Thinkpad x1e gen 1 and Pop OS issue!

[jrichards1408]

Hi. i was using latest verison of pop OS on my lenovo thinkpad x1 extreme gen 1 and on the settings software it had a new firmware update that fixes a few security stuff and teaks on the CPU.

It said it required a restart to install it so i went through it and it booted into bios with a installation indicator of it installing the new firmware. it was beeping quite a bit during install but after installing this firmware, POP OS disappeared?!?!?

I have two 2tb hdd's inside my system. the first 2tb hdd has dual boot windows and pop OS.

i mainly use POP OS on it for work and it seems this firmware practically wiped whatever that was in that petition. what the hell?!?!?

Not the end of the world as all my work is synced to the cloud but still what the hell?!?!?!

i spent hours and hours tweaking pop os to my liking and now all is gone?!?!?!

 

[maflynn]

Does the bios see the popOS partition? That is, on the page (in the bios) that you choose the boot order, is there a pop os drive?

 

[c0ppo]

Lenovo has excellent linux support, it's way easier to install firmware or bios updates then in windows for example.
But never the less, never install anything without checking first.

With all that said, have you tried to enter GRUB menu? Actually, popos uses systemd-boot instead of GRUB. Try to use it.
If it doesn't boot then, don't panic. Set your BIOS to boot to popos directly. I'm afraid I can't tell you the exact procedure, since I don't have my X1E anymore. Google it up tough, it's possible.

And even if that doesn't work, make a new PopOS install disk and then try to repair your install. I highly doubt that firmware update wiped it out.

P.S.
It's always a good thing to make separate root (/) and home folders during install of any linux distro. That way you separate your files from the OS. That way all you would have to do now is reinstall popos without touching home folder.

 

[jrichards1408]

Does the bios see the popOS partition? That is, on the page (in the bios) that you choose the boot order, is there a pop os drive?

nope it no longer shows in bios at all

Lenovo has excellent linux support, it's way easier to install firmware or bios updates then in windows for example.
But never the less, never install anything without checking first.

With all that said, have you tried to enter GRUB menu? Actually, popos uses systemd-boot instead of GRUB. Try to use it.
If it doesn't boot then, don't panic. Set your BIOS to boot to popos directly. I'm afraid I can't tell you the exact procedure, since I don't have my X1E anymore. Google it up tough, it's possible.

And even if that doesn't work, make a new PopOS install disk and then try to repair your install. I highly doubt that firmware update wiped it out.

P.S.
It's always a good thing to make separate root (/) and home folders during install of any linux distro. That way you separate your files from the OS. That way all you would have to do now is reinstall popos without touching home folder.

Hi thanks for the reply.

i had installed firmware before through pop os's settings and it had worked fine previously but this time has borked my pop os install somehow.

Anyways on my bios i cant manually select my pop os. that is the problem. i can only select the windows partition.

How do i boot into systemd-boot? How do i repair an installl?

Anyways i grabbed a live cd version of pop os and dumped it into my memory card and that i can boot into the demo mode. I can see my pop os there! files all intacked but how come the laptop wont let me boot into it?

Here is a print screen of my HDD partitions. it's still intact, how do I fix it?

 

[mick2]

It appears that you're using UEFI boot rather than a traditional BIOS.
You seem to have 2 ESP partitions (/dev/nvme1n1p2 and /dev/nvme1n1p8); this is unusual and could be where things have gone awry. Usually, Windows and Linux will share the same ESP partition. You really need to find out which one is the actual esp & boot partition used by POP_OS.

The boot order under UEFI is held in NVRAM - you can check this using the efibootmgr command. Type this from your live USB session (as root) and paste the results here:

efibootmgr -v

 

[jrichards1408]

below is the efibootmgr results

BootCurrent: 001E
Timeout: 0 seconds
BootOrder: 001E,0019,001C,001D,001F,0020,0000,0018,001A,0021,001B
Boot0000* Windows Boot Manager HD(2,GPT,7b53398e-7279-44b1-9abd-a9ff95b8ee12,0xfa000,0x32000)/File(\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi)WINDOWS.........x...B.C.D.O.B.J.E.C.T.=.{.9.d.e.a.8.6.2.c.-.5.c.d.d.-.4.e.7.0.-.a.c.c.1.-.f.3.2.b.3.4.4.d.4.7.9.5.}...,................
Boot0010 Setup FvFile(721c8b66-426c-4e86-8e99-3457c46ab0b9)
Boot0011 Boot Menu FvFile(126a762d-5758-4fca-8531-201a7f57f850)
Boot0012 Diagnostic Splash Screen FvFile(a7d8d9a6-6ab0-4aeb-ad9d-163e59a7a380)
Boot0013 Lenovo Diagnostics FvFile(3f7e615b-0d45-4f80-88dc-26b234958560)
Boot0014 Regulatory Information FvFile(478c92a0-2622-42b7-a65d-5894169e4d24)
Boot0015 Startup Interrupt Menu FvFile(f46ee6f4-4785-43a3-923d-7f786c3c8479)
Boot0016 Rescue and Recovery FvFile(665d3f60-ad3e-4cad-8e26-db46eee9f1b5)
Boot0017 MEBx Hot Key FvFile(ac6fd56a-3d41-4efd-a1b9-870293811a28)
Boot0018* USB CD VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,86701296aa5a7848b66cd49dd3ba6a55)
Boot0019* USB FDD VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,6ff015a28830b543a8b8641009461e49)
Boot001A* NVMe0 VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,001c199932d94c4eae9aa0b6e98eb8a400)
Boot001B* NVMe1 VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,001c199932d94c4eae9aa0b6e98eb8a401)
Boot001C* ATA HDD0 VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,91af625956449f41a7b91f4f892ab0f601)
Boot001D* ATA HDD1 VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,91af625956449f41a7b91f4f892ab0f602)
Boot001E* USB HDD VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,33e821aaaf33bc4789bd419f88c50803)
Boot001F* PCI LAN VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,78a84aaf2b2afc4ea79cf5cc8f3d3803)
Boot0020 Other CD VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,aea2090adfde214e8b3a5e471856a35406)
Boot0021 Other HDD VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,91af625956449f41a7b91f4f892ab0f606)
Boot0022* IDER BOOT CDROM PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x14,0x0)/USB(15,1)
Boot0023* IDER BOOT Floppy PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x14,0x0)/USB(15,0)
Boot0024* ATA HDD VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,91af625956449f41a7b91f4f892ab0f6)
Boot0025* ATAPI CD VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,aea2090adfde214e8b3a5e471856a354)
Boot0026* PCI LAN VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,78a84aaf2b2afc4ea79cf5cc8f3d3803)

 

[mick2]

In order, your machine is set to boot:

1. USB Stick
2. USB Floppy
3. HDD 0
4. HDD 1
5. LAN

It'll try each of these in turn until it finds a suitable boot loader.
I'd expect to see an entry in the list for 'Ubuntu' (ie Pop_OS), but there's no such entry.

I use Grub so not that familiar with SystemD boot, but I believe with the latter you can hold down a key (eg spacebar) during boot to get to a SystemD Boot menu. Try this and see if a suitable boot entry shows up for Pop / Ubuntu.

If it does, we can then adjust the UEFI bootorder you posted to try to fix the issue.

-----------------------------------------------------------

By way of example, my UEFI boot order follows (note 'Boot0028 Fedora*' entry - this is what i'd expect to see for your Ubuntu/Pop install):
$ efibootmgr -v
BootCurrent: 0028
Timeout: 0 seconds
BootOrder: 0028,0013,0021,0022,0023,0024,0025,0026,0020
Boot0000 Startup Interrupt Menu FvFile(f46ee6f4-4785-43a3-923d-7f786c3c8479)
Boot0001 Rescue and Recovery FvFile(665d3f60-ad3e-4cad-8e26-db46eee9f1b5)
Boot0002 MEBx Hot Key FvFile(ac6fd56a-3d41-4efd-a1b9-870293811a28)
Boot0003* IDER BOOT CDROM PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x16,0x2)/Ata(0,1,0)
Boot0004* IDER BOOT Floppy PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x16,0x2)/Ata(0,0,0)
Boot0005* ATA HDD VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,91af625956449f41a7b91f4f892ab0f6)
Boot0006* ATAPI CD VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,aea2090adfde214e8b3a5e471856a354)
Boot0013* Windows Boot Manager HD(1,GPT,f5500129-d39b-4b14-a888-afb1f1d37d5f,0x800,0x96000)/File(\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi)WINDOWS.........x...B.C.D.O.B.J.E.C.T.=.{.9.d.e.a.8.6.2.c.-.5.c.d.d.-.4.e.7.0.-.a.c.c.1.-.f.3.2.b.3.4.4.d.4.7.9.5.}...7................
Boot0014 Setup FvFile(721c8b66-426c-4e86-8e99-3457c46ab0b9)
Boot0015 Boot Menu FvFile(126a762d-5758-4fca-8531-201a7f57f850)
Boot0017 Diagnostic Splash Screen FvFile(a7d8d9a6-6ab0-4aeb-ad9d-163e59a7a380)
<snip>
Boot0028* Fedora HD(1,GPT,f5500129-d39b-4b14-a888-afb1f1d37d5f,0x800,0x96000)/File(\EFI\fedora\shimx64.efi)

 

[jrichards1408]

Do you mean to try and boot into each of the below?

1. USB Stick
2. USB Floppy
3. HDD 0
4. HDD 1
5. LAN

And failing that, press and hold down spacebar when i reboot the laptop and it reloading itself?

 

[jrichards1408]

This is what the bios boot menu looks like

 

[mick2]

Do you mean to try and boot into each of the below?

1. USB Stick
2. USB Floppy
3. HDD 0
4. HDD 1
5. LAN

And failing that, press and hold down spacebar when i reboot the laptop and it reloading itself?

No, power off, unplug your live USB, then switch on the laptop. Hold down the spacebar as soon as you press the power button. We're looking for a SystemD boot menu to appear. See here: https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/systemd-boot/

 

[jrichards1408]

No, power off, unplug your live USB, then switch on the laptop. Hold down the spacebar as soon as you press the power button. We're looking for a SystemD boot menu to appear. See here: https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/systemd-boot/

Holding space bar key doesn't seem to load up that boot menu

 

[mick2]

what bootloader were you using before the problem started? Grub or SystemD? iow, how did you select your Pop_OS system at boot time?

 

[jrichards1408]

what bootloader were you using before the problem started? Grub or SystemD? iow, how did you select your Pop_OS system at boot time?

Through the same screen shot above. It appeared there.


No idea what boot loader I was using.

 

[mick2]

The instructions for repairing the Pop_OS bootloaders are here:

Repair the Bootloader

How to repair and reinstall the bootloader.

support.system76.com

As you'll see, the instructions to follow depend on which bootloader you were using so you do need to know this.

tbh the fact you don't know which bootloader you were using, coupled with the 2 EFI partitions on your drive where there should be one means I'm gonna suggest that your best solution is to reinstall at this point rather than trying to troubleshoot a non-standard setup. Chalk it up as another Linux learning experience...

 

[jrichards1408]

The instructions for repairing the Pop_OS bootloaders are here:

Repair the Bootloader

How to repair and reinstall the bootloader.

support.system76.com

As you'll see, the instructions to follow depend on which bootloader you were using so you do need to know this.

tbh the fact you don't know which bootloader you were using, coupled with the 2 EFI partitions on your drive where there should be one means I'm gonna suggest that your best solution is to reinstall at this point rather than trying to troubleshoot a non-standard setup. Chalk it up as another Linux learning experience...

I read that earlier on and it diddnt make much sense as it said I should use and mount the Linux swap partition but it doesn't have any of the mentioned flags in that article

 

[mick2]

Your swap partition is /dev/nvme1n1p9...its listed in your gparted screengrab above.

In Linux it helps to be crystal clear about which partitions are which when you're installing a dual boot system; in particular you need to know where your Windows ESP UEFI partition is and get your Linux install to also put its Grub/systemD bootloader files there, rather than creating a new ESP.

The weird thing about your system is that there doesnt seem to be any trace of either a Grub or a systemD bootloader, so fixing / reinstalling them is a bit of a non-starter. Could be it was wiped out by teh BIOS upgrade, but seems unlikely?

Anyway, good luck!

 

[c0ppo]

Could be it was wiped out by teh BIOS upgrade, but seems unlikely?

It does seem so. But BIOS update can't wipe out entire partition. At least I have never heard of anything similar.

@jrichards1408
First, boot with live usb. Backup your important files.
Once that is done, simpy install popOS. Don't format anything, just plain install it. It will hopefully fix things.
If you boot in after reinstall, and find your files there, you're in luck.

But don't panic if no 3rd party applications shows up. Just reinstall them, every setting and config files will be saved. All of this is of course if my plan for reinstall works. In normal scenario, it would work. But the problem is, you don't have grub/sysD at all, so I really can't predict with 100% accuracy what will happen.

In any case, you have nothing to loose. But remember, backup your files first.

 

[jrichards1408]

Install it where? I don't want to mess it up again.

I can't remember how the partitions where set before but all was working fine until pop os said there was a new firmware update and it installed it Via the bios and that was that.

I can reinstall but now I gotta reconfigure gmon, my apps, my software engineering tools etc

The actual important data is backed up in the cloud via Dropbox and github.

A bit gutted with this. What happens if I delete one of the esp partitions? I should only have 1 as u say
.

Anyways how do I find out if its a grub or systemd boot loader?

 

[c0ppo]

@jrichards1408

Just go into install, and then select manual partitioning. Find your PopOS partition, it will probably me ext4, maybe zfs filesystem. Find root partition, it will be labeled as "/" (without quotes), and home partition, labeled simply as "/home".

Pick those as your root and home partition, but without format.

Even if you mess up, you are gonna have to do a reinstall anyway. This way you can at least try to salvage your situation.

But even if it works, @mick2 is right. You have messed up somewhere down the line while partitioning during first install. Simply reinstall OS and set up everything correctly. Yes it will be a pain to do all those things again, but once set properly, you're set for a long time.

 

[mick2]

A bit gutted with this. What happens if I delete one of the esp partitions? I should only have 1 as u say
.

If the esp you delete is used by windows, you'll bork your Windows installation as well as the Pop_OS one.

Like I said before you need to be very clear about how yr installation works and how its configured. Don't delete stuff until you understand what you're doing.

The way out of this - short of reinstalling - is to boot into a live environment (USB), mount the partitions in use by your Pop_OS install including the correct esp partition, chroot into the mounted Pop-OS install then run the appropriate command to fix your grub or systemd bootloader - and this varies depending on whether it's a Grub or systemD boot.

Now, i've outlined this to try to convey how far away from fixing this you are with your current level of knowledge / experience; you dont even know which bootlader or esp partition your install uses. If you're prepared to put in the effort to learn the details of how to do this then great - and you now have an outline above of the steps. But this isn't the sort of thing that people on a forum can just give you easy commands to type to fix. As both I and @c0ppo recommended, your best bet is to reinstall and do things correctly.

hth

edit: posted at same time as @c0ppo above, but we're both saying the same thing.

 

[jrichards1408]

even if i reinstall, it will still have the same issue as now ie having two esp partitions and i will become unstuck again not knowing what bootloader i am using etc?

 

[jrichards1408]

OK i think i found which efi partition is correct.

i mounted both of the efi-system partitions that had he flag boot and esp and here is the output

/dev/nvme1n1p2
pop-os@pop-os:/boot/efi/EFI$ ls
Boot Microsoft

/dev/nvme1n1p8
/temp/EFI$ ls
BOOT Pop_OS-cd4bb972-4e52-4aa4-a7ad-96bcc653caab systemd ubuntu

 

[mick2]

Ok it looks like you have Windows using the EFI partition at /dev/nvme/1n1p2, and Pop_OS using the one at /dev/nvme1n1p8.
This also looks like it uses systemd boot. This is good info.

As a sanity check, go to the mounted Pop_OS EFI partition and look for the presesnce of a /loader/loader.conf file.

Once you've confirmed the above, you're in a position to follow the repair steps outlined in https://support.system76.com/articles/bootloader/

You're using systemD booting with NVME drives, so find the relevent section.

In the live USB environment,unmount any partitions you've currently got manually mounted. Then follow the steps; substitute your own partitions in the 1st 2 steps as follows:

sudo mount /dev/nvme1n1p7 /mnt

sudo mount /dev/nvme1n1p8 /mnt/boot/efi

 

[jrichards1408]

Ok it looks like you have Windows using the EFI partition at /dev/nvme/1n1p2, and Pop_OS using the one at /dev/nvme1n1p8.
This also looks like it uses systemd boot. This is good info.

As a sanity check, go to the mounted Pop_OS EFI partition and look for the presesnce of a /loader/loader.conf file.

Once you've confirmed the above, you're in a position to follow the repair steps outlined in https://support.system76.com/articles/bootloader/

You're using systemD booting with NVME drives, so find the relevent section.

In the live USB environment,unmount any partitions you've currently got manually mounted. Then follow the steps; substitute your own partitions in the 1st 2 steps as follows:

sudo mount /dev/nvme1n1p7 /mnt

sudo mount /dev/nvme1n1p8 /mnt/boot/efi

thanks. yeas the loadr.conf is there.

On the article it mentions two things to mount?

one i assume is this efi partition which in my case is nvme1n1p8 that i assume i mount on /mnt/boot/efi but what gets mounted on /mnt?

The actual /dev/nvme1n1p7 ext4 partition that has all my files and apps from POP os on? or the fat32 /dev/nvme1n1p9 linux swap partition?

 

[mick2]

thanks. yeas the loadr.conf is there.

On the article it mentions two things to mount?

one i assume is this efi partition which in my case is nvme1n1p8 that i assume i mount on /mnt/boot/efi but what gets mounted on /mnt?

The actual /dev/nvme1n1p7 ext4 partition that has all my files and apps from POP os on? or the fat32 /dev/nvme1n1p9 linux swap partition?

See my code above: you're mounting your /dev/nvme1n1p7 EFI partition to /mnt/boot/efi, and your root system partition /dev/nvme1n1p7 to /mnt. You don't need to mount the swap to fix the bootloader.

The code on the system 76 site basically auto mounts some of the other necessary virtual file systems, then chroots into your mounted system, updates the initramfs then runs the systemD bootctl command to reinstall the bootloader & (we hope) fixes missing entries in NVRAM etc.