r/linuxquestions • u/FlapJack_Joey • 8h ago

Support Stuck on Boot Menu

Running Debian13 on thinkPad T480.

stuck on startup with a menu that says “Boot Menu” on top of the following options below

debian

Windows Boot Manager

PCI LAN

Linux-Firmware-Updater

Clicking one of these options makes the screen go black for half a second and then go immediately go back to the same menu like nothing happened at all. What’s wrong here and what do I do? This computer has been running fine on Debian for the last five months.

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u/dkopgerpgdolfg 8h ago

Does neither "Debian" nor "Windows Boot Manager" work?

Do you have some live usb etc. to run Linux temporarily?

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u/FlapJack_Joey 8h ago

Neither one of them do anything. They just make the screen go black for half a second and then immediately go back to the same menu. I do have a live Debian usb but it’s at home. What would you want me to do with it when I get home?

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u/dkopgerpgdolfg 7h ago

To look if that can boot/run successfully, and if yes then some basic disk-related disgnostics.

Eg. for a start, the outputs of "lsblk", "blkid", "smartcl -a /dev/bla" (for each bla that was found in lsblk), "journalctl -b 0 -p err", ...

If this doesn't boot either, describe what happens, error messages etc.

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u/FlapJack_Joey 7h ago

I’ve put in the USB, and and it boot me up to the Debian install screen as expected, although i’m not sure where I should put those commands. I don’t really see how they get to a terminal. I tried the grub command line, but it didn’t recognize anything that you typed in. Screenshot:  https://imgur.com/a/V4MESrX

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u/dkopgerpgdolfg 5h ago

it boot me up to the Debian install screen as expected

Ah, that's not what I meant originally. A "live system" lets you run an OS without requiring to be installed, and without touching any hard disk by default. (In return, it basically resets when you shut down, unless you specifically want to do changes to some hard disk content etc.)

OK, I opened up my computer and all I did was pull out the hard drives SSD put it back in, pulled the heat sink and fan out and put it back in. And now my computer is back to working like normal. I don’t know what I did to fix it but it’s fixed now. Thank you for your help anyway!

Nice :)

Btw. I still recommend to run that smartctl command from above, doesn't hurt to take a look at the disk health from time to time. Depending on your laptops configuration, you have /dev/sda1, /dev/nvme0, and/or /dev/sda2

And for completeness, the Debian installer offers some terminal access too (just without a nice desktop etc.). In the "Advanced options" of your picture, there's a "Rescue mode". After some first settings (keyboard layout etc.), you'll get an option to open a shell (among other things). If the hard disks are working and you can tell the installer what partition is your debian, then you can optionally also run the shell as if it was your booted Debian that started it.

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u/FlapJack_Joey 3h ago

Of course! And thank you so much for your help!  I just wanted to say what I did to get it fixed so that if anyone else has this problem, they can find this thread

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u/FlapJack_Joey 6h ago

OK, I opened up my computer and all I did was pull out the hard drives SSD put it back in, pulled the heat sink and fan out and put it back in. And now my computer is back to working like normal. I don’t know what I did to fix it but it’s fixed now. Thank you for your help anyway!

1

u/FlapJack_Joey 7h ago

Gotcha! I’ll head home right now and try all that and report back

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u/FlapJack_Joey 8h ago

Here’s the screen that I’m stuck on:  https://imgur.com/a/SO0O4WF