Kali does not boot - Firmware mess-up after an upgrade - after a harddisk migration.
Hi all,
So I've been happily using my linux distro for one year. I've used kali in the past in 2013[Edited], and because I felt comfortable with it I completely switched to that as my main OS that I use daily. And I've been on it for 1 year. First 8-9 months I've used it on an external SSD drive. Just for a test ride to figure out all it's capabilities and all I can do to not look back to my old os. It went well so I decided to buy an m.2 drive and I used clonezilla to migrate the disk from my SSD to m.2 That's when I messed up the first time. I cloned the entire disk rather than only cloning the user files and the system. I cloned EFI and Swap as well somehow :D. Then I found a solution to be able to boot that was involving changing the UUID's of partitions on the bootloader. So I did that. And it worked. I logged in my full fledged os. Which worked a couple of months more. I'm using the Grub Bootloader just because I still have a windows hdd in my setup that I use to connect to my company for work. Then one day I just sudo apt upgrade. Somehow the UUID's got messed up again. I tried the same trick but it didn't work. First it complained about the UUID's then when I solved it it said that my firmware is bad. Then I've tried the following. *I've tried to restore the broken firmware by downloading and replacing the firmware that it's complaining, but each time it want's me to correct a new file in the firmware. *I've tried to update upgrade, didn't work. *I've tried to update the firmware forcefully however it didn't work either. *I've tried to format the hdd completely and reinstall from scratch it didn't work. *I've tried to format the hdd by completely clean it with clean all with diskpart in windows. didn't work *I've changed kali installer versions didn't work. *I've also tried to install Debian, which worked perfectly. however I couldn't install nvidia drivers on it again because of the messed up firmware. So my question is... Why is the firmware cannot reset with a format? Where does it exactly live? And how do I purge it and fix my hdd to be able to accomodate Kali linux once again? Sorry for the huge backstory, I just wanted to tell how I got to this stage, that might give some people where and how I might have screwed up. Thank you! |
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Try providing more detailed information, logs, messages, even screenshots rather than vague "it's firmware" |
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http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-...html#beprecise Quote:
Last but not least: https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...ad-4175614092/ |
Hi all,
Thanks for your replies. Quote:
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I first thought it was somehow protected from rewrite and it would be protected by all diskpart commands somehow. Then I discarded the possibility of it being there, so maybe rather I am breaking the installation files in the kali img flash. To test that I just created another kali img and still it kept coming up with the same complaint. Returning back to my initial thought where somehow the firmware survived, and I created a secondary partition in the disk so I can start slicing it to necessary partitions, and somehow it fixed the issue, but when I did a sudo apt upgrade, it broke the firmware again. Quote:
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However if you could guide me to how I can give more info about the: -Firmware path info and where system thinks it lives. I can send lshw & lsblk output and will send them in this thread. -Boot log so that I can pass the file here. Quote:
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It feels like I'm in the right place. I also work on some projects regarding machine learning, and pipeline, and on the side and I also would like to explore some gpu tools in Kali which I haven't tried out previously, which is why I need a complete passthrough on gpu. That I think diminishes the virtual machine possibility on Kali. At least free solutions. I could have used mint, but I wanted to at least challange myself that Kali could run as a main OS if needed. And my workplace also uses Mint so it was to actually not feel like I'm working :D Thank you for all your patience all, I also receive tons of tickets in a day without any tangible info and I've posted one without those info regardless. I'll get back with more info as much as I can do tonight. Also I was expecting that I'm missing a really basic step where maybe I need to delete the firmware by hand or force install it and it would work, However that might not be the case so sorry again. I'll supply more data to go on. Thanks! |
4 Attachment(s)
Hi all,
So when I tried to boot again, this time I think I've addressed all the problematic firmware files so it only prompts me this, which never prevented me booting the system. But now it hangs there. Attachment 42588 Then I tried to get into recovery mode to get some details of my system, but this time, I wasn't able to, and there seems to be 2 different versions there as shown. Attachment 42589 I tried both recovery modes there and I'm putting the screen capture of both down below. Attachment 42590 Attachment 42592 It doesn't let me enter the command line. So I couldn't get the info that we may need. I don't have any essential data and I have my backups so I can start over if that is necessary. Thank you! |
Back when my chromebook came with Kali installed. They had 2 type of upgrade. A real big one that grabs all the tools for pen testing.
A smaller one if not wanting to pull in everything. Which did you use? I use antiX now on my chromebook with it's own grub repair tool in control center. So best I can do for you. https://sourceforge.net/p/boot-repair/home/Home/ |
Thanks rokytnji! I'll give it a go and see if it fixes things. I didn't install the extended tools, I was planning to do so after booting. Meanwhile I tried to install it on windows with wsl2 and rdm and I will also try to do the GPU passthrough so that I can utilize it. But I will definitely try to fix the main os as it's the most convenient way of it working.
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But don't worry, it's your decision, you made your life unnecessarily difficult. What you posted is quite strange. There is a message "root account locked" which should be solved. You have corrupted journaling. Also it looks like some kind of bluetooth related firmware was mentioned. None of these issues related to boot or grub, the boot had been started and kernel was found. Probably your disk is damaged or your filesystem is corrupted or it is just a simple disk full. The main thing I see is what you wrote, you totally messed up your system and not only once. You wrote you installed debian and kali several times without success. It is again something which cannot be solved with grub. Would be nice to give us exact details what did you try and make, otherwise nobody can help you to step forward. Personally I would go with debian and solve that nvidia and/or firmware related issue, and also I would definitely try to do a clean install without dirty hacks. |
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Hi all,
So I guess somehow some things survived clean all in diskpart. Maybe it's cached in some reserved space somewhere, however I followed up a page on how to clean all EFI stuff to wipe all. And it worked, at least now with my new installed kali I can now boot to recovery mode with GUI. When I usually installed Kali, it errors on nouveau driver and Nvidia driver installation. So I fixed that. And for my case I also had a bluetooth issue where I had to do some stuff after booting to make it work, but I think they are red herrings. So currently I have a kali that works as expected from every aspect, however it's not booting with the normal mode, It doesn't say anything while not booting. When I boot in recovery mode, everything is usable and everything works fine. I have the GPU working, I tried a couple of projects and all is working fine with the GPU. I have all sound and internet connections, the users are set correctly, I have my account admin privileges. So I can't figure why it's not booting now. I've included in the post various kinds of info and I'm attaching a file for journalctl.txt for booting troubleshooting. os-release Code:
PRETTY_NAME="Kali GNU/Linux Rolling" Code:
Linux reap 6.6.9-amd64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Kali 6.6.9-1kali1 (2024-01-08) x86_64 GNU/Linux Code:
/dev/nvme0n1p5: UUID="b170cc49-0190-4201-bc3c-05d838c0f709" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="5251319e-bfc8-4c21-9b69-40e48df62e88" Code:
Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 3.64 TiB, 4000787030016 bytes, 7814037168 sectors Code:
cpu: Code:
System: Code:
Architecture: x86_64 Code:
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime) |
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing
this is the output of journalctl I couldn't upload here due to size. |
Well. You have the nvidia driver running I see.
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https://www.systranbox.com/how-to-us...recovery-mode/ Broken install is mentioned a bunch. Might wanna look into Rescue Mode. |
Ok I've just went through and fixed all the warnings and errors. My system works perfectly in Recovery mode, I found some mounting issues and fixed them as well. The only thing that is left it says SGX is disabled by bios. And It's always said that. Never failed a boot.
So I start to feel like it might be bios. It persist and survive the format, I dont have anything complaining in os side. My fast boots and secure boots are disabled. I dont use legacy mode for EFI, I've selected other os rather than windows os. What might I be missing? |
Easy way to show I guess
Code:
# dmidecode | more |
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However... I would go further, to state that this endeavour and thread is a waste of everyone's time, including the OP's. There seems to be two problems: - A UUID mess up, primarily caused by a lack of understanding, when cloning the disk/ssd/block device. Cloning Linux installations is not so straightforward, as e.g. a Windows or FreeBSD installation due to the grub bootloader and UUIDs, which are usually how block devices are mounted in /etc/fstab. It requires more work and understanding. - Messages about (missing?) firmware, appearing during boot messages. The first one is not really worth anyone's time in unraveling, as it's your own self-inflicted problem. Just install the SSD in the machine and clean install Debian on the SSD. Install the bootloader to the primary drive and ensure you run os-prober to chainload the Windows installation. The second problem could be the usual "possible missing firmware". Next time it appears, take note of the missing firmware file names and search the web for info. If you install the latest Debian release, all of the firmware is now included - if there's still messages about missing firmware, you will need to note down the file names and do some research. As it stands you've made a few lengthy posts about the "firmware", yet no one is any the wiser in terms of what kind of firmware you're talking about... even though you said you were downloading missing files and installing one by one - what files and from where? |
Hi,
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Completely renewed now. I'm just suspecting something is not right in my bios to boot in regular mode rather than rescue mode. Or maybe it can be read and write priviliges, which I checked from the user groups and user privileges as well as root account access. Thank you for your feedback and reply. |
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