My stupid Lenovo “Thinkpad” UEFI doesnt have a real F12 devices menu.

It just shows registered UEFI targets that can be booted.

This is pretty catastrophic, somehow I got Fedora and Windows installed, but thats it. If something breaks, I am in trouble. I cant do a memtest86 even though I think my RAM is faulty.

So in Linux, is there a way to add an UEFI entry to boot just any USB stick? Or to boot a specific one, like with Ventoy on it?

Thanks!

  • beirdobaggins@lemmy.world
    3·
    2 years ago

    It sounds like you got it working-ish.

    One thing you might be running into is having hiberboot (AKA fast startup)enabled in windows. Instead of shutting down it hibernates when you choose “shutdown”.

    If it is in the hibernated state instead of actually shutdown. You won’t be able to choose a different boot option.

    Here is some info on how to turn it off. https://www.elevenforum.com/t/turn-on-or-off-fast-startup-in-windows-11.1212/

    • Pantherina@feddit.deOP
      2·
      2 years ago

      No that is off, I really have no problems with Windows not shutting down.

      But now I actually have an UEFI+legacy boot menu, listing my entries AND drives!

  • Nate@programming.devEnglish
    2·
    2 years ago

    Huh? Every ThinkPad I’ve had let’s me boot to a USB drive. Check your bios settings something is off, unless it’s through a company and they have it specifically disabled.

    • Pantherina@feddit.deOP
      14·
      2 years ago

      Not that one. Not from a company too. Maybe only using legacy only will solve this.

          • Nate@programming.devEnglish
            2·
            2 years ago

            I’m not seeing anything that would be preventing this from showing up in the BIOS, is the USB drive formatted GPT? Does it recognize on any other computers? It may just be that it’s not discovering the EFI file. Also check Startup > Boot > Excluded from Boot Priority Order, but this shouldn’t matter for the F12 menu.

            • Pantherina@feddit.deOP
              21·
              2 years ago

              Some random thing fixed this. Maybe me nearly resetting my BIOS and then quitting? Or Windows attempting some “disk repair” again? Its showing devices now, since like half a year, its completely weird

    • Pantherina@feddit.deOP
      2·
      2 years ago

      Weird, suddenly, after like 20 tries, I can boot any media? Wtf?

      Yes I could select the boot order but only for the UEFI entries (Fedora, Linux firmware updater, Windows Boot manager)

      Not for plugged in devices. I never saw the name of my NVME for example, now suddenly its there?

      I hate this proprietary garbage Bios so much, I cant wait to get a Clevo NV41MZ and flash dasharo on that, then try Heads.

  • darius@lemmy.ml
    2·
    2 years ago

    I’m a bit late here but when installing grub to a USB drive with a GPT/EFI compatible partitioning, you need to run the following command: “grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --removable” (without the quotes).

    • Pantherina@feddit.deOP
      1·
      2 years ago

      Do you know if any flashing tool does this automatically? Etcher? Fedora media writer? Because they always override everything.

      Kde iso image writer doesnt seem to do this, but this might be the fix!