[ale] UEFI/NVME system won't boot after dead CMOS battery

[Bob Toxen]

Dunno but ...

1. Invest in a UPS, one where you can change it's battery (every 24 months)
   without unplugging!  Then ...

2. Try booting a Linux rescue CD/Memory stick and from it try booting
   your UEFI partition and root partition, specifying your permanent
   swap partition.

3. Do post your permanent solution.

Bob

On Fri, Mar 18, 2022 at 09:30:34PM +0000, Allen Beddingfield via Ale wrote:
> So, I have a fairly new Dell OptiPlex system with an NVME drive, and UEFI that is my issued "work from home" computer.
> I am running openSUSE Leap on it.
> I unplugged it prior to the lightning storm we had this morning, and when I plugged it back up, I got the signs of a dead CMOS battery (everything set to default, time not set, etc...).
> So, I replaced that battery, set the time, and restarted.  I then get the UEFI screen that says the boot device is inaccessible.  I double checked that the SATA mode was set to AHCI, and it was - as it was before.
> I can boot from an openSUSE disk, select the option to boot a copy of Linux from the hard drive, and it will start up my installation just fine.
> I've tried re-installing the boot loader - no luck.
> The partition scheme is simple.  #1 is the EFI partition, #2 is swap, and #3 is an XFS formatted "/".
> This is the second time it happened.  Last time, I reset the time, forgot about changing the battery, and assumed the issue with booting was not related.  Apparently it is.  
> It doesn't make any sense to me how a dead battery/bios reset could cause this, given that I double checked the SATA mode.  
> I'm kind of stumped, and would like to figure out a way to keep this from being a future issue.
> Any ideas?  
> Oh, and secure boot is disabled, BTW.
> Allen B.
> 
> --
> Allen Beddingfield
> Systems Engineer
> Office of Information Technology
> The University of Alabama
> Office 205-348-2251
> allen at ua.edu