Hi, I’ve installed Fedora on two systems. One works fine because it has no heavy graphics system installed, and low-end Steam games work fine. On the other hand, I’ve a desktop system in which this issue is persistent. The Boot/EFI partition keeps on deleting itself only when playing games, or when the desktop is used for gaming only.
The information from Desktop GParted Visual is below:
Partition File System Mount Point Size Used Unused Flags
/dev/sdx1 grub2.core.img 1 MB - - bios_grub
/dev/sdx2 ext4 /boot x x x
/dev/sdx3 btrfs /, /home x x x
The information from the Laptop KDE Partition Manager visual is below:
Partition File System Mount Point Size Used
/dev/sdx1 Fat32 /boot/efi 600 MB 20MB
/dev/sdx2 ext4 /boot x x
/dev/sdx3 btrfs / x x
Is there a way to fix this issue of automatic deletion of the boot partition?
Hi, it feels great to be the first to report this issue. I’ve stated in the question what has happened, and I’m trying to figure out myself why it is happening consistently over the course of three months. As I’m new to Linux. I’m trying to understand the system and found that windows call drives as C,D etc and Linux calls it dev/sda, dev/sdb etc. That is all I know at the moment. After searching on google, I’ve found that it can be solved via boot loader. I’ve tried it before but without success. Therefore, I always go for reinstallation of Fedora. Which now I feel is not good. That is why I came here. Thanks!
I’m sure at first it installed in UFI-based installation, but after some time it goes back to the state I’ve mentioned in the question. So, can you guide me through the process of legacy mode BIOS and modern BIOS? My laptop is older than my motherboard, and yet the laptop seems to be working fine.
Can you say what evidence makes you sure it was UEFI-based at first?
Boot your desktop and go into the BIOS menu (by pressing F2 or whatever key your motherboard manufacturer uses).
Can you see a setting called “Legacy Mode”, “Legacy BIOS Mode”, “Compatibility Support Mode” or something like that?
If you enable this, then UEFI will be disabled, and Fedora will install in legacy BIOS style (i.e. no EFI partition and a 1MB biosboot partition), even though your motherboard is newer and capable of UEFI.
Going back to the start, what is the actual problem you are facing? Does your machine fail to boot?
The only evidence I"have is that I checked it myself and compared it with my laptop. It was the same. As for the BIOS info, it is shown on the desktop below.
sudo dmidecode -s bios-version
P10.10
The system doesn’t stop booting at first. It boots fine. But the games stop working and report the issue below during gameplay. Now, games aren’t working at all. Every single one of them.
Device: /dev/sdx [SAT] 2336 Currently unreadable pending sectors.
Thanks, but that doesn’t show whether you’re in legacy mode or not.
You can try:
ls /sys/firmware/efi
On a UEFI system, that will show you some files and directories. On a legacy BIOS system it should report “No such file or directory”.
That can be a sign of hardware issues on the drive, unfortunately.
Can you check the SMART status for the drive? (In KDE, open the “Info Center” app, and choose “SMART Status” from the the list of pages on the left. You should see a summary status for your drive, and a “Show Details” box for more info. Can you paste the contents of “Show Details” here?)
The system BIOS has the legacy module enabled, called CSM and two other options that say UEFI only. I’ve used smarttool on command line and it didn’t show any bad sectors. I’ll try your advice and get back to you.
Right, if the legacy module is enabled then your disk config is expected.
When you install with CSM enabled, the expected layout is the one you see (the 1MB biosboot partition, then an ext4 boot partition and the btrfs system partition).
I don’t think that would necessarily be a solution to the “unreadable pending sectors” problem.
There’s nothing wrong with your current disk setup as such - it’s a valid legacy mode config and shouldn’t be a cause of games failing to read the disk and crashing.
Ok, I’ll keep this post open and reinstall Fedora and upload the picture with UEFI based installation and let you know after a month that what is the status of the UEFI based installation. Usually the error get back around two weeks. But let see if your suggestion works. Thanks!
But my suggestion was to check SMART, not reinstall in UEFI mode
If you were doing a fresh install, probably better to use UEFI mode. But there’s no reason why using legacy mode would cause your problems with unreadable sectors.
Well, it’s up to you, you can reinstall if you want
But the “unreadable pending sector” error is not likely to be related to using UEFI vs legacy mode, so a reinstall is not really a solution to the problem.
Thanks for the caution approach. This same problem caused a drive to corrupt and I don’t know what else can be the problem. I’ve even installed a new drive and after two months the problem came back. So, I’ve to give it a try and then stop using PC. Can’t keep buying new parts if it keeps failing. It has to do with corruption in the market surrounding me, but I can’t fix that. I can only stop using of product.
I’m in the middle of the reinstallation process. I’ll continue on this topic after I see the same problem again. Otherwise, I’ll open a new topic regarding bad sectors or something else. Thanks!
