How to format HD for UEFI boot - Centos 7.7

[chlowden007]

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[desertcat]

D'cat
Thank you for your encouraging words. What you wrote should probably be an opening advice for neophytes like myself.
There is no magic bullet

Following all the advice, I managed to boot on the machine.
I attach screen grabs of how I did it.

1. DELL BIOS check: Secure Boot off, UEFI ON with Legacy option ON.
2. Install CENTOS off a USB key using dd command.
3. Disk Format menu
01_s.jpg
4. I set the boot device by clicking on the tiny link at the bottom of the screen.
02_s.jpg
03_s.jpg
Selected all the drives. The OS gave me no choice.

Hummmm I did not think you planned to commit harakiri. I thought you only had *1* drive installed, not *3*. In the future to make sure you don't do something stupid -- like erase a disk you did not plan to erase (don't ask me how I learned this lesson) -- in the event you have multiple drives installed. First run fdisk -l to ID all your drives to pick out the *1* drive on which you plan to install the OS (/dev/sda; /dev/sdb; /dev/sdc; etc.) you can usually tell which drive is which based upon the size of the drive. Then open up the machine and DISCONNECT ALL CABLES TO ALL THE OTHER DRIVES OTHER THAN THE TARGET DRIVE!!

Second I am impressed: You choose the most complex way to do the install. The far EASIER way to have done the install was to check the box (dot) that said AUTOMATICALLY CONFIGURE PARTITIONING. The Only other way which would have been far more complex would be to have done a Custom Install, but yeah that the way you did it uses the same methodology that you used.

Third out of shear CURIOSITY -- which goes with my cat-like persona -- what type of software did you install?!?

Fourth without playing with it to test my theories, I think you could have ditched the UEFI and gone with a straight Legacy system which would have only required a /boot partition.

That you got the system up and running without any help, all by yourself is a major mile stone. For a newbi: job well done -- you got it up and running!! Not a perfect job, and you could have made your life a lot easier for a first install, but you did it by yourself. In the future you will learn from your mistakes this time and refine your methodology with each subsequent install. In the future: Try not to commit harakiri -- pick ONE (1) drive and disconnect all the others. You can always connect up all the other drives AFTER you have installed the OS on your target OS.

Congratulations!!

D'Cat

[chlowden007]

D'cat
Thank you again for your insights. You are right. At my stage, I should have created 3 separate drives to cover the disasters. I'm not currently keen to reformat again,. But at some point it will crash, I will start again and I will strong enough to do it properly. By then, I'll have found a generous linux helper to guide me.
Why centos and not ubuntu?
Because I use the following apps:

Black magic resolve
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/produc ... ciresolve/

Foundry nuke
https://www.foundry.com/products/nuke

Blender
Www.blender.org

Autodesk Flame
https://www.autodesk.com/products/flame/overview

Side effects Houdini
https://www.sidefx.com/

These apps also work on PC and mac but centos is the optimised version.
I am no TD but more artistic, yet I need the performance that centos offers instead of the other oss that have become bloated and inefficient.

Thank you so much for the encouragement.

[chlowden007]

Also, I have an Razor eGPU box with NVIDIA 1080T GPU card connected via thunderbolt for rendering and calculation acceleration and it works really well.

[chlowden007]

8 months down the road with my centos dell machine and a kernel update goes bad and screws the OS. After 48 hours of struggling, I decide to start again.
I can confirm that for my Dell, the above method is the only solution that I found to work. But I have a couple of pieces of advice.

1. None of the proposed auto volume format solution or even the base solution in the disk formatting installation panel worked. I erased all the machine proposed volumes and rebuilt them manually EXACTLY what is in the pictures above.

2. Once the formatting / install was done, on restart , I first opened the BIOS to check what the Boot Sequence was. The only one that worked was called Centos. Before succeeding, the Boot sequence offered other optons and none of them worked.

i hope this helps someone else

[desertcat]

8 months down the road with my centos dell machine and a kernel update goes bad and screws the OS. After 48 hours of struggling, I decide to start again.
I can confirm that for my Dell, the above method is the only solution that I found to work. But I have a couple of pieces of advice.

1. None of the proposed auto volume format solution or even the base solution in the disk formatting installation panel worked. I erased all the machine proposed volumes and rebuilt them manually EXACTLY what is in the pictures above.

2. Once the formatting / install was done, on restart , I first opened the BIOS to check what the Boot Sequence was. The only one that worked was called Centos. Before succeeding, the Boot sequence offered other optons and none of them worked.

i hope this helps someone else

God how I HATE Dell....

OK depending on the size of the various drives pick the LARGEST drive. Download a copy of KNOPPIX -- this is a LIVE DVD -- and boot KNOPPIX. Under KNOPPIX there is something gparted. Type su. This will allow to view all the partitions in the drive. Let's say the drive you wish to put CentOS 7.9 on is /dev/sda. Run the command mount /dev/sda /mnt then run Fdisk -l to find all the mounted drives. Using gparted find the drive /dev/sda and you should see all the partitions on /dev/sda. Now ERASE ALL the partitions and re-format the entire disk /dev/sda will be nothing more than one giant formated partition -- ie essentially a "NEW Drive". Now kill KNOPPIX, and install the 7.9.iso in the drive.

Now here is where it gets interesting: Drop into BIOS. Now you say, " ... the Boot sequence offered other optons and none of them worked." that means that there *ARE* options you can choose from. You say you can set it for a LEGACY BIOS. Generally if LEGACY BIOS is enabled, and depending on the BIOS itself, you will see of "icons" of both a DVD drive, a HDD, etc. One set of icons will say UEFI on the devices and the other set will lack the UEFI designation. Drag the non-DVD Icon to the far left so that it would be the first device encountered. Second drag the Non-HDD second in line so that it sits right behind the DVD icon. Now drag the UEFI marked DVD and put it right behind the the Non-HDD. Finally move the UEFI HDD right behind the UEFI marked DVD. SAFE the format. Open the DVD tray and insert the 7.9 . iso, then close. Reboot the machine and check BIOS and make sure your BOOT Priority has held, if so hit SAVE, and EXIT and the the DVD will be the first thing that it looks at and thus begins the install phase. In this case you do NOT need a /boot/efi and a /boot -- you just need the /boot since you computer is set for LEGACY mode.

[chlowden007]

Hello Desertcat
As I read your method, I felt your "hate".
I am not sure that DELL is any worse than the other big brands. They all seem to make life difficult for those that want to stray from their chosen path. These hardware manufacturers tell me that all these hoops I have had to jump through are for my own security. It feels more like the mafia than the police. That said, when I started this adventure, I chose dell because not only was the hardware what I needed but also that they sold an Ubuntu version, so I figured that centos would not be as hard as other manufacturers.
Anyway, thank you for sharing your method. The next time my Dell dies, I'll have a crack at your way.

[chlowden007]

I wanted to add that there is a very specific BIOS set up for DELL machines that seems to be the source of my problems.
A related issue is described here.
viewtopic.php?f=47&t=78989

By following the Dell Ubuntu BIOS setup instructions below, I have been able to boot my Dell in Centos 7.9 & Rocky.
https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/fr-f ... os?lang=en

For me, the BIOS setup in the first half of the article was sufficient to unblock my issue.