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So I have a Dell Insiron 11, which came with Windows preinstalled. I would very much like to install Linux mint into the 128GB SDHC card, but unfortunately the BIOS doesn't allow booting from SD slot.
Is there any way one could edit the BIOS firmware image to allow booting from SD? Even if it required bit banging SD to SPI or something, (which I don't think it should), it still seems like this SHOULD be possible, right? (Whether it's actually feasible or more work than it's worth is another question. ;x)
If it is, in theory, possible, what tools would one need? Any good resources for editing bios? (I'm willing to spend time and energy on learning!) And if it's really NOT possible, how about a good explanation why not?
user1113970
Posted 2018-08-26T23:33:14.540
Reputation: 9
1Your model is UEFI therefore where the OSes are installed doesn't matter much, you're always booting from the drive where the EFI partition is and from there, depending on the next bootloader you choose, it should proceed to the partition where the chosen OS is installed, an internal or external drive including SD. – None – 2018-08-26T23:38:38.333
What about to insert SD into the USB cardreader and boot from USB? – Hardoman – 2018-08-27T00:04:11.963
I did a similar thing for the BIOS that could not boot USB - I edited and flashed USB stick firmware to be recognized as an optical drive. But that was very long multistep operation. This very specific to the card controller vendor and flash memory chip. (I used AlcorMP_UFD utility for my AU6990 controller). – Hardoman – 2018-08-27T00:06:19.473
@Hardoman Also a solution but the problem here is of a different nature, it's a X-Y problem ;) -> OP doesn't understand UEFI and the whole question is predicated in that misconception. – None – 2018-08-27T00:07:56.210
@GabrielaGarcia UEFI boot was never meant. Dell Insiron 11 supports Legacy boot as well and I suppose that is the case to boot from USB with native BIOS. – Hardoman – 2018-08-27T00:11:25.237
@user1113970 disassembling and revert engineering of the BIOS is utopia. Even though you could read the binary code from the chip (it's quite easy if you extract the chip and put it in the programmer) you hardly even understood which block does what. As for the explanation why SD boot is not supported - the devices are supported based on the DEV ID and memory type. Only block-read devices are supported. What I did is I edited dev id and created a section on the USB flash drive emulating CD drive block storage using native utility from the vendor of my controller. – Hardoman – 2018-08-27T00:19:50.703
It has CSM indeed but what does it have to do with anything? You're not be using it unless the OS you're installing is very old and doesn't support UEFI. Not the case. And you're assuming it must boot from the SD and that's just wrong (it would need to only if the installer was in that SD and it isn't, it shouldn't be. – None – 2018-08-27T00:20:03.783
"I would very much like to install linux mint into the 128GB SDHC card" -- What is this "128GB SDHC card"? As @Hardoman already suggested, a USB card reader should work. – sawdust – 2018-08-27T00:39:23.790
1I don't believe it doesn't support booting from external devices. Probably you've created the drive correctly for UEFI boot, or secure boot is not disabled and you don't have a signed kernel. And did you try booting from a USB? Even in rare cases that UEFI doesn't have the card reader driver, you can always install it from USB and install grub and let grub load your Linux – phuclv – 2018-08-27T01:01:49.980
1Dell Insiron 11 definitely supports booting from USB. Both in UEFI and in Legacy mode. To have UEFI boot you must prepare your USB storage in a proper way (by default UEFI boot from NTFS formatted drive is not possible). To make UEFI boot from both NTFS an FAT32 use Rufus utility. – Hardoman – 2018-08-27T11:03:21.213
It is EFI...i know to disable secure boot. f I install linux into the SD card, but can't choose to boot directly from it, should I be installing grub to one of the HD partitions, and it will just point to the SD card? Im sure a USB to SD adapter would work, but the whole point is the slim form factor/not having to carry around another piece of equipment. – user1113970 – 2018-08-30T19:57:32.087
I bet grub has more driver support than the UEFI, and if it doesn't it's still easier to load a driver to recognize the SD card reader. How to boot ubuntu from my sd card, Booting from SD card using GRUB on hard drive. Anyway Linux Mint won't take too much space so you can reserve like 4GB for the root and mount the SD as
– phuclv – 2018-09-13T02:06:49.177/home. Or put/booton the HDD/SSD for even less space. Alternatively you can use tiny USB pendrives that just barely protrude out of the chassis