proxmox 7.0 (failed to prepare EFI)

[rick_sorkin]

Hi Everyone

I m trying to install proxmox in my DELL Poweredge R720 i have the dell perc H710p mini installed

so i have a raid 0 on 2 intel ssd's and although i managed to installed it the first time without any errors
i broke up the raid to install it directly on my drives but that did not hapeen since my hardware raid controller does not support mba mode
so i created the raid 0 again and whenever i try to install proxmox i get this error (see attached)

anyone has similar issue or can help ?

thanks

 

[Stoiko Ivanov]

i try to install proxmox i get this error (see attached)

on a hunch - check the machine's BIOS - AFAIR there were a few settings regarding whether the OS can access/set EFI vars or not...
(my experiences were with dell Rx30 though - so it might not be accurate)

on the other hand - you could simply switch to booting with legacy bios and install PVE in this way
also consider using the hw-raid of the machine (and install with ext4+lvm-thin) - ZFS does not play well with hardware raid-disks (even if configured as individual RAID0)

I hope this helps!

 

[rick_sorkin]

Hi Ivanov thanks for you reply

i found the solution for my issue

turns out you just have to make sure the usb flash is the only boot opion that the bios has to boot dont ask my why
when there is another option even if its last in the boot order it will give you the error
i think it has to do with the system trying to mount only the /dev/sda no other letters etc.. not sure tho

so on poweredge bios you just have to uncheck all UEFI devices and check only the iso flash driver

regarding the raid so as far as i investigated proxmox will not recognize my drives that are connected to my hardware raid controller without being configured in a form of raid .. i did not found a solution for that my raid card is the dell perc h710p mini

thanks

 

[Stoiko Ivanov]

Glad you fixed your issue!

regarding the raid so as far as i investigated proxmox will not recognize my drives that are connected to my hardware raid controller without being configured in a form of raid .. i did not found a solution for that my raid card is the dell perc h710p mini

With this kind of RAID card I'd probably just configure a HW-RAID1 in the PERC and install PVE on ext4 on that RAID
If you want to use ZFS you can also consider getting a HBA for the perc slot on the R720 - I think they're not that expensive

I hope this helps!

 

[Dom.sudo-engineer]

Ran into the same (or very similar issue) installing on a Dell PowerEdge 620 with hardware(PERC H710 Mini) RAID1 boot disks.

bootloader setup errors: - failed to prepare EFI boot using Grub on '/dev/sda2': unable to install the EFI boot loader on '/dev/sda'

I did a few things to get past this error so not completely sure which one fixed it, but I'll list them below

1) Boot into System Setup(F2) > Boot settings > BIOS Boot Settings > Disabled all Bios boot options > Back to Boot settings > Changed to UEFI Boot > Saved and restarted
2) Boot into System Setup(F2) > Boot settings > UEFI Boot Settings > Disabled all UEFI Boot Settings (except external USB with Proxmox install) > Back to Boot settings > Changed Boot sequence and boot external USB at top

This got me past the error...but I hit another one shortly after .

unable to initialize physical volume /dev/sda3

I'm trying the reduce GB fix from this thread now, if that doesn't work I'll be installing Promox on top of Debian.

 

[Dom.sudo-engineer]

Ran into the same (or very similar issue) installing on a Dell PowerEdge 620 with hardware(PERC H710 Mini) RAID1 boot disks.

I did a few things to get past this error so not completely sure which one fixed it, but I'll list them below

1) Boot into System Setup(F2) > Boot settings > BIOS Boot Settings > Disabled all Bios boot options > Back to Boot settings > Changed to UEFI Boot > Saved and restarted
2) Boot into System Setup(F2) > Boot settings > UEFI Boot Settings > Disabled all UEFI Boot Settings (except external USB with Proxmox install) > Back to Boot settings > Changed Boot sequence and boot external USB at top

This got me past the error...but I hit another one shortly after .



I'm trying the reduce GB fix from this thread now, if that doesn't work I'll be installing Promox on top of Debian.

I think the reducing GB did fix the unable to initialize physical volume /dev/sda3 error but I'm back to getting the bootloader setup errors: - failed to prepare EFI boot using Grub on '/dev/sda2': unable to install the EFI boot loader on '/dev/sda' error. Makes it all the way through the install until it hits the "making bootable" and then it fails at 99% with that error.

I'm at a loss. Any advice would be wonderful...

 

[Dom.sudo-engineer]

And it's working. No idea what I did to fix it :/

I reset the bios to default, rebuilt the raid1 and repeated all the steps I did from this post. Ran the install, it failed due to unable to initialize physical volume /dev/sda3, ran the install again (setting the drive size to 925GB - originally set at 931GB) and it worked.

Honestly, the only thing I really did different was the order of things. When I first set it up I did firmware updates > built raid > adjusted BIOS settings. This time the firmware was done already > adjusted BIOS settings > built raid. So maybe the order matters?

 

[BruceD]

Shown here is the solution to all the above. On my 720xd I had the same errors as above [both errors] setting the order as shown has now allowed me to install Proxmox many times now without issue.

 

[BruceD]

Hi Everyone

I m trying to install proxmox in my DELL Poweredge R720 i have the dell perc H710p mini installed

so i have a raid 0 on 2 intel ssd's and although i managed to installed it the first time without any errors
i broke up the raid to install it directly on my drives but that did not hapeen since my hardware raid controller does not support mba mode
so i created the raid 0 again and whenever i try to install proxmox i get this error (see attached)

anyone has similar issue or can help ?

thanks

Have a look here: 720=720xd except xd has 3.5inch HDD
https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/proxmox-7-0-failed-to-prepare-efi.95466/post-489970

 

[spamblockersassemble]

I've been having the same issue. I was originally able to install Proxmox but after swapping some drives I decided to clean house and start from scratch on everything. Now that I'm trying to install Proxmox again I'm getting the same error and I've tried using the settings in the screenshots with no luck still. Any other possible solutions?

 

[eyduh]

the dell perc H710p mini installed

Heye,

Struggling with a reinstall myself but with regards to getting the raid controller to work well with pve

I've got proxmox on a dell poweredge with a h310 perc but the below solution should work for most percs.

To get proxmox to play nice with the perc that came with it I had to reflash the firmware of the perc to IT/passthrough mode.

It was a bit finicky but got it working in an hour or two, quick search turns up a few guides:

https://search.sapti.me/search?q=pe...ge=auto&time_range=&safesearch=0&theme=simple

Can't remember which one I used but this site has guides for a lot of Perce including 710 minis

https://fohdeesha.com/docs/perc.html

Hope it helps

 

[ky41083]

Now that I'm trying to install Proxmox again I'm getting the same error

PowerEdge R510

The solution for me was to set the NVRAM clear jumper, power the server on, let it post, power it off, move the jumper back.

It seems on some (Dell at least) servers, removing UEFI boot entries doesn't completely remove them, and the UEFI storage eventually fills up, which is when you start getting errors about the PVE installer not being able to create new entries.

Resetting the NVRAM via jumper was the only thing that worked for me. Alternatively you could probably disconnect power and remove the BIOS battery for 30+ seconds, but I used the jumper just to be sure.

Reconfigure BIOS, set to UEFI mode, PVE installed successfully first try after this.

 

[isaacHan]

Hi Ivanov thanks for you reply

i found the solution for my issue

turns out you just have to make sure the usb flash is the only boot opion that the bios has to boot dont ask my why
when there is another option even if its last in the boot order it will give you the error
i think it has to do with the system trying to mount only the /dev/sda no other letters etc.. not sure tho

so on poweredge bios you just have to uncheck all UEFI devices and check only the iso flash driver

regarding the raid so as far as i investigated proxmox will not recognize my drives that are connected to my hardware raid controller without being configured in a form of raid .. i did not found a solution for that my raid card is the dell perc h710p mini

thanks

You saved my day! I have the same error on PowerEdge R720. The below solution worked well!

you just have to uncheck all UEFI devices and check only the iso flash driver

 

[pve-user]

in my case clear the grub efi logs running

rm /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/dump-*

solve the issue

 

[adventure]

Hi

Same issue here. Solution: set the NVRAM clear jumper.

https://www.dell.com/support/conten...vram-via-jumpers-poweredge-r640/6079769152001

Thanks for help

 

[Ninevah]

PowerEdge R510

The solution for me was to set the NVRAM clear jumper, power the server on, let it post, power it off, move the jumper back.

It seems on some (Dell at least) servers, removing UEFI boot entries doesn't completely remove them, and the UEFI storage eventually fills up, which is when you start getting errors about the PVE installer not being able to create new entries.

Resetting the NVRAM via jumper was the only thing that worked for me. Alternatively you could probably disconnect power and remove the BIOS battery for 30+ seconds, but I used the jumper just to be sure.

Reconfigure BIOS, set to UEFI mode, PVE installed successfully first try after this.

This NVRAM clear jumper was the only thing that worked for me. I tried every other fix that I could find online, but only this allowed me to finally get the install to work on 2 Dell R820s. Thank you for posting this. I'd spent hours and hours fighting with this dang thing.