Help with Bazzite recovery partition problem
yesterday, i tried to install bazzite but i made the partition too small to my liking, and after installation, i deleted the partition to make it become unallocated space, re-merged it, and then factory reset it. trying for another installation, but i see Fedora in boot priority, which i thought was some sort of backup? Tried to install bazzite but it ran into an error and stopped . tried to go to BIOS and try that fedora, and now this comes up. and i'm lost.
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ok i got out of it, and went back to bios, deleted the boot option, put the drive with bazzite back in, and gonna try again. but when i put the drive back in, the boot option came back. idunno if i have to clean out the drive
The bios reads all the available systems that can boot. You probably have an entry for fedora in your efi partition (that I'm guessing is shared with Windows)
I made a Bazzite dual-boot video guide. Hopefully it will help https://youtu.be/pbxM_1ZJCCc
so like....
does a windows factory reset remove the entry?
since i did successfully install bazzite before, but then emptied the partition to make it unallocated, and then did the reset.
and now im trying it again with the same drive, but the drive brings up itself, and the fedora
I think windows factory reset only affects your Windows install and not other things that are installed on the same drive
If you remove partitions on the drive, the efi entries will still be in the bios. You can usually just ignore these
hm. so i went back to windows, and i see that the space i allocated for bazzite is now a healthy primary partition. not accessible by windows. i dunno if its because of the failed bazzite installation, and idunno if it's cuz of the existing fedora from the first successful install
ok i cleaned out the drive that i used for bazzite, and i'm reformatting it. im gonna reflash it, and see if that'll help
Good luck🤞
thx. i hope so
cuz this whole thing started cuz i allocated too little space for my liking
so i wanted to clear everything and redo it properly, but this became a huge mess
i do think cleaning out the drive and reformatting so i can reflash it is the right move, since the fedora popped up after i put the drive in
Are you going to re-install windows and then install bazzite again?
i still have a 1 GB primary partition and a 600 gb partition that kind of needs to go away and be unallocated so i can actually install
the 1 gb i think came to be while trying to install, the 600 ish was the split i've made
i dont think i need to re-install, but i wouldn't mind. its not like i have anything important, and this thing's barely a week old
Is bazzite still booting? Or have you already removed partitions
Oh nevermind. See your screenshot
that screenshot was where i was at originally, but i found out how to exit it
You should be able to remove the 1GB partition and the old Bazzite partition from the Disk Management screen in Windows.
ye, i did that. 1gb is now back in windows
and the bazzite partition is now unallocated again
now im going to reflash bazzite onto the drive
and then plug it in, and hopefully it should be good to install
Do manual partitioning like shown in the install guide and then Bazzite and Windows will have their own EFI partitions and you'll have less issues
Rn it looks like this
Perfect
now im flashing bazzite into the drive
im not sure if because the drive had already did an installation, that the fedora thing popped up alongside the drive in BIOS for boot options
but hopefully a re-format, into re-flash will fix that
or else i dun fucked up real good
ooook....i see fedora popped up again in the drive. i...dont think thats a good thing,
im just gonna try using the drive to reinstall
Well shit. It popped up again
ok it looks like there's something about deleting the partitions but not removing grub
Did you make a seperate efi partition?
Specifically efi?
I did make a separate partition. It's just called unallocated space or whatever
Did you use manual partitioning like in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbxM_1ZJCCc&t=550s?
Yes I went into windows, use disk management, and shrunk the c drive into the unallocated looking partition
I found this on github. This might be my solution. Since I am essentially trying to reinstall
In other words you're not reading the dual boot guide and using the automated install to make the dual boot which will make a ticking time bomb because of windows.
But yes the error is from the EFI partition still having files from fedora
So i guess I'll just have to follow that specific post to try and clean out the remnant files
Or is there another method to try and clear out the files
nope you need to clean out the remnant files
all you have to do is mount the efi partition and delete the fedora folder
....so just go into windows file Explorer, look for fedora folder; and yeet?
Sorry I don't fully understand "mount the efi partition" but that was my thought
i do not use windows so take this with a grain of salt but i think you can do it this way
1. Open an Administrator Command Prompt window by right-clicking the Command Prompt icon and selecting the option to run it as Administrator.
2. In the Command Prompt window, type
mountvol b: /S
3. type start b:\ in the command prompt and iirc it should open the file explorer and show you the contents of the EFI folder
to unmount the efi partition you do mountvol b: /d
if step 3 fails a simple workaround since you just need to delete a folder is to run notepad from the admin command prompt then go to File --> open
then browse B:\ and delete the fedora folder from there.
not ideal but that should work regardlessWait why b?
From what I understand, the only drive I have in windows is the C drive, where everything is.
b is because its a free letter that i know there is no way in hell youre using for anything on your system since it is reserved for stuff like the boot partition (although you can replace
b: in the command for whatever freely available letter and it will not care)
essentially you need to tell it a letter to assign and its temporary, it has the boot files so B for BOOTi think i pulled it off, following that guide that i mentioned. i assigned the letter Z, found the director of the EFI, and fedora was there. and i think i deleted it successfully cuz i dont see it anymore
yup
now you can just unmount the Z: drive
since it should not be mounted for obvious reasons
do i just hit exit?
or i guess the mountvol z: /d that u mentioned
think you might have to cd out of Z then unmount
ok i think in that case, i'll try exit and then start from the beginning?
mountvol z: /d is the unmount command
and once thats done you can reboot and try reinstall and follow the dual boot guide with the manual partition setup which uses 2 efi partitions (1 for windows and one for bazzite that windows cannot touch)so i exited and restarted cmd, and traced my steps back here
system was the one with the Z drive and now its gone, i think exit might have worked? but idunno
System Z is also no longer here in files Explorer
im not sure if im done now. the Z letter is gone, and fedora was removed
Yeah you're good. Just go back to reinstalling bazzite now
yea i just went back to BIOS. the fedora of previous isnt there anymore
That's good
so as far as im aware, it should be fine now. but i'll have to actually install and see if the fatal error doesnt pop up again
Now just go back to the usb installer
You'll want to reinstall Bazzite. That's the safest way
Unless you got important stuff on there already
wait im dum
when u say reinstall bazzite, u just mean installing bazzite as normal correct? into the empty partition
thing said bazzite successfully installed, now i wait
hope you went the manual partitions way this time
thats the method of shrinking the C drive to make a partition fit for bazzite correct?
no
Dual Boot Preliminary and Post-Installation Setup Guide - Bazzite D...
Bazzite is a custom image built upon Fedora Atomic Desktops that brings the best of Linux gaming to all of your devices.
please actually read the documentation, it saves everyone (including you) a lot of headache and issues in the future
oops....kind of already went past that part with the bazzite installation
er, would u recommend i delete everything and redo it properly with the manual partitions?
ok i think i'mma just redo it again, and do the manual partition. i'll just redo my steps. delete the partition. remove fedora.
you'll also have to once again delete the fedora boot files from your windows partition
the same way as you did before
ye. im just gonna follow the exact steps i did.
i was watching a video before that didnt mention the manual partition, but i should have probably followed the docs
you ahve to do a custom install with "Advanced Custom" in the installer. I had assumed you knew this was what you already knew by new
too many people just watch a video and end up on this discord with the exact same issues 😦
nah the advanced custom i didnt know about, that's on me
ye :1_Tokkii_Lost:
o well, in hindsight, the first time i did it, i never did the advanced custom, so i probably would have ran into an issue somewhere and have no idea
so better for me to catch it now
as long as you can still boot into windows, you're not cooked
1) just mount the partition again, delete the fedora folder like before
2)Reboot to the Bazzite installer and do Advanced Custom (blivet-gui) and setup partitions like this:
Manual Partitioning Scheme:
mount point: /boot/efi
format: EFI system partition
size: 300MB
mount point: /boot
format: ext4
size: 1GB
mount point:
format: btrfs
size: [max]
mount point: /
format: btrfs (subvolume)
mount point: /var
format: btrfs (subvolume)
mount point: /var/home
format: btrfs (subvolume)
the mount points can be set after you made the btrfs partition.
On the left side (it looks like a folder)ye i just went into bios, swapped to windows, went into disk management, emptied the partitions
now i need to go into cmd, clear out fedora
3) After you set all the partitions above you can install
4) Profit
Ok I'm back to where I was. I cleared the fedora. Emptied the space. Restarted my system and the letter drive I assigned is gone. I think we're good
Now I just need to install bazzite and do that manual partition
hope you didn't clear the windows ones :clueless:
see at that point i'd think my brain would wanna self sabotage
well if windows still boots you're good
then you're not cooked
you can still recover windows through a windows install usb and using bootrec, but good luck you'll be busy even longer 😛
real quick
im in the grub version 2.12 screen
is a test this media and install needed, or can i just do install bazzite
don't test media
choose top one
test media will only ever work properly using dd
k
also i think i dont need to do that universalblue key thing since i did it the first time, and it didnt pop up the 2nd time
you don't
the only time you need to redo it is when you update your bios
stuff like that is saved in the ROM
in the system firmware itself
alright im back in the choose disk
except now i click advanced custom
yes
Manual Partitioning Scheme:
mount point: /boot/efi
format: EFI system partition
size: 300MB
mount point: /boot
format: ext4
size: 1GB
mount point:
format: btrfs
size: [max]
mount point: /
format: btrfs (subvolume)
mount point: /var
format: btrfs (subvolume)
mount point: /var/home
format: btrfs (subvolume)
the latter half of this list is done after you've done the top half
on a different tab on that custom list
giving things names is not needed but feel free 😛So following this. Free space is the partition storage I use
yep
and you make the partitions listed
efi at minimum 300mb
boot at minimum 1gb
btrfs at the remaining space
then make at least a
/ and /var/home subvolume
the /var subvolume is optional
you get the option to make subvolumes once you click on the btrfs partition you madeyeah somewhere on the left side it looks like a folder
So this 1 is done.
perfect
So now I go into btrfs volume
yep and on the left side you can make new subvolumes iirc
Aight now this is done
i think thats everything
got the bazzite-efi with /boot/efi
bazzite-boot with /boot
the btrfs with those 3 subvolumes
yep that should be it
so i'll hit done and accept changes
gonna hit begin installation now. manual partitioning i think is all done and good
ALRIGHT, now im in bazzite, again
with the manual partitions done this time
yep windows wont remove the linux bootloader at least now
worst thing that can happen is a bios update just removes the boot entry which is easier to add back according to people
i guess that will be a "we get there when we get there" struggle?
pretty much
since a bios update resets the bios and it just needs to "re-find" the efi for bazzite and might need help with it
if people went through with it, what's the most commonly accepted method of fixing it?
Some better motherboards let you directly into efi shell
And just load the .efi
:gigachad:
except this is a rog ally x so.....
:shruge: