Migrating over from BIOS boot to UEFI boot on same system.

26 May 2021, 08:49:40

I flubbed up my install a while ago, I use a modern motherboard with a setting that misled me into using BIOS boot.
Now my partitioning is in GPT, and I have an EFI partition as boot, looking into my boot directory it shows an i386-pc folder (which I'm guessing I wouldn't want in a true EFI install).

[Quick edit: to clarify, right now if I run `file -s /dev/nvme0n1` it outputs `/dev/nvme0n1: DOS/MBR boot sector, extended partition table (last)`]

When I enable EFI boot though, my drives don't show up as boot options (which is expected), and I have to use the iGPU since my graphics card doesn't output in this scenario.

Should I chroot and add an EFI path to my boot, or just back up my data and reinstall everything entirely? Asking since configuration from base would take a while.

Re: Migrating over from BIOS boot to UEFI boot on same system.

Reply #1 – 26 May 2021, 09:32:42

Enable EFI boot, start up LiveUSB, chroot and install GRUB with EFI-related parameters (details in Arch wiki). Run efibootmgr -v to check if your boot options are set up correctly.

Re: Migrating over from BIOS boot to UEFI boot on same system.

Reply #2 – 26 May 2021, 23:02:49

Ah, and this is specifically for only the boot partition right?
If so, I'm in luck since this way I can keep my root and home partitions unchanged.