Fedora 37: BIOS does not shake hands with the bootloader

Ask Fedora
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1

I have a Thinkpad X220.
With the newest BIOS installed.
When I install any other OS (Windows, Ubuntu, VanillaOS, Fedora 35, Fedora 36) I have no problems.
But when I try to install Fedora 37 the BIOS does not shake hands with the bootloader and the system does not come up.
Even when I try with F12 to manually select the boot device it’s the same. USB startup is of course also fine…
Fedora 36 is also fine and comes up.
So the change is in the Fedora 37 install process, which causes this issue.
What has changed here?
And how to correct this issue?
My workaround was that I install Fedora 35 and upgrade it to 37.
But that’s no permanent solution. In case something breaks I have to soldier through the many many permutations of problems which arise through this process.
Thank you very much!

2

https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/f37-install-media-dont-boot-in-uefi-mode-on-certain-motherboards/71376

3

The install media boots but the final installation won’t.

4

I have a Thinkpad X220.
With the newest BIOS installed.
When I install any other OS (Windows, Ubuntu, VanillaOS, Fedora 35, Fedora 36) I have no problems.
But when I try to install Fedora 37 the BIOS does not shake hands with the bootloader and the system does not come up.
Even when I try with F12 to manually select the boot device it’s the same. USB startup is of course also fine…
Fedora 36 is also fine and comes up.
So the change is in the Fedora 37 install process, which causes this issue.
What has changed here?
And how to correct this issue?
My workaround was that I install Fedora 35 and upgrade it to 37.
But that’s no permanent solution. In case something breaks I have to soldier through the many many permutations of problems which arise through this process.
Thank you very much!

5

The iso disks did change from fc36 to fc37. The iso9660 layout has an unused block of 32 Kibytes, in that space you have a normal gpt partition table with a protective MBR.

In fc36 you have a dos partition table instead plus a gpt partition table, so the system can treat the iso images as

  • a cdrom image
  • a hard disk with a dos partition table
  • a hard disk with a gpt partition table.

What the UEFI firmware does with the images may vary, and for some reasons it may not like the new fc37 format.

Fedora iso images may also contain HPF+ file table and file systems for booting some mac computers.

6

It’s not about booting the iso. The final installation does not come up. I you want to start the SDD.

7

You can try the following options:

8

I tried the chroot. Multiple times. something always brakes.
I tried also the net install. same issue. SSD does not come up. Fedora 36 35 and other linuxes with anaconda and calamares work fine. Ist just this fedora 37 that has issues. I think we should tackle the root problem. what do you think?

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9

I’m not sure what’s causing the problem, but maybe someone can identify it if you provide more information about your setup:

# Live session
efibootmgr; mokutil --sb-state; bootctl status

# Fedora chroot
grep -v -e "^#" -e "^$" /etc/default/grub /etc/fstab
lsblk -p -o +FSTYPE,FSAVAIL,UUID; findmnt -s
10

So I solved the issue myself.
I now tried something new.
I partitioned my SSD by hand with btrfs.
And the advanced configuration worked
So the problem is the automatic partitioning and formating in the installation process.

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