I am trying to install Linux (Fedora KDE spin specifically, but this problem is probably not distribution related) on an older Acer Switch 3 (SW312-31P) tablet. The installation always fails when trying to setup grub with “failed to set new efi boot target”. Grub shows up when I boot the device, however only UEFI fimware setting is present in the GRUB menu. I repartitioned the whole internal drive as GPT added ext4 partition to be mounted at /, swap partition and FAT32 EFI partition to be mounted at /boot/efi and even told the Fedora installer to reformat it as EFI, however the result is still the same. I think the problem lies somewhere within the EFI firmware of the device itself, because when I run
sudo efibootmgr -v
I get this result:
Skipping unreadable variable "Boot0000": Input/output error
error trace:
efivarfs.c:271 efivarfs_get_variable(): read failed: Input/output error
lib.c:140 efi_get_variable(): ops->get_variable failed: Input/output error
Skipping unreadable variable "Boot0001": Input/output error
error trace:
efivarfs.c:271 efivarfs_get_variable(): read failed: Input/output error
lib.c:140 efi_get_variable(): ops->get_variable failed: Input/output error
Skipping unreadable variable "Boot0002": Input/output error
error trace:
efivarfs.c:271 efivarfs_get_variable(): read failed: Input/output error
lib.c:140 efi_get_variable(): ops->get_variable failed: Input/output error
Skipping unreadable variable "Boot0003": Input/output error
error trace:
efivarfs.c:271 efivarfs_get_variable(): read failed: Input/output error
lib.c:140 efi_get_variable(): ops->get_variable failed: Input/output error
Skipping unreadable variable "Boot0005": Input/output error
error trace:
efivarfs.c:271 efivarfs_get_variable(): read failed: Input/output error
lib.c:140 efi_get_variable(): ops->get_variable failed: Input/output error
Skipping unreadable variable "Boot2001": Input/output error
error trace:
efivarfs.c:271 efivarfs_get_variable(): read failed: Input/output error
lib.c:140 efi_get_variable(): ops->get_variable failed: Input/output error
Skipping unreadable variable "Boot2002": Input/output error
error trace:
efivarfs.c:271 efivarfs_get_variable(): read failed: Input/output error
lib.c:140 efi_get_variable(): ops->get_variable failed: Input/output error
Skipping unreadable variable "Boot2003": Input/output error
error trace:
efivarfs.c:271 efivarfs_get_variable(): read failed: Input/output error
lib.c:140 efi_get_variable(): ops->get_variable failed: Input/output error
show_order(): Input/output error
Does anyone know what does this mean? I tryed asking Generative AIs, however they would usually advice me to remove faulty entries with some command that wouldn’t work (usually using the efivar utility which would at least list all the variables without throwing an error).
I tryed using the “load optimized defaults” option in UEFI settings. That didn’t help. I have secure boot disabled.
On start grub prints out “checking media [fail]” before showing boot options.
sdais the USB stick with currently live booted Fedora KDE.mmcblk1is the internal disk I want to install on.Disk /dev/sda: 7.45 GiB, 8002732032 bytes, 15630336 sectors Disk model: Cruzer Blade Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disklabel type: gpt Disk identifier: EB4BE656-6730-46CE-819A-784A2C115F93 Device Start End Sectors Size Type /dev/sda1 64 5454691 5454628 2.6G Microsoft basic data /dev/sda2 5454692 5480551 25860 12.6M EFI System /dev/sda3 5480552 5481151 600 300K Microsoft basic data Disk /dev/mmcblk1: 116.48 GiB, 125069950976 bytes, 244277248 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disklabel type: gpt Disk identifier: C75BAF61-B578-41D5-8C6C-8505ABF109A8 Device Start End Sectors Size Type /dev/mmcblk1p1 2048 1050623 1048576 512M EFI System /dev/mmcblk1p2 1050624 9439231 8388608 4G Linux swap /dev/mmcblk1p3 9439232 244275199 234835968 112G Linux filesystem Disk /dev/mmcblk1boot0: 4 MiB, 4194304 bytes, 8192 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk /dev/mmcblk1boot1: 4 MiB, 4194304 bytes, 8192 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk /dev/loop0: 2.43 GiB, 2607599616 bytes, 5092968 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk /dev/zram0: 3.66 GiB, 3930062848 bytes, 959488 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 4096 = 4096 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytesHere’s
blkidoutput:/dev/sda1: BLOCK_SIZE="2048" UUID="2024-10-24-15-05-12-00" LABEL="Fedora-KDE-Live-41-1-4" TYPE="iso9660" PARTLABEL="ISO9660" PARTUUID="eb4be656-6730-46ce-819b-784a2c115f93"What about blkid. Does the EFI partition have a label perhaps?
I added
EFIlabel to the EFI partition. At least it shows that tag in gparted.Huh. I wonder why blkid isn’t showing the SSD.
So, if you did label it EFI, there’s a chance the firmware doesn’t like that. A bug in their firmware makes them unable to find the EFI partition when it is labeled EFI. You might try clearing the label and then reboot and try efibootmgr -v again.
Edit: Maybe related to this? https://askubuntu.com/a/676384
If you’re not sure whether it does have a label, maybe try:
lsblk -o name,label,size,uuidI removed the label using gparted and then confirmed the changes and rebooted, however the results are still the same. I am now testing the solution in the askubuntu thread you shared.