Elitebook 840 G2 can't boot Legacy Linux HDD

[kazakore]

Update:

So while looking through my box of bits to see if I have anything I can use as temporary storage I find the spinny disk HDD that originally came fitted in my X230, from before I upgraded. I installed this into the 840G2 and the GRUB on it loads fine Ubuntu will boot but Win7 wont, not that it matters in the slightest.)

So the good/bad/idk news is that Legacy and MBR definitely work as they should do and the laptop itself doesn't appear to be faulty in any way, but there is definitely a compatibility issue!

I'm going to try and get my data across whatever media I can lay my hands on (should be possible with some shuffling), see if there is any kind of firmware update for the Crucial SSD and then attempt a fresh install. Wish me luck.....

[Huffer]

It is very likely there is a firmware update for the M200 out there. 

http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/support-ssd-firmware

Only run it from a computer that is fully compatible with the SSD. 

[kazakore]

Update and mostly success.

After updating both the laptop BIOS to latest version and the SSD firmware to the newest I could still not boot up the drive.

Converted from MBR to GPT but I admit I didn't try manually installing the EFI version of GRUB. After this I reinstalled Ubuntu Studio 16.04 in UEFI mode.

It still doesn't find it automatically but I can boot by selecting the grubx64.efi manually after doing an F9 boot. This seems to be a fault which has been present with your laptops for a long long long time with regards to Linux!! (Why not fix this??) From my researching it seems that I need to add the EFI boot line into the Custom Boot option in BIOS. Unfortunately nobody gives an examples of what has worked for them and the things I've tried (/EFI/ubuntu/grubx64.efi and similiar) don't work! If it needs the line which i assume describes the line then it will never work as this has a pipe "|" in it and BIOS does not allow me to add this character. You can see the full drive path in the image linked below?

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y144/kazakore/20170917_222618.jpg

So what do I need to add as a Custom Path to get it to boot automatically?

[Huffer]

Well first of all they are not "my" laptops as I do not work for HP. Also I cannot access your photobucket for some reason.

I have just not run into this issue so do not have much advice to give.

[kazakore]

Appologies, that was not directed at you or anybody else in the thread, but the etheral They who I doubt spend much time in the forums. The HP community is good (so thank you for being such an active and useful part of that) and when I've had to deal with their real support department through issues at work I've also been quite happy with the response. We all need a little vent at times, I didn't mean to offend.

As to Photobucket I can't see why it wouldn't display. I just now notice the Photo button here though so this should work.

Thanks again for all your assistance.

[Huffer]

So what happens if you select that? Do you get to GRUB with its boot options or boot directly to Linux?

I usually install Linux over Windows so GRUB gets placed at the root of the C:\ drive and overrides all the Windows boot function....looks like you still have Windows driving the bus and Windows is never going to work well as a boot manager for Linux, where GRUB works fine as a boot manager for Windows. 

[kazakore]

Windows has never touched this SSD! One of the issues is that the HP apprently has the WIndows EFI location hard set unless you override it with the Custom Boot option. For some reason following the instructions here for Arch don't seem to work for me (changing the path to that which I see when I select the GRUB bootloader.) GRUB boots with all options as expected once I do though.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HP_EliteBook_840_G1

I will try again with Custom Boot at very top boot option as I had left USB higher but made sure it was above any other related to internal devices so thought it should work.....

[Huffer]

Now we are getting somewheres...the Wicki is very helpful and sobering at the same time. I've put Linux on lots of HPs, just never this one and can see you are up against a dilemna...I do know that in setting up Linux that GRUB can be placed about anywhere on the hard drive. Linux does not need to boot solely from the boot sector part of the drive. You can even put GRUB on something like an SD card just not sure this HP would support that or allow that kind of boot option.

[kazakore · Accepted solution]

Success!!

I had had tried to enter the path as about and when pressing \ it didn't enter any character so I assumed it must be an illegal one for the path so I entered it using /s instead. I just thought to check that BIOS was seeing my keyboard layout correctly as UK but it wasn't, so found the corresponding key for the US layout. Once \EFI\ubuntu\grubx64.efi was entered using the correct slashes it works.

Thank you for all your time and patience. 🙂

[RobZ_inT]

I'm not sure if thread is still followed, but I am having trouble seting up default boot optrions on refurbished HP840 G1. I have Mint 19  and removed Windows 8.1 at intall. I cannot get BIOS and boot configured to where it automaticlly load Linux Mint.  I  get a HP GUI and have to selct EFI, then a whole series of sub menus jut to get to the final EFI slection,  where I select “grubx64.efi” – there are other choices - “.”,   “..”,  fwupx64, shimx64, mmx64; but the grubx64 selection has been getting mint to load so I use it. This is the report from boot repair: Ubuntu Paste Bin- Rob Boot

I am not an expert and hav eonly been using Linux for a week, but iis it odd that  there are so many boot files as shown in the report?

How do I get the correct configuration in HP BIOS and in Linux? Please make answers simple- as in go to here, select this, type that... (I'm  high-end moron).