[Solved] I cannot boot into Haiku - EFI - 64 bit (the solution using rEFInd)

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1

Hi All,

I installed Haiku on a Thknkpad X220 from live usb stick. This machine has an SSD hard drive 256 gb. I formatted the hard drive and then installed Haiku as my only operating system. During installation, when I tried to use the bootmanager to set up the boot menu it did not set up the boot menu on the SSD hard drive.

I then followed the instructions as explained here and tried to boot using UEFI: UEFI Booting Haiku | Haiku Project
I named the partition as EFI, added a boot subdirectory directory and placed the haiku_loader.efi in the boot subdirectory under efi directory.

So, specifically, this is what I did:

The Partition Layout

  • I chose a GPT disk system on the target device.
  • I created a 64 MiB partition at the start of the disk.
    • Set it at “EFI system data” type.
    • Formatted as FAT32, labelled “EFI”
  • Created Haiku partition (~ 30 gb)
    • Formatted as BeFS, label “Haiku”
      The post installation,

I mounted the “EFI” partition
Then in the /efi folder, created a boot subfolder (mkdir boot)
Copied the /boot/system/data/platform_loaders/haiku_loader.efi to /efi/boot

Then when I tried to reboot, the computer did not reboot, instead it went into the BIOS menu and it listed Grub-uefi as the first entry but that did not do anything.

But when I inserted the Haiku USB (from where I installed the system), and hit ESC key, it then booted into the new installed system. At that point, even if I remove the USB drive, it does not matter.

What do I need to do so the system can boot without the USB inserted?

2

The bootloader also usually needs to be renamed to bootx64.efi.

3

Thank you for this suggestion. Renaming the file to bootx64.efi did not change anything.

4

I just noticed the path appears to be missing an extra “efi” directory at the top level. If your EFI partition is mounted at /efi then the path to the bootloader would be /efi/efi/boot/bootx64.efi

1 Like
5

Yes!
Thanks a million!
It worked.
so, this is what I had to do (just in case it helps anyone in my similar situation):

  1. Download rEFInd from rEFInd download | SourceForge.net
  2. Expand refind-bin-xxx.zip
  3. Copied drivers_x64, icons, tools_x64, renamed refind_sample.conf to refind.conf, and refind_x64.efi to /efi/efi/boot (thanks to you, @Lrrr for this advice!)
  4. Also renamed the haiku_loader.efi to bootx64.efi
  5. added a menu entry to refind.conf to indicate the volume, and the location of the loader, and “enable”, so the menu entry looked like:
menuentry "haiku"{
   volume "haiku"
   loader /efi/efi/boot/bootx64.efi
  enabled
}

Saved the file, exited,
Reboot.
Worked!
Thanks again!

6

as reference, it may be easier to simply copy the contents of the ESP on the thumb drive you booted on 1:1 to the ESP of your new install.

regards

1 Like
7

Great point. I was not sure if the usb had an ESP in the first place, I could not see that partition at all in the usb drive. This is why I did not attempt to copy paste.