boot problems

[irulan]

Hello,

I have managed somehow to mess up my grub (on start-up, I only get a black screen with the message "Reboot and select proper boot devices"), after the making of some bootable usb stick had gone wrong. When I try using Boot repair (in a live Ubuntu session), I get the message:

"The boot of your PC is in EFI mode, but no EFI partition was detected. You may want to retry after creating a EFI partition (FAT32, 100MB~250MB, start of the disk, boot flag).
Do you want to continue?"

(of course, if I do continue, it eventually tells me that all has been repaired, but on reboot I still have the same problem as before, the grub not working).

I got this message (about EFI, from Boot repair) after I had added a FAT32 (148 MB, boot flag) on sda1 and an unformated (2 MB, bios_grub flag) on sda2.

I have Ubuntu 12.10. There is no EFI formatting option in GParted.

Any advice on what I should do is greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance,

Ana

[mansonfan78]

I don't know much about efi, but maybe your computer somehow got set to boot from the usb stick instead of the hard drive and never got set back. In other words, maybe your computer isn't even trying to boot to the hard drive at all.

[bootedguy]

Check the boot order in the bios to make sure the HDD is the first boot device.

[stoogiebuncho]

Is this a dual boot with Windows 8?

[irulan]

Is this a dual boot with Windows 8?

No, this is just the Ubuntu partition. At least, it should be. This is what my partitios look like at the moment:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l

WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sda'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted.


Disk /dev/sda: 750.2 GB, 750156374016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 91201 cylinders, total 1465149168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 1465149167 732574583+ ee GPT
Partition 1 does not start on physical sector boundary.

WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sdb'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted.


Disk /dev/sdb: 32.0 GB, 32017047552 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3892 cylinders, total 62533296 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 62533295 31266647+ ee GPT

Disk /dev/sdc: 2020 MB, 2020872192 bytes
63 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1010 cylinders, total 3947016 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000a1f9c

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 * 62 3945059 1972499 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)

[arpanaut]

Post the pastebin link generated by the Boot Repair tool.
Have you installed the OS, or are you just trying to install?

Have you seen this: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI

[oldfred]

If you have a newer PC, it may have UEFI/BIOS and you can install in either mode.

With Ubuntu you can also choose either MBR(msdos) or gpt partitioning. fdisk does not work with gpt partitioning, but parted & gparted do. If using gpt also good to download gdisk which is the fdisk for gpt.

Windows only boots from gpt drives with UEFI. Or only boot with UEFI from gpt drives.

Ubuntu will boot from gpt drives with either BIOS or UEFI, but with BIOS you have to have a bios_grub partition and with UEFI you have to have a efi partition. For new drives I suggest both in case you want to change in the future as it is difficult to go back and add the efi partition at the front of a drive when you have lots of data.

# for details on one drive:
sudo parted /dev/sda unit s print
# for general info on multiple drives:

sudo parted -l

But this is even better:
Post the link to the BootInfo report that this creates. Is part of Boot-Repair:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Info

[irulan]

If you have a newer PC, it may have UEFI/BIOS and you can install in either mode.

With Ubuntu you can also choose either MBR(msdos) or gpt partitioning. fdisk does not work with gpt partitioning, but parted & gparted do. If using gpt also good to download gdisk which is the fdisk for gpt.

Windows only boots from gpt drives with UEFI. Or only boot with UEFI from gpt drives.

Ubuntu will boot from gpt drives with either BIOS or UEFI, but with BIOS you have to have a bios_grub partition and with UEFI you have to have a efi partition. For new drives I suggest both in case you want to change in the future as it is difficult to go back and add the efi partition at the front of a drive when you have lots of data.

# for details on one drive:
sudo parted /dev/sda unit s print
# for general info on multiple drives:

sudo parted -l

But this is even better:
Post the link to the BootInfo report that this creates. Is part of Boot-Repair:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Info

To clarify: I have a brand new laptop with a recently installed Ubuntu (the only system) which worked perfectly till I messed something up. Like I said, when I try to run Boot-repair, all I get is the following message:

"The boot of your PC is in EFI mode, but no EFI partition was detected. You may want to retry after creating a EFI partition (FAT32, 100MB~250MB, start of the disk, boot flag).
Do you want to continue?"

(if I press continue, eventually it says that all has been repaired successfully, and then on reboot I find that nothing has been)

There is NO LINK being created by Boot-repair. However, here is the result of sudo parted -l:

Model: ATA TOSHIBA MQ01ABD0 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 750GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: gpt

Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 1049kB 154MB 153MB fat32 boot
6 154MB 156MB 2097kB bios_grub
2 156MB 52.6GB 52.4GB ext4
4 52.6GB 483GB 430GB ext4
5 483GB 746GB 263GB ext4
3 746GB 750GB 4179MB linux-swap(v1)


Model: ATA SAMSUNG MZMPC032 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 32.0GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 1049kB 12.0GB 12.0GB Basic data partition


Model: Ut165 USB Flash Disk (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdc: 2021MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 31.7kB 2020MB 2020MB primary fat32 boot, lba



... and of sudo parted /dev/sda unit s print:


Model: ATA TOSHIBA MQ01ABD0 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 1465149168s
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: gpt

Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 2048s 301055s 299008s fat32 boot
6 301056s 305151s 4096s bios_grub
2 305152s 102707199s 102402048s ext4
4 102707200s 942387199s 839680000s ext4
5 942387200s 1456986111s 514598912s ext4
3 1456986112s 1465147391s 8161280s linux-swap(v1)

[oldfred]

Ubuntu boots with gpt in bios mode or UEFI mode. And you have both the fat32 with boot flag which is a efi partition for UEFI boot and a bios_grub partition for booting in BIOS mode.

When you start Boot-Repair it should give you a choice of BootInfo report or repairs.
See graphic in step 4.

Post the link to the BootInfo report that this creates. Is part of Boot-Repair:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Info

[irulan]

Ubuntu boots with gpt in bios mode or UEFI mode. And you have both the fat32 with boot flag which is a efi partition for UEFI boot and a bios_grub partition for booting in BIOS mode.

When you start Boot-Repair it should give you a choice of BootInfo report or repairs.
See graphic in step 4.

Post the link to the BootInfo report that this creates. Is part of Boot-Repair:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Info

Ok, got it now:

http://paste.ubuntu.com/1640790/

Thanks for the patience