HP 800 G6 stuck on rEFInd - Initializing

[Rotoi]

Hi,

There is an issue with chainloading to boot from fog menu on HP Eliteone 800 G6. Pxe boot works for deploying. But then, when booting in pxe when there is not task, it displays the fog menu but doesn’t start from HD. There is this screen.

Host Exit EFI Type is configured on REFIND EFI on fog web interface. The other options don’t work. There is no issue with other model such as DELL.

Fog version is 1.5.8

What setting should be set ?

Thanks

[george1421]

@rotoi Lets see if these instructions resolve this issue: https://forums.fogproject.org/post/148276 Right now I want you to test to see if the updated version of refind also fixed your error.

If I remember correct the G6 is an older model of the HPs, so refind should work on it. I think G8 is the latest version, but I don’t know HP model numbers.

[Rotoi]

@george1421 Hi
I downloaded the latest refind_x64.efi and refind_ia32.efi then moved them and it still doesn’t work, with the same message. Are there other files to update as well ?

[george1421]

@rotoi Make sure the firmware is up to date on this computer. When efi boot loaders get stuck at initalizing… (both ipxe and refind) that means that the kernel can’t initialize the hardware correctly to boot. Old / outdated firmware might do this too.

[Rotoi]

@george1421 Hi, I installed the latest bios firmware and it’s still the same. The model is quite recent, juste received it. It loads the fog boot menu fine so ipxe works but gets this error for chainloading. Any other file to update ?

[george1421]

@rotoi said in HP 800 G6 stuck on rEFInd - Initializing:

Fog version is 1.5.8

You should look in /var/www/html/fog/service/ipxe directory on the fog server. Check to see if refind.efi is in there. Originally the FOG Developers were renaming refind_x64.efi refind.efi and ignoring refind_ia32.efi and refind_arm.efi. This was a decision many, many years ago before ARM CPUs were a thing. I can’t remember if 1.5.8 was the first version where they changed over to the default names or not.

But what the point is, if you find refind.efi then that is the only file name FOG is looking for, so even if you copied over refind_x64.efi FOG is only looking for refind.efi and uses the older version. If that is not the case and you are correctly running the latest version of refind and its hanging then you will need to post on the rEFInd form to let the devs over there know refind has a compatibility issue. Since refind is a delivered package to FOG the FOG devs can’t fix the issue inside refind.

[Rotoi]

@george1421 There is indeed a file named refind.efi in /var/www/html/fog/service/ipxe. I renamed the refind_x64.efi file previously downloaded and tested it. It is the same. I posted the compatibility issue in the refind forum.

[george1421]

@rotoi I just thought of something else to try to totally remove ipxe from the picture (just in case its leaving something behind causing issues. I don’t think so, but we never really know).

I have this tutorial on how to usb boot into iPXE: https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/6350/usb-boot-uefi-client-into-fog-menu-easy-way

The idea is if we exchange ipxe.efi in this tutorial with the refind_x64.efi file (renamed according to the tutorial) then you should be able to boot into refind from the usb stick. You might get a warning because the config file is missing, but lets see if it get past initialization bit.

[Rotoi]

@george1421 I booted the refind_x64.efi file renamed bootx64.efi from the usb stick. It’s the same error, “rEFIND - Initializing” in a blue banner with a black background. It seems to be indeed a compatibility issue with this model.

[george1421]

@rotoi Yes I agree. I wanted to get FOG out of the picture to make sure we weren’t leaving bits behind for refind to stumble on.

For this model of computer. Go into the host definition for this computer and pick the exit mode of “Exit”. Lets see if this system will take the Exit command. That is the only other UEFI Exit mode that is available at the moment, the others are for bios mode. If this doesn’t work 40/60% chance, I want to try setting an error level with the Exit command (something new I just learned). But thats a bit more complicated to setup than just picking Exit from the UEFI Exit mode in the host definition.

[Rotoi]

@george1421 Like I said in the original post, I tested every options from the Host EFI Exit Type including EXIT, it doesn’t work. It says “chainloading failed, hit ‘s’ for the ipxe shell”. Yes, what is it about setting the error level ?

[george1421]

@rotoi Actually that is the easiest way.

When you get the hit s for command prompt, do that.

At the command prompt key in exit 1 and press enter. If that doesn’t work then try exit 2. This is just an experiment to see if what I read is accurate.

exit is a built in command into iPXE, where refind, ipxe chainloads refind.efi and lets refind boot the system. Exit and SANBOOT are built into to iPXE.

[Rotoi]

@george1421 exit 1 and exit 2 just restart the system.

[george1421]

@rotoi Ok thank you for trying. I was hoping we found a magic bullet to getting this thing going for you.

[Florent]

@rotoi You can try last version of refind.efi https://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/
Here we think to set new options “reboot” for uefi system to bypass this problem when no task in progress

[Rotoi]

@florent 0.13.3.1 is the version I already tested previously.