this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2026
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I don't know if this is the right community to ask but here goes.

So... I tried to install opensuse on my PC today. It already had windows and fedora. I was planning to replace fedora with opensuse.

The installation process went fine till at the end of installation opensuse gave some error about efi partition. For context my efi partition is 100 mb (not the recommended 500 mb). And I had also installed MX Linux which is still visible in the boot option even though I deleted MX Linux long time ago.

After the installation, I rebooted my pc and... there is no open suse boot option, even though installation was completed after the error. I booted into windows, and it showed me an error screen with a qr code πŸ™ƒ.

It then automatically booted into fedora (which btw was deleted during opensuse installation), but it was stuck at loading screen, so I powered off my PC. When I powered my pc back on, the monitor showed no signal. The fan lights on the PC were as usual.

What just happen here and how do I resolve it?

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[–] pryre@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago (3 children)

You definitely shouldn't have hardware problems, so there's one stress off your mind at least. Now just recovery.

Assuming you didn't do anything to drastic, you've probably only broken the EFI. This is not he wrost case by far. I would do the following:

  • make a Linux live USB, as suggested in the other comments.
  • boot up and inspect your disks and the current partition layout.
  • double check that your windows drive (NTFS partition) at least exists, bonus points if you can access it, don't stress yet if you cannot.
  • given you were going to overwrite fedora, I would delete those partitions, and the opens use ones if they exist as well, and start with a blank segment of disk to work from.
  • (optional) expand your boot partition to 500MB/1GB. Small cost really, and will save you future pain if you're exploring other distros. You may have to move the windows partition to do this, this is usually safe enough to do with a GUI partition manager (gparted), perhaps riskier on CLI. Just take it slow and be sure with the steps. Check data access after it's done.
  • go back through the install process for opensuse, it should be able to automatically create all the needed partitions with the empty space you have left on the disk.
  • boot opensuse, rejoice.
  • make a windows boot drive, boot into that and perform a recovery. Note that this might break grub, depending how Microsoft is feeling that day. Second worst case is that you'll have to redo your boot ordering. Worst case is that you'll have to hope back into a live USB and regenerate grub.

This is the right answer. Different distros size their initramfs differently including how much of the kernel is available at boot time. All of this takes space in the boot partition. If you have multiple OSes all sharing that boot partition, it needs to be bigger. I wouldn't call this step optional.

[–] fmshtio83@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I can't boot into live USB because there is no display output (like not even the boot option screen)

(edit) It works when connected to GPU output

[–] pryre@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

Unfortunately, I think we've all had that panic (plugging a monitor into the motherboard and not the GPU). welcome to the club!

Can you get into the BIOS/UEFI menu? Typically by pressing [DEL] or [F12] in the first few seconds of boot. From there, there's generally a menu to either select to order (put the USB drive at the top of the list), or on fancier menus, the "Save and exit" page may even have a "Boot device [USB]" button.

[–] TimeRonin@lemmy.world -1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

What is the efi exactly? Isnt that the thing that decides the architecture? Ie ntfs, fat32, etc? Is it like linuxes equivalent to windows mbr (master boot record)?

[–] pryre@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

The EFI partition is a section of your harddrive.that contains bootable binaries(?). In UEFI mode, your motherboard scans all harddrives EFI partitions. I believe they are always FAT32, marked with a "boot" flag, and essentially contains folders for each OS bootloader.

I'm simplifying quite a bit I suspect, but that's the gist of it.

Your harddrive will be in either MBR or GPT mode, selected when you or your first OS made the partition table. Any modern system should have picked GPT, and I don't think windows uses MBR anymore either. Bit fuzzy on that one.

The "architecture" as you describe it is a partition format, or how the data is "physically" arranged on that section of the disk; fat32, NTFS, ext4, btrfs, etc. Skipping over a heap of context, This is something that is specific to each partition, and is selected more out of convention or preference than anything else. There are a few exceptions, but in general, your boot drive will be fat32 (as above), windows generally will use NTFS for its main partition (other special partitions may use other formats), Linux may use many different formats, but by general convention it would be ext4 (this is a very sweeping statement, but I think its a good place to start).

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 day ago

If you haven't already, I would recommend booting a live USB system where you can access your files and back up anything you can't afford to lose.

[–] TimeRonin@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

If your using a bootable iso ie a thumb drive, you can simply boot using that and reinstall opensuse, idk about your other partitions, likely the efi was the mbr? Which means that windows will need to be reinstalled

[–] fmshtio83@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Well, how do I boot into a live USB if my display is not working? πŸ₯²

[–] TimeRonin@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Get into boot settings, or into bios. Bios: Change boot options to launch your usb before anything else. Boot options: Just select your live USB. Typically f2, f8, f10 and f12 keys get you into those, just button mash one the second you press power till you find which it is. If none, try all even function keys then odd. You'll hear a million beeps, its ok and safe

[–] fmshtio83@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I remember the boot option screen is f11, but smashing it doesn't show anything

[–] TimeRonin@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

From my perspective it would seem that only the efi is giving issues and you should look there for any issues, I don't know enough about the efi to give solid advice. I think it is strange that it is causing you hardware issues, perhaps it is running out of memory to execute the functions it needs to read your systems hardware, alas, I do not know about efi very well.

A cheaper fix for later on if need be, get an external hdd/ssd enclosure that you can plug into a computer via usb and do the programattic things like partitioning again that way, you would need to make a file system etc on it and replug it in an run the install iso on it again, probably can do it from the usb too, but probably not as convenient

[–] TimeRonin@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Ok so if your not getting a signal out to your monitor at all that is a hardware issue, I would suggest testing the monitor is working on another pc and if it works on that computer, you should remove your hdd or ssd and plug it into that computer and then boot into the usb environment on that machine. It seems you know how to get into the boot options already so... If you are having hardware issues, let us know so someone else can give you a better answer, I'm soon to go to bed

[–] TimeRonin@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

It just seems odd because you should be able to launch the machine with a live USB and are able to totally remove the native storage device and launch with only the live USB inserted.

If you havent tried that I would try that. Make sure you shut everything down and ground yourself to the machine by putting your finger on the ground prong ( the place the power cord goes into). Also before grounding youself, after unplugging the machine, press and hold the power button and press it several times to dissipate any latent voltage still in the capacitors on the system to really avoid ESD (electro static discharge)

[–] fmshtio83@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

The monitor is fine. It works on my laptop

(edit) I don't know how, but it worked when I connected to my GPU output πŸ˜…

Thanks for the help and good night

[–] TimeRonin@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You can also use that bootable image to make another device a bootable image instead. Such as in the case the original iso is corrupt

[–] TimeRonin@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Finally if your not using a bootable iso, make one, it's the only way you're getting back in

[–] Forsho@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

Could be some partition issue with your disk, since you can’t boot any OS.

Try to force the boot into repair mode, this usually done by holding the power button for 10 seconds (keep pressing till the repair mode appears) sometimes you need to do it three time in a row, in the fourth don’t touch the power as it should boot differently.

diagnostic repair window should appear, select advance options then command line. Type the line. chkdsk C: /f /r /x

If that doesn’t work run bios level harddisk check.