From blibbet at gmail.com Fri Apr 20 15:13:59 2018 From: blibbet at gmail.com (Blibbet) Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2018 12:13:59 -0700 Subject: [Fw_Os_Forum] Using Multiple caddied disks to teach students OS installation etc In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4ce33405-e509-43e1-b2c7-fef644fe0bfd@gmail.com> Complete guess: "caddied" hard drive support is probably not a default feature of a stock BIOS or UEFI. Your BIOS had disk caddy support, but your UEFI does not. Ask your caddy vendor for new firmware support. As a workaround, how about dropping into UEFI Shell, using startup.nsh to run appropriate shell commands to mount the various disks, instead of hoping the firmware will do what you want. At least with UEFI, you have a chance to fix things in shell before OS starts. If you can't see/access these drives from the UEFI Shell, then I presume you will need a caddy update to your firmware. Again, complete guess. :-) On 04/19/2018 06:53 AM, Peter Gibbins wrote: > I have a unusual problem with UEFI > > I have a lab of 20+ PCs which is used continuously - each student uses a numbered "Caddied" hard drive for their installation exercises > In this way we can have several classes doing installation exercises consecutively. > > Problem... If "BIOS" (I know it's not ) is in UEFI mode the system records all the previous installations as if it were a multiple boot system. > Also, as the other installations no longer exist, if you click a previous installation in error, the OS is not found... > > Switching to "Legacy Only" mode allows the caddied drives to operate normally. > > However, Is this the only way? Can /UEFI be configured to accept multiple, dismountable drives? > > Any help in setting up a stable environment for this lab would be appreciated > > Peter Gibbins > Lecturer In Computing & IT Studies > East Kent College > > > > 'This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you are not the intended recipient be advised that you have received this email in error and that any use, dissemination, forwarding, printing or copying of this email is prohibited' - East Kent College > > > > _______________________________________________ > fw_os_forum mailing list > fw_os_forum at mailman.uefi.org > http://lists.mailman.uefi.org/mailman/listinfo/fw_os_forum From dann.frazier at canonical.com Fri Apr 20 16:17:58 2018 From: dann.frazier at canonical.com (dann frazier) Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2018 14:17:58 -0600 Subject: [Fw_Os_Forum] Using Multiple caddied disks to teach students OS installation etc In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: hey Peter, My guess is that your Boot Manager entries have recorded the UUID of the installed-to disk, and when you change disks, that UUID changes underneath it. UEFI does have something called a "removable media path". This is used to find a working bootloader on a disk, without a specific boot entry, in an OS independent way. This is used to e.g. boot operating system installation media. It's possible your system will, or could be configured to, fallback to the removable media path if all previous boot entries fail. You could try renaming your OS bootloader binary to the removable media path for your architecture (or creating a wrapper that execs your bootloader): https://wiki.debian.org/UEFI#Booting_from_removable_media Other options that might work, but seem way more painful, would be to force the UUID on every disk to be the same (I forget if this is a filesystem UUID or a physical property of the disk), or to add a boot entry for every UUID to every computer (!!) -dann On Thu, Apr 19, 2018 at 7:53 AM, Peter Gibbins wrote: > I have a unusual problem with UEFI > > > > I have a lab of 20+ PCs which is used continuously ? each student uses a > numbered ?Caddied? hard drive for their installation exercises > > In this way we can have several classes doing installation exercises > consecutively. > > > > Problem? If ?BIOS? (I know it?s not ) is in UEFI mode the system records > all the previous installations as if it were a multiple boot system. > > Also, as the other installations no longer exist, if you click a previous > installation in error, the OS is not found? > > > > Switching to ?Legacy Only? mode allows the caddied drives to operate > normally. > > > > However, Is this the only way? Can /UEFI be configured to accept multiple, > dismountable drives? > > > > Any help in setting up a stable environment for this lab would be > appreciated > > > > Peter Gibbins > > Lecturer In Computing & IT Studies > > East Kent College > > > > > > > > 'This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and for the > use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you are not > the intended recipient be advised that you have received this email in error > and that any use, dissemination, forwarding, printing or copying of this > email is prohibited' - East Kent College > > _______________________________________________ > fw_os_forum mailing list > fw_os_forum at mailman.uefi.org > http://lists.mailman.uefi.org/mailman/listinfo/fw_os_forum