Switch from UEFI Boot to Legacy Boot

[BigDaddyDingDong]

Long story short I have a large amount of media on my server that I do not want to lose. I've tried adding the "-" at the end of the EFI folder in the USB drive and enabling CSM boot in my bios and this is a fail over and over regardless of what I try.

 

I installed a fresh Unraid trial on the same USB and "unticked" Allow UEFI Boot and the system started up just fine except I would lose all my data if I moved forward with setting up my array and what have you. How do I convert my USB to Legacy without losing any of my data???

[JorgeB]

Having UEFI boot enabled does not prevent legacy/CSM boot, and it has nothing to do with the data.

[BigDaddyDingDong]

6 hours ago, JorgeB said:

Having UEFI boot enabled does not prevent legacy/CSM boot, and it has nothing to do with the data.

My issue is I'm trying to get my GPU to run correctly in my VM. When creating my Unraid boot drive I stuck with the default settings and left "Allow UEFI Boot" selected. I've now enabling CSM boot in my bios and adding the "-" to the end of the EFI folder in the USB and now whenever I bootup the Server I get a black screen most times or unable to find bootable device.

 

I know my Bios settings are correct because I created a new bootable Unraid USB with a trial version on it and didn't select "Allow UEFI Boot" and it started up fine.

 

So the correct question is, How do I convert my current Flash Drive from UEFI boot to Legacy without starting over with a fresh Unraid install or losing anything?

 

I'm using SpaceInvaders GPU Guide

 

Edited December 29, 2023 by BigDaddyDingDong

[JorgeB]

31 minutes ago, BigDaddyDingDong said:

When creating my Unraid boot drive I stuck with the default settings and left "Allow UEFI Boot" selected. I've now enabling CSM boot in my bios and adding the "-" to the end of the EFI folder in the USB and now whenever I bootup the Server I get a black screen most times or unable to find bootable device.

To boot CSM you can leave EFI in the flash drive, like mentioned having UEFI boot enable does not prevent legacy/CSM boot, only thing you need to do is to choose the legacy boot option in the board BIOS, that's where you choose how to boot.

[BigDaddyDingDong]

17 minutes ago, JorgeB said:

To boot CSM you can leave EFI in the flash drive, like mentioned having UEFI boot enable does not prevent legacy/CSM boot, only thing you need to do is to choose the legacy boot option in the board BIOS, that's where you choose how to boot.

That doesn't seem to work. I get a black screen or failed to find bootable device. Like I mentioned, if I use a freshly created Unraid bootable drive it fires up perfectly fine in CSM, but if I try and boot the existing drive I get nothing. So I guess I have 2 options:

 

- Figure out how to fix my existing Unraid drive to work... which I am not finding any answers to.

- Create a fresh Unraid drive and re-configure all my dockers and array and start over. If this is the only route, would I have to reformat my drives and lose all my data?

[Vr2Io]

14 minutes ago, BigDaddyDingDong said:

if I use a freshly created Unraid bootable drive it fires up perfectly fine in CSM, but if I try and boot the existing drive I get nothing.

This likely existing USB stick haven't legacy boot sector / file. Simple run makebootable.bat ( something like that ) at USB stick root folder ( if under Windows ) will solve the problem.

Edited December 29, 2023 by Vr2Io

[BigDaddyDingDong]

11 minutes ago, Vr2Io said:

This likely existing USB stick haven't legacy boot sector / file. Simple run makebootable.bat ( something like that ) at USB stick root folder ( if under Windows ) will solve the problem.

aaahhh Yes! I see this make_bootable.bat in the root! I am not near my Server due to the holiday week but once I get back I will do this for sure! Thank you for this!

[BigDaddyDingDong]

On 12/29/2023 at 10:45 AM, Vr2Io said:

This likely existing USB stick haven't legacy boot sector / file. Simple run makebootable.bat ( something like that ) at USB stick root folder ( if under Windows ) will solve the problem.