Score:0

Can only boot the OS once, reboot result in stuck in boot screen

cn flag

It is probably a quite rare problem that I do not expect anyone else to face it so Just looking for ideas that I can tweak to make it work.

It is a lightweight ITX motherboard with soldered Celeron CPU.

Problem description:

  • To view the detail, please go to The video of how it fails to start
  • After system reboot from Ubuntu 20.04, it stuck at "Press DEL or ESC to enter setup" screen, or if manually select boot partition a black screen.
  • It doesn't need to start the X-Window system, even run it in recovery mode once and reboot, it freezes after BIOS self-test
  • It won't fix unless remove the CMOS battery and unplug power for several seconds (basically clearing CMOS settings)
  • Speculations:
    • It is related to UEFI as after the lock, inserting USB boot driver for other distro of linux (I tried UBUNTU and peppermintos distro) also end up in locked state
    • It modified the UEFI already in kernel mode, as you don't need to load desktop for the lock to happen
    • It could also be graphics change but unlikely as the commandline boot in the middle I see a resolution change, however I booted peppermintos live USB and it did not lock after reboot

Is there a boot option that I can add for linux not to mess with BIOS/UEFI? Or is there other suggestions regarding to what that might be? Thanks a lot.

Nmath avatar
ng flag
It looks like you need to set your boot priority in BIOS settings. You will need to consult the documentation for your motherboard, since this doesn't have anything to do with Ubuntu or any other operating system.
Otaku Inside avatar
cn flag
Thanks for the comment but I'm pretty sure it is not that, even if I manually choose the boot device (F11 boot menu) it will freeze on a black screen. Also small Update: I just tried the USB ubuntu live desktop directly, reboot and it does not lock the UEFI, it seems the install (most likely some driver broke it, may just need to identify and disable that driver)
Nmath avatar
ng flag
I watched the video and the only time you actually selected Ubuntu, it booted fine, so I'm not exactly sure what is the problem. Your video does not seem to show that you are actually changing the boot priority, it only shows you selecting a boot volume for that time only.
Otaku Inside avatar
cn flag
Thanks for the reply and I think my video is kind of misleading, I had to select that time because after pulling the battery, the BIOS will not boot from any device by default unless I unplug and re-plug the msata, I didn't want to do that so that's why there was a selection there. [New video](https://youtu.be/Xovbdfpb4do), sees that booting gets you stuck either on BIOS self-test, or black screen ( if press F11 to select fast enough). Even motherboard UEFI shell doesn't work. Pulling battery and reboot, the boot works, into a system then reboot, then black again.
Otaku Inside avatar
cn flag
I noticed something interesting: first-time booting into Live USB, the selection is Text Menu (Try, install, etc) where rebooting will not lock out UEFI, second time and beyond, the Live USB first boot into desktop and then have the Menu (Try, install, etc) in GUI. At least this time I got some error, related to MSATA.
Otaku Inside avatar
cn flag
Current state: apparently it's the MSATA driver that's doing this, pulling the MSATA drive and boot into Live USB won't lock UEFI no matter how many time I boot, I guess I'll need to use another distro for now.
Otaku Inside avatar
cn flag
Somehow narrowed down the problem because a weird grub error. I tried to reinstall and then grub will always go into command-line, now directly booting Ubuntu without grub will not lockout UEFI after reboot. However, in grub command grub>set root=(hd0,lvm/vgubuntu-root) grub>linux /boot/vmlinuz-... grub>initrd /boot/initrd-... grub> boot booted into ramfs, instant CTRL+ALT+DEL reboot, the UEFI is locked out. However booting directly into UBUNTU skipping grub will not lock UEFI, so I'm taking the temporary solution now, might need to look into what's happening in grub later.
Nmath avatar
ng flag
Ok, I watched your video again and here's what I am seeing: 1) Your boot priority in BIOS is not set correctly. You need to set your boot priority #1 as the volume you want to boot first; 2) over and over again you are manually selecting invalid boot options. Your installed system seems to be `ubuntu` and the live USB is at `MKT-USB partition 1`. When you are selecting these options, the system boots perfectly fine. When you select something else, they don't. You must select a valid option manually to boot. And you must put a valid boot selection as #1 under boot priority
Nmath avatar
ng flag
Your boot **priority** is a BIOS system setting. You can see the boot priority option around 0:38 in your most recent video under "boot option priorities". The current selected #1 priority is not a valid option so until you change this, you will keep having this problem. When you are selecting from a list in your videos this is **not** the boot **priority** settings, you are **manually** selecting boot options. Many of these are not valid bootable volumes and that is why it's rebooting when you select a non-bootable volume.
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