HP ProBook 450 G1: no automatic boot in UEFI mode

[Mauro]

The whole story is at:
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=164076

Anyway, here is a summary. Installed Linux Mint 16 KDE on an empty new SSD on this notebook, leaving Mint take the whole disk (with LVM and encryption). The BIOS was configured by myself to boot in Native UEFI mode, without CSM (default is to boot in legacy mode, Windows 7 Professional is pre-installed on my unit). Secure Boot is disabled.

Exact notebook model is HP ProBook 450 G1 (E9Y21EA). Provided firmware was 1.07, but I also updated it to 1.08 (the latest one at date) with no difference for this issue.

After installation, Mint does not start automatically: the message "no bootable image found" is shown and the only option is to press the OK button, which shuts down the notebook. By pressing ESC immmediately after turning it on and then F9, a boot menu is shown, from which you can choose "ubuntu": at this point, Mint starts. If "ubuntu" is not shown, you can choose "boot from an image file" and then use the navigation controls to choose the hard disk, then EFI/ubuntu/grubx64.efi (or EFI/ubuntu/shimx64.efi).

Workarounds to make Mint boot automatically follow.

METHOD 1:
Follow suggestions given in release notes (but they are not 100% correct!) and copy /boot/efi/EFI/ubuntu/grubx64.efi (or /boot/efi/boot/efi/EFI/ubuntu/shimx64.efi) to /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi.
I think this step must be repeated whenever you upgrade the Grub package.

METHOD 2:
In HP BIOS setup program, check the "customized boot" option. Then, go to "Define customized boot option", switch it to "Add" (rather than "Delete") and, when requested, type in the following path: EFI\ubuntu\grubx64.efi (or EFI\ubuntu\shimx64.efi). Finally, change the UEFI boot order so that the "customized boot" option is above the "OS Boot Manager" option.

METHOD 3 (not a real workaround):
In HP BIOS setup put in a 5 (or more) seconds delay for the "MultiBoot Express" menu. Then, when you switch on your notebook, you'll have 5 (or more) seconds to choose "ubuntu" among the possible boot options (it should be the last one). However, if you don't select anything, the default start sequence is taken and the "no bootable image found" message shown.

NOTE 1:
The "OS Boot Manager" option, which has the maximum priority by default and which cannot be disabled at all, seems to expect the O.S. boot manager to be at EFI/BOOT/boox64.efi. I couldn't find a way to prevent this, apart from configuring a "customized boot" option and giving it higher priority. The "OS Boot Manager" option cannot be disabled.

NOTE 2:
The priority of the "ubuntu" entry cannot be changed in the UEFI Boot Order options, so I can't give it a higher priority than "OS Boot Manager". The only options available for the UEFI Boot Order are the standard ones (O.S. Boot Manager, boot from optical disk, boot from USB device, boot from IPv4 network, boot from IPv6 network, customized boot).

NOTE 3:
If the "ubuntu" entry is not shown in the BIOS boot menu which opens by pressing ESC+F9, a "sudo update-grub" in Mint is not enough. You should also do:
sudo efibootmgr -c -w -l \\EFI\\ubuntu\\shimx64.efi -L "ubuntu" -p 1 -d /dev/sda

NOTE 4:
If more than one "ubuntu" entries is shown in the BIOS boot menu which opens by pressing ESC+F9 (it happened to me after subsequent install attempts on the same disk), to clean the situation, do this:
- enter the HP BIOS setup (ESC+F10)
- switch boot mode from Native UEFI to Legacy
- exit saving changes
- re-enter the HP BIOS setup (ESC+F10)
- switch boot mode from Legacy to Native UEFI
- exit saving changes
- enter the HP BIOS Boot menu (ESC+F9), choose to boot from EFI image file (all "ubuntu" entries should be missing now) and choose shimx64.efi or grubx65.efi, as described above
- once in Mint, follow NOTE 3 to restore an only "ubuntu" entry

WHAT'S THIS BUG ABOUT?
The user experience is very bad. I spent a lot of time to understand how the whole thing work, thanks to the help of srs5694 user in the Mint forums, and I consider myself an expert user. The workaround given in the release notes (which seem to apply to VirtualBox only) is not 100% correct and might not be the best solution.
I think Mint should find a way to make things better. I think the "customized boot" workaround is better (it shouldn't need to be applied again when Grub is upgraded, unless the boot image file name changes), but the HP BIOS UI to enable this is quite abstruse (especially the Add/Delete step...). Also, the "ubuntu" EFI boot entry can be created multiple times in some cases (although efibootmgr -v shows it only once...) and, on the other hand, it's not that easy to put it back if it's missing.

By the way, the "ubuntu" EFI boot entry should also better be called "mint" or "Mint" ;-)

[Sebastian Philipp (seb-philipp-z)]

Thank you for this report! I spent hours of setting up my EFI to automatically boot.

But this is a great flaw in HP's UEFI implementation, not in Ubuntu or Mint. Thus, this should better be reported to HP than here.

[Sebastian Philipp (seb-philipp-z)]

A bug from HP, not Mint

[Tobias Volfing (tobiasvv)]

The bug has been reported to HP today.

[Vincent Gerris (vgerris)]

Hi, thanks a lot, Method 2 works great.
Just wanted to add that when booting with Clover from USB you will also see it, that was how I got in the first time.

Sad implementation of HP indeed, this works fine on any Dell with UEFI I used so far (and you can browse through files in their UEFI when adding a boot entry).

Is there a link to the bug report? I updated to a BIOS from may 2016 (latest for the G1 430) and the issue still exists.

thanks for the elaborate explanation :).

[Sat (nicoolas-t)]

Hi Mauro,
Many thanks for the detailed and working solutions !

[John (jbl0)]

I cannot thank you enough for taking the time to share what you learned.

I have copied below the method that worked for me on an HP ProBook 6570b, BIOS Version 68ICE Ver. F.31, 09/24/2012, following the install of Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.

METHOD 2:
In HP BIOS setup program, check the "customized boot" option. Then, go to "Define customized boot option", switch it to "Add" (rather than "Delete") and, when requested, type in the following path: EFI\ubuntu\grubx64.efi (or EFI\ubuntu\shimx64.efi). Finally, change the UEFI boot order so that the "customized boot" option is above the "OS Boot Manager" option.

[djchandler (djchandler)]

Ubuntu 20.04 installed on that same model without issue. Admittedly, this is a rescued machine that had a coffee accident. The original 640 GB HD got reformatted first, and Ubuntu installed from the CD Drive. That may make a difference whether or not the install media boots correctly. Now that I'm thinking of putting Chrome OS Flex on the darn thing, I have to disable UEFI safe boot, and so on.

Thanks for the discourse on your issue. It will help me decide what I want to do besides F@H on that old workhorse.

[Nuno Romeu Policarpo Lopes (nunoromeu96)]

I don't have an option to add a "customized boot" in my bios. How can I solve it?
I have read to enter the following command in Windows cmd as an administrator if you have secure boot enabled:
bcdedit /set {bootmgr} path \EFI\ubuntu\shimx64.efi
If secure boot is disabled:
bcdedit /set {bootmgr} path \EFI\ubuntu\grubx64.efi

Messing with the Windows Boot settings can be dangerous, so I'm undecided whether I should try it or not.

[Nuno Romeu Policarpo Lopes (nunoromeu96)]

Actually, there is another way: Follow this link - https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=368217