 tz=GMT-4 blacklist=bcma 
blacklist=ssb blacklist=b43 text
  initrd (hd1,gpt2)/boot/core.gz
}

In the F2 dell menu, you need to change from legacy (bios) boot to uefi, create 
a boot entry and navigate to /EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI

Then things work :)   (with a 3.0.21 kernel)