Supermicro X9SCM - F11 boot select lists UBUNTU as option?

[kurtkurtosis]

I have been experimenting with my SuperMicro X9-SCM motherboard with different operating systems (SE-11, WHS-2011, Windows 7, Ubuntu, SUSE) for a while. Generally, I hit F11 to select between disks or boot drives. I always use a different SSD drive for each operating system. So every operating system is installed on its own drive. I have notice some problem when I forget to remove a drive with an operating drive present as the installation notices the other operating system, but I thought all systems were clean now as I made sure that no other drive was present during the install process.

For the past week I have notices the following options when only the OCZ-Verte2 SSD containing UBUNTU is inserted when hitting F11 to select the boot drive options.

IBA GE Slot OOC8 V1365
IBA GE Slot 0500 V1365
UBUNTU
PO: OCZ-VERTEX2
ENTER SETUP

When I select "OCZ-VERTEX2" & hit return I get the following error message:
"Reboot and select proper boot device or input boot mediat in selected boot device and press a key"

UBUNTU 11.10 is installed on the VERTEX2 while all other drives are disconnected.

When I select UBUNTU as part of the F11 option the OCZ-VERTEX2 drive boot fine with Ubuntu.

Even if I disconnect the Ubuntu drive it is still listed in BIOS/EFI as one of the priority boot device. WHY IS UBUNTU even listed as a drive option? I never saw that before.

Can some explain?

 

[mobilenvidia]

Check the drive (OCZ Vertex2) is active (ie bootable), if the drive is not then the 'UBUNTU' in F11 might be on another drive/partition that it boots to first then the Vertex2

 

[kurtkurtosis]

The weird thing is when I disconnect all hard drives ubuntu is still listed as an option in the boot priority selection menu in the BIOS/EFI. However, under SATA no drives are detected as all drives have been disconnected. When I hit F11 and select ubuntu as the boot drive the system won't boot as expected since there are no drives connected.

I reinstalled Ubuntu 11.10 on the OCZ-Vertex2 drive, but the Ubuntu option is still still listed when selecting F11 but now selecting the OCZ-Vertex boots into Ubuntu but when selecting the ubuntu option not operating system is detected.

The whole thing is a bit weird but at least now the F11 selection process works as one expects. Just wished I could delete the ubuntu entry...

 

[mobilenvidia]

Possibly do a 'clear' BIOS, the NVRAM might be stuck with the 'UBUNTU'

 

[TuxDude]

It's an EFI thing - Ubuntu has installed an EFI variable to put itself there. You can read more about it here: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/efi-boot-process.html

I'm afraid I don't know how to remove it.

 

[kurtkurtosis]

Appreciate the info on EFI as I have landed there a few times in the past only to type either "help" or "exit" not exactly knowing what to do there anyway...the commands sure look a lot UNIX like. I downloaded an Intel EFI manual the other day but have not done much with it yet. Not a priority and not clear to me what I would do with EFI.

I flashed the BIOS from version x9scm1.427 to x9scm1.928 only to find out that this hosed the system for me and did not remove the UBUNTU boot option either. The standard video monitor I am currently using is only DVI capable. So having a video card is a must as I don't have a VGA port, although I had to grab my old VGA capable monitor from the garage to debug the video issues as given the BIOS change.

The problem with version 928 is that is no longer recognizes the graphics card so only on-board VGA is available. I tried two different cards (that worked on the X9 before) and different PCIe slots to no avail. I believe the new BIOS version is to blame.
In the BIOS under ADVANCED the PCIe/PCI/PnP Configuration options are different between the two versions. Under version 928 one can select on board video over other PCIE channel (or something like that -can't remember the wording). However it s

 

[kurtkurtosis]

However, it makes no difference whether on-board video is set as a priority vs. other PCIe channel the card gets ignored.

Just by luck I came across an older X9scm1.42 BIOS file in my SuperMicro folder which I bought ~May this year. The SM website give no information and no older BIOS versions seems to be available. What changes were implemented between the two version or perhaps there were even updates in between.