12.10 new install along Windows 8 fails to boot

[YannBuntu]

Hello

Did you use Boot-Repair after reinstalling Windows?
- if no, please delete the /EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi.grb and /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi.grb and /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootx64.efi.grb files in sdc1. Then run Boot-Repair's Recommended Repair.
- if yes, then delete the /EFI/Boot/ and /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/ folders, then fix (or reinstall Windows), then run Boot-Repair's Recommended Repair.

[oldfred]

You can try Yann's suggestions to fix things.

Your reinstall plan sound fine. I like 25GB for / (root) and I include /home in my / as I have several data partitions. One left over NTFS still have my Firefox & Thunderbird profiles from when booting XP. But I am aggressive about moving data from /home, so my /home only has my user configuration mostly hidden files and my .wine for Windows version of Picasa. My /home is 2GB of my total install of 9GB in the 25GB root. And .wine is most of the 2GB in /home.

I like to have an operating system on every drive. I followed this logic.

Creating a Dedicated Knoppix Partition for large drives
http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux..._partition.htm
Except I have multiple Ubuntu installs and rotate newest install from drive to drive.

Except now with my 64GB SSD, I have 2 / partitions, current version and next or test version. On my rotating drive I have lots of 25GB / partition for test, older Ubuntus, and my 2 data partitions. I still have a bit of unallocated, but need to houseclean out the old Ubuntu's that are not supported anymore and try some other DE's as I prefer gnome2 or gnome fallback, not Unity.

[randommanaki]

I'm sorry, Yann, I had already started the reinstall process so I was unable to test out your suggested fix :/ FWIW, every time I used Boot-Repair, it warned me about EFI and told me to check the options, so I got scared and never tried the recommended repair. Now that I know it's safe I'll be sure to try that next time.

oldfred, here is the result of gdisk -l /dev/sdb, which, surprisingly, shows no errors, which is not consistent with the B-R logs :/

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo gdisk -l /dev/sdb
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 0.8.5

Partition table scan:
MBR: protective
BSD: not present
APM: not present
GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.
Disk /dev/sdb: 5860533168 sectors, 2.7 TiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): A74CC04E-090C-439F-98B1-C956780DA3DE
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 5860533134
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 2925 sectors (1.4 MiB)

Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name
1 2048 2147485695 1024.0 GiB 0700
2 2147485696 5231386623 1.4 TiB 0700
3 5231386624 5860532223 300.0 GiB 0700


At the moment, I am trying the single-disk install method, so don't you two go running away, I'll need you to fix the boot problem caused by reconnecting the two SSDs! hahaha

thanks again, this forum has excellent support. I'll try to report back as quickly as possible with results

** Side note - Windows 8 said it couldn't be installed on the disk last time, but I did it anyway and it booted fine, so that was confusing. indicative of more latent problem? We'll see on this install

[oldfred]

Report from gdisk looks ok. Not sure if then there is an issue in bootinfoscript? Bootinfoscript relies on some of the standard commands like fdisk, parted etc., so it may just be that it is not used to such large drives?

Also rerun BootInfo report and post link. If you want us to review before you run corrections that is fine, but we may not be back immediately.

[randommanaki]

Hahahah no no I was being facetious, this is by far the most timely support i've gotten on any forum!

Current Status:

Using my technique (1 drive at a time, multiple reboots in between just to make sure all filesystems were recognized/good), I am now at a state where

SSD1 boots W8 (and is the first boot option in UEFI, so is default boot).
SSD2 boots ubuntu (have to manually override boot order in UEFI by pressing del immediately on boot)
HDD is successfully recognized by both OSes while each is respectively booted, and gparted shows all partitions in the desired manner.

SO! (fingers crossed) everything looks fine EXCEPT for the lack of Bootloading menu (I'm still not ENTIRELY convinced this isn't the ideal situation as is, Windows will by far be my main OS except for linux environment development)

If either of you or anyone watching this can then take me to that final step, that'd be amazing! I assume it has to do with booting into liveUSB or something and copying the /EFI/ files from SSD2 to SSD1 /EFI location, and it's just that simple, but I am quite unknowledgable here so I'll let you guys run me through that.

Thanks!!

[oldfred]

I believe it is that simple.
But not sure with multiple drives and efi how it works exactly. With my BIOS I choose a drive and then only MBR has control. With an efi partition you can have any number of systems booting directly from one efi partition. So in UEFI menu do you get both a drive choice and then a efi menu choice of all the systems installed in that drive's efi partition?
Grub can chain to Windows and uses UUID so it will find the other efi partition as far as I know. see second link below post #14 for explanation. It may be automatic with boot repair now.

Yann updated Boot-Repair with one or both of these users who had two drives.
UEFI dual boot two drives - HP
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2072950
UEFI dual boot two drives see #14 on how edit UUID to Windows efi partiton
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2031836

[randommanaki]

After the successful EFI installations of W8 and Ub12.10, my UEFI now has options for:

UEFI: "SSD1"
ubuntu
P0: "SSD1"
P1: "SSD2"
... etc,

where I assume the "ubuntu" entry is the EFI boot partition on the SSD2 drive (Ub12.10).

Thus, it is not necessarily split up by drive THEN EFI/regular, but rather all the boot options in one list. (Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3P UEFI firmware).

That second link seems to be exactly what I need to do - I'll try it out when I get home today. However, seeing as SSD1 (Windows) is my bigger/better/faster SSD, and the only one "guaranteed" to stay in this box, it'd be nice if something that simple could be done in the reverse way - chain such that SSD1/EFI/ has an entry to call SSD2/EFI ubuntu boot (i don't even mind grub2 being on SSD1 and calling ubuntu on SSD2, but i know nothing about bootloaders ).

That said, I think i'm just being super picky and after two weeks of this nonsense, I'll just go ahead with the grub chain back to Windows unless anyone has any ideas.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR HELP! I'll report back with my (hopefully) final status tonight. I've really learned a lot here thanks to you and Yann's bootloader


**super side note (maybe YannBuntu has more experience with this): Grub2 is just a bootloader, right? It can be installed anywhere, right (ie is standalone)? And in UEFI mode, it is no longer MBRs, but rather a unique UUID, then specific file call to boot an OS, right?

Therefore, is there a way to install Grub2 in my SSD1 EFI partition, then configure it to look for the SSD1 EFI file and SSD2 EFI file, rather than (i'm assuming) booting SSD2 (where grub, i think, is now), then chaining back to SSD1?

Or do i have all my concepts messed up? hahaha

[YannBuntu]

You are using UEFI, so MBR is not used.

Your unique ESP is on sdc (the Ubuntu disc), so you don't have choice: your boot scheme is like this:

UEFI firmware --> GRUB EFI file on ESP (sdc1) --> Ubuntu (sdc3)
--> Windows (sda2)

or

UEFI firmware --> Windows EFI file on ESP (sdc1) --> Windows (sda2)


Moving the ESP on sda would not increase speed significantly AFAIK, so better leaving the situation as it is. (except if you want to be able to use Windows when the Ubuntu disc is disconnected)

[randommanaki]

You are using UEFI, so MBR is not used.

Your unique ESP is on sdc (the Ubuntu disc), so you don't have choice: your boot scheme is like this:

[snip]

Moving the ESP on sda would not increase speed significantly AFAIK, so better leaving the situation as it is. (except if you want to be able to use Windows when the Ubuntu disc is disconnected)

Thank you so much for your reply, @YannBuntu!

Actually, there are two comments to be made here:

Boot Situation: I'm not sure how much of the thread you have followed, but my situation is now changed (see edit below for details) - Each drive is independently bootable from the UEFI boot override menu; I reformatted/reinstalled each OS individually with only its drive connected.

Therefore, I (believe) I have two separate, functioning EFI partitions (ESPs?). One on the windows disk, and one on the ubuntu disk.

Again, you're the expert, but I BELIEVE this makes things much simpler? As in install another Grub2 in my Windows disk and have IT call ubuntu's file? This would be preferable for part 2:

Ubuntu Disk Removal: That is, unfortunately, exactly what I want I forsee the need to move the ubuntu disk out to a separate physical box in the near (read few months) future, so it'd be nice to avoid breaking Windows if it can easily be helped.

Thanks again!

EDIT: This may not be as clear as I'd like to make it so when I go home I will re-run the boot-info script so you get a clear picture of my situation. However, here is a hopefully better explanation in the interim:

sda: | EFI (vfat) | NTFS (Windows) |
--- GPT, UEFI, 240GB Intel 520  (boots fine when "UEFI: Intel 520..." is 
selected in UEFI menu or if i leave it alone - it is first in the boot order)

sdb: | NTFS | NTFS | ext4 |
--- GPT, data disk, 3TB Seagate (all partitions can be seen by both OSes, even 
if Windows doesn't recognize the ext4)

sdc: | EFI (vfat) | linux-swap | ext4 (/) |
--- GPT, UEFI, 64GB Crucial m4  (boots fine when "ubuntu" is selected in UEFI 
menu. Must be chosen because default boot order loads windows)

the exact partitions are from memory, so I may have missed something (swap may be at the end of the drive, I used automatic ubuntu install), but the general gist is valid

[YannBuntu]

ok, so you have 1 ESP for Windows's disc, and one for Ubuntu's disc, that's perfect!

If i understand well, you want to add an Ubuntu entry inside the Windows EFI bootloader? if yes, i don't know how to do this. Maybe it's the kind of question to ask on a Windows8 forum (please tell us if you find a way, it may be useful for other Ubuntu users)