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Is it possible to use grub4dos (installed to MBR) with modern motherboards?


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#1 gbrao

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Posted 13 December 2020 - 12:25 PM

My relatives PC failed. The PC had a hard disk with g4d installed to the MBR. Three primary and a few logical partitions. He got a new processor + mobo.

With a Intel G6400 processor and Gigabyte GA H410M H motherboard, I'm not able to boot from the hard disk.
I have a UFD with grub4dos installed to the MBR, and that won't boot too.
In both cases after the PC boots, there is a blank screen.

I have enabled CSM.

I remember the previous mobo BIOS had a option "Boot Mode Selection" which was set to "Legacy only". This option does not exist for the new mobo.

I would like to use g4d, what BIOS settings should I enable ?

See screenshots attached. First one is from the mobo manual.

(Toshiba transmap ... is the UFD, btw)

Attached Thumbnails

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#2 Wonko the Sane

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Posted 13 December 2020 - 01:59 PM

At first sight BIOS settings seem fine, BUT the Boot Option #1 seems like being NOT the right one, as in the second screenshot it shows "Windows Boot Manager", and  it makes me think that - even if CMS is enabled - that one is still a UEFI entry to chainload the "Windows Boot Manager" :dubbio:

 

In any case, to try booting from the USB stick, try disabling everything else BUT the Toshiba Transmemory.

 

More generally, do not use "installed" grub4dos (but do use grub4dos).

 

From time to time there are issues reported about booting the grub4dos MBR (+hidden sectors) on this (or that) motherboard.

 

The "most compatible" MBR and PBR code has been, is, and will be the Microsoft/Windows one, for the simple reason that it is the one the motherboard/BIOS/UEFI manufacturers are more likely to test.

 

There are basically four ways (besides installing it) to boot to grub4dos:
1) boot to DOS and run grub.exe
2) boot to a /NT52 (2K/XP) and add grldr to the BOOT.INI
3) boot to a /NT60 (Vista/7) and add grldr to the BOOT.INI (these OS's BOOTMGR does parse BOOT.INI)
4) boot to a /NT60 (8-10) and add grldr.mbr to /boot/BCD (if I recall correctly, the change happened with 8)

 

More generally, you should first try if the motherboard boots to a "normal" OS, and use that to test the BIOS settings, this way you temporarily exclude a variable. 

 

:duff:

Wonko


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#3 gbrao

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Posted 13 December 2020 - 03:18 PM

Thanks. Will try.

 

What I've done so far is :

- With CSM enabled.

- the first primary partition was FAT32. I used bcdboot to install the regular bootmgr + boot + efi to that partition. Windows is on the 2nd primary.

- Windows boots fine. It was already installed with the old mobo on the second primary partition.

- btw, I was only able to boot the PC with a UFD with Ventoy + Win10XPE_64. Once i booted to that I could run bcdboot.

 

I will try/experiment further and report.



#4 gbrao

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Posted 14 December 2020 - 03:29 AM

Looks like Gigabyte GA H410M H, with the F2 BIOS at least, can only boot in UEFI mode. No matter what settings I choose it boots in UEFI mode. The lack of "Boot mode" in BIOS settings points to that.

 

I have contacted Gigabyte, lets see ...



#5 gbrao

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Posted 14 December 2020 - 07:39 AM

OK, I'm feeling a bit silly.

 

I installed the latest BIOS, F3, and legacy booting is working OK. G4D installed to MBR works. *clap clap*

 

The changelog for F3 only said "Improve UHD BD (4K BD) support", so I did not consider it earlier.

 

Hope this will help others who have this mobo.






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