[CentOS] UEFI boot manager sequence problems HP Envy

Tue May 28 11:29:39 UTC 2019
Gary Stainburn <gary.stainburn at ringways.co.uk>

Morning all,

I have a HP Envy dual boot system (Win8 for serious stuff, i.e. Train Sim and Flight Sim) and Centos 7 for everything else.

In the past I've had the occasional problem where an update on the windows side has updated the UEFI boot sequence but using efibootmgr has always fixed it.

On Friday I discovered that my HDD was failing so I tried using Clonezilla to move it on to a new SSD of the same size.  Unfortunately the clone didn't work, failing half way through my main partition.  Thankfully the Windows partitions and boot info cloned across so that side of the system worked.

I then wiped all the Linux partitions and did a clean C7 install using the latest ISO, all went well, but when it reboot it went straight into Windows.  Using F9 on reboot I chose CentOS Linux and the new system booted.  Using efibootmgr I reset the boot sequence and all looked fine (see below).

Unfortunately, when I then reboot it reverts to booting Windows. Using F9 to get back into Linux then shows that the boot sequence has reverted.  This means that the updated sequence either was not stored properly, or something is resetting it.

Legacy support in the BIOS is turned off as it should be, and the boot sequence in the BIOS only has a limited number of options. The sequence in the BIOS is:

UEFI Boot Order
  USB Diskette on Key/USB Hard Drive
  OS boot Manager                (shown in white)
  Internal CD/DVD ROM Drive
  USB CD/DVD ROM Drive
  ! Network Adapter

Legacy Boot Order
  Notebook Hard Drive
  Internal CD/DVD ROM Drive
  USB Diskette on Key/USB Hard Drive
  USB CD/DVD ROM Drive
  ! Network Adapter

If I press <F9> I get the same options as in efibootmgr but the first option "Windows Boot Manager" is selected.

  

[root at gary ~]# efibootmgr
BootCurrent: 0004                                                                                                                                            
Timeout: 0 seconds                                                                                                                                           
BootOrder: 0002,3002,0000,0003,0004,0005,2001,2002,2003                                                                                                      
Boot0000* Linux                                                                                                                                              
Boot0002* Windows Boot Manager                                                                                                                               
Boot0003* Fedora
Boot0004* CentOS Linux
Boot0005* CentOS
Boot2001* USB Drive (UEFI)
Boot2002* Internal CD/DVD ROM Drive (UEFI)
Boot3000* Internal Hard Disk or Solid State Disk
Boot3002* Internal Hard Disk or Solid State Disk
Boot3004* Internal Hard Disk or Solid State Disk
[root at gary ~]# efibootmgr -o 0004,2001,2002,3000
BootCurrent: 0004
Timeout: 0 seconds
BootOrder: 0004,2001,2002,3000
Boot0000* Linux
Boot0002* Windows Boot Manager
Boot0003* Fedora
Boot0004* CentOS Linux
Boot0005* CentOS
Boot2001* USB Drive (UEFI)
Boot2002* Internal CD/DVD ROM Drive (UEFI)
Boot3000* Internal Hard Disk or Solid State Disk
Boot3002* Internal Hard Disk or Solid State Disk
Boot3004* Internal Hard Disk or Solid State Disk
[root at gary ~]# efibootmgr
BootCurrent: 0004
Timeout: 0 seconds
BootOrder: 0004,2001,2002,3000
Boot0000* Linux
Boot0002* Windows Boot Manager
Boot0003* Fedora
Boot0004* CentOS Linux
Boot0005* CentOS
Boot2001* USB Drive (UEFI)
Boot2002* Internal CD/DVD ROM Drive (UEFI)
Boot3000* Internal Hard Disk or Solid State Disk
Boot3002* Internal Hard Disk or Solid State Disk
Boot3004* Internal Hard Disk or Solid State Disk
[root at gary ~]#