Famous "Could not find boot partition"

Feedback
1

Hi there,

this is the first time, that I tried to install Haiku-OS, and I got the famous “Could not find boot partition” kernel panic during boot. I wasn’t sure whiche device was meant: the destination devices, or the boot media? So I spend some time tinkering around with gparted and partition setup on the target device. But then, looked at the sources of vfs_mount_boot_file_system, an abandoned that idea. Tried another USB key, and now the setup is working as expected.

So, just for feature references, if someone encounters the same error: just try another USB device. :slight_smile:

4 Likes
2

Welcome :waving_hand:t2:

Don’t forget to let us know of your first impressions.

3

What I’ve done is:

  1. Initialize the drive using the GUID partition map scheme.
  2. Create the BeFS partition. Format that file system.
  3. Create the EFI partition as EFI. Format that file system as FAT 32.
  4. Install Haiku.
  5. In the installer’s menu bar, the EFI/FAT32 partition should show up for the install boot loader option.
  6. Reboot and remove installation media.
  7. Success!
1 Like
4

If you can:

  • report the not working USB boot device (now that you have a working Haiku, use listusb to locate it and report listusb -v /dev/bus/usb/../… for this device in a ticket

  • maybe you don’t connect the new device in the same USB port, or it’s not running in the same USB speed. If you can report about potential difference here, it could help too.

2 Likes
5

Those are exactly right. !

In case non-EFI boot, if you install Haiku to USB thumbdrive or USB attached external drive, it matters which USB port you use to install and boot from, especially if you have more devices plugged in at boot time.

Generally you can install Haiku onto drives in any USB port, and boot from those drives plugged in any ports - especially if the drive is a thumbdrives or flashdrive in USB external case, without a motor, that would need a higher voltage too.
Previously - till USB 2.0 - there were ports provided these higher volts specified, but not all ports, so it was exactly named which port capable to attach an external HDD with one cable,
so then there were Y-type cables to attach such USB 2.0 cases - using 2 ports, instead one, to have enough voltage to spin the motor too, if there were no such ports in the machine.

Besides not all ports was connected to USB hubs with several speed, so there were separated by speed as well. So it mattered which port you used in case Haiku install.
Not just becase the speed of the access, but the several USB versions’ support status in Haiku. For example interestingly USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 services were differently regarding input devices, storage devices, or miscellanous devices. Especially nowadays when you can plug a cheaper USB 2.0 drive (that’s often cheaper due to the USB version, not the quality or capacity of the drive itself) and a more expensive 3.0 or 3.1/3.2 thumbdrives, and the port connected to both EHCI and XHCI hubs internally. In case Beta4 I had to switch from Sandisk to Samsung big capacity thumbdrives, as Samsung has a better fallback support to USB 2.0, that seemed that needed in case storage in case Beta4. On the Sandisk drive I had Haiku BFS corruption issues, meanwhile there were no yet memory errors (then) by the laptop system diagnostic. It had put an end with the Samsung FIT drives with the same 256 GB as the Sandisk had which was stricktly USB 3.0/3.1 drive - it seems. As general BFS drive now works for me as a backup archive drive, with USB A and USB C connector - flawlessly.

Haiku had not tolerated if I put another port when it was plugged during install - sometimes stalled at booting, I do not remember at which icon .. sometimes even none lit up.

In case legacy boot, if I just relied on to boot order to boot from USB storage device, then it had mattered in which port it was plugged in .. as BIOS wanted to find for boot device first in a specific port, and there were plugged in another USB storage device without any bootable drive (if not partitioned) or partition, then do not skipped that drive or partittion and went to the next, but immediately reported to not found any bootable partiton. THIS IS BIOS stuff NOT Haiku.

Of course, Haiku bootloader also can report that cannot find bootable partition, that’s another issue to resolve. I described potential issues before the bootloader run at all. Sometimes the Haiku already installed, just the partitioning issue should resolved, or a Bootman install would help to boot the Haiku - selecting the appropriate from many partitions, or the UEFI should be reconfigured, or created a ESP partition for it at all, and put the bootloader file(s) there. This way many possibilities can be that block the boot the Installed Haiku or boot the USB installer drive at all.

1 Like
6

@phoudoin

I did inspect the key under linux and now I see, it has a partition of type ISO9660 Filesystem. That explains the invalid SCSI probes.

I’m not sure how this could happen, it’s some time ago that I prepared that USB storage key by using balenaEtcher. Maybe it was the wrong installation media, or it was written with wrong filesystem type. With the second stick (which worked OK), I used the torrent download, while using the direct download for the stick that did not work out ok.

Also Linux marks the “faulty” USB stick filesystem as read-only.

befs: (sdd1): No write support. Marking filesystem read-only
befs: (sdd1): ag_shift disagrees with blocks_per_ag.

Yes, the USB stick is in service for several years, but I did not suspect him to have faulty hardware function.

I believe the filesystem is the key.

Will provide lsusb output later, but I doubt it’s really about the device.

Also, there is no indication that different USB ports would have improved the situation, I tried multiple ports with the same result.

I strongly suspect the filesystem, but why that was set to iso-9660 I can not reconstruct easy. However, it would totally make senso when burning the Haiku ISO to CD-ROM.

7

Linux doesn’t support writing to BFS, so this is a normal message to get. It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with the USB stick.

The anyboot image contains an ISO9660 portion to be able to be CD booted, yes. This is also normal.