Linux on Asrock z77 extreme4

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   Looking for someone who's familiar with this board. Basically here's a rundown of what I've done:

Latest BIOS installed.

I installed debian 12 (Without a GUI) onto my SSD (Plugged into as asmedia SATA port, yes I know this is an issue but I'll get to that in a minute), With default BIOS settings. Chose not to install GRUB initially because I planned to use the stock bootloader and also I don't plan to dual-boot.

Install finished without error, rent to boot and would only get a blinking cursor. Also after POST, lights on the mobo would all go out but system would still be seemingly running.

----

After attempting to troubleshoot in BIOS, I gave up, reset to defaults and proceeded to reinstall Debian. This time, during the install, it detected my existing debian installation and told me that it was currently formatted in bios compatability mode and asked if I wanted to "Force UEFI installation", I selected yes to that, and I also chose to install GRUB. After a bit, installation finished and I saw GRUB flast for a second before it fully booted into my Debian install... YAY!!! 

I spent the next 4 or 5 hours setting it up, installing CasaOS and Crafty. Setting up a minecraft server that me and my friends were successfully playing on and everything was running GREAT... until I decided to do a reboot.

I rebooted debian and.... got the dreaded blinking cursor again...

Basically going through the bios settings one by one, rebooting 1,000 times, nothing worked. No grub bootloader, just a blinking cursor.

I read that linux does not like asmedia ports, so I plugged the SSD into one of the two intel controlled SATA ports instead of the asmedia port it was plugged into, and now, instead of just a blinking cursor, the bios straight up tells me that I have no boot media.

HELP PLEASE ?��

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AirAKose Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 22 May 2025 Location: USA Status: Offline Points: 35	Post Options Post Reply Quote AirAKose Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: Linux on Asrock z77 extreme4 Posted: 22 May 2025 at 11:38pm
	Looking for someone who's familiar with this board. Basically here's a rundown of what I've done: Latest BIOS installed. I installed debian 12 (Without a GUI) onto my SSD (Plugged into as asmedia SATA port, yes I know this is an issue but I'll get to that in a minute), With default BIOS settings. Chose not to install GRUB initially because I planned to use the stock bootloader and also I don't plan to dual-boot. Install finished without error, rent to boot and would only get a blinking cursor. Also after POST, lights on the mobo would all go out but system would still be seemingly running. ---- After attempting to troubleshoot in BIOS, I gave up, reset to defaults and proceeded to reinstall Debian. This time, during the install, it detected my existing debian installation and told me that it was currently formatted in bios compatability mode and asked if I wanted to "Force UEFI installation", I selected yes to that, and I also chose to install GRUB. After a bit, installation finished and I saw GRUB flast for a second before it fully booted into my Debian install... YAY!!! I spent the next 4 or 5 hours setting it up, installing CasaOS and Crafty. Setting up a minecraft server that me and my friends were successfully playing on and everything was running GREAT... until I decided to do a reboot. I rebooted debian and.... got the dreaded blinking cursor again... Basically going through the bios settings one by one, rebooting 1,000 times, nothing worked. No grub bootloader, just a blinking cursor. I read that linux does not like asmedia ports, so I plugged the SSD into one of the two intel controlled SATA ports instead of the asmedia port it was plugged into, and now, instead of just a blinking cursor, the bios straight up tells me that I have no boot media. HELP PLEASE ?��

neolz75 Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Groupie Joined: 20 Apr 2025 Status: Offline Points: 335	Post Options Post Reply Quote neolz75 Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 23 May 2025 at 3:08am
	its not a bios version issue. Its Bios boot settings, Partition Table settings. you have to set everything currently in order only then its going to boot. if bios settings is UEFI, then SSD/HDD should use GPT Partition table, if bios settings is Legacy(MBR), SSD should be in MBR. check your ssd partition table type and use the correct option in BIOS and install correct grub or EFI grub which i believe requires separate boot partition as well. So basically there are 3 things you have set correctly. you will get a blank cursor if you have installed OS on a MBR partition'ed SSD while the bios is set UEFI or vice versa. if a disk is converted MBR to GPT partition table, it changes UUID's of partitions, which should be correctly reflected in GRUB for boot. I would recommend a GUI boot repair tool using a live pendrive either from ubuntu iso. you don't have to install the whole OS again. Just set eventhing in proper order and install related GRUB using GUI based boot repair correctly and it would work fine. UEFI -> GPT HDD -> EFI GRUB (separate boot partition) BIOS -> MBR HDD -> GRUB

AirAKose Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 22 May 2025 Location: USA Status: Offline Points: 35	Post Options Post Reply Quote AirAKose Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: Yesterday at 2:46am
	?? With the help of ChatGPT, I was able to fix my issues. Here's the solution in case anyone else ever has problems. 1) Make sure you are using Bios version 2.90. If you are using Bios version 3.00 it becomes unstable and you'll have more problems! Downgrade if need be. 2) Assuming you already installed Debian, and cannot boot because the motherboard does not detect a valid UEFI boot record, continue to boot a live environment to repair and modify your boot record. 3) Mount your partitions: (Replace "sda" with the drive ID of your drive. Run "lsblk" to find this out if you don't know what it is) sudo mount /dev/sda2 /mnt sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot/efi 4) Bind system directories sudo mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev sudo mount --bind /proc /mnt/proc sudo mount --bind /sys /mnt/sys 5) Enter chroot to execute commands in your pre-existing debian installation? sudo chroot /mnt 6) Run the following commands to copy your grub .efi to the path that windows uses.? mkdir -p /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT cp /mnt/boot/efi/EFI/debian/grubx64.efi /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI mkdir -p /boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot cp /mnt/boot/efi/EFI/debian/grubx64.efi /boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi Because when AsRock made this motherboard (and even possibly still to this day, idk) they unfortunately have zero effs if this mobo worked with any OS other than Windows. So we have to basically disguise grub to look like a Windows bootloader in order for it to be detected. ??forumCodes=True