Attempts to dual-boot Ubuntu 12.04 and Windows 8

[jneedle29]

Also- I may have been wrong about the intelRST stuff. It looks active, but the mode is AHCI. I've been trying to manipulate the accelerator settings, but I can't access them. None of the links seem to directly address what to do here- or at least not in a way I can understand.

[oldfred]

Strange as I understood once an entry is added in UEFI it saves it and you have to manually remove it. One or more of the dumps of entries may be just last used as one of yours now shows the DVD as a default.

It also may have to do with secure boot on or off?

I do not know Intel SRT but have some more links.
Intel SRT - Dell XPS Screen shots of Intel SRT screens & lots of details
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2038121
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2036204
Details in post #10 on an install that worked
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2020155
Dell XPS Intel SRT issue on hibernating post #25
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1932965
Some info on re-instating details in post #9 Dell 14z
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2038121
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2070491
Ubuntu on hard drive, re-enable SRT post #19 details
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2129157

[jneedle29]

Progress has been made! I switched my BIOS settings to place return boot priority to my hard drive, then ran the boot-repair stuff in the trial mode of the Ubuntu cd, and after running boot-repair and rebooting, I finally got the GRUB menu. My GRUB choices looked as follows:

Ubuntu
Advanced Options for Ubuntu
Windows UEFI bootmgfw.efi
Windows Boot UEFI Launcher
Windows UEFI Recovery bootmgfw.efi
Windows Boot UEFI Recovery
Windows Recovery Environment (loader) (on /dev/sda2)
Windows 8 (loader) (on /dev/sda3)
System Setup

Went into Ubuntu, and everything was great. The only thing seems to be that when I chose Ubuntu, I get a message of the form:

 [              X.XXXXXX] kvm: disabled by BIOS

X's are numbers, and sometimes there's more than one of these numbers. Anyway, aside from that, Ubuntu loaded up fine. I shut down, reboot, and was returned to GRUB.

This second time, I tried to boot Windows 8. The first option I tried was the second to last one (Windows 8 (loader) (on /dev/sda3)), but I got the following message:

error: can't find command 'drivemap'
error: invalid EFI file path
press any key to continue:

So the next thing I tried was the Windows UEFI bootmgfw.efi option. This brought me into Windows 8, but when I shut down and rebooted, it skipped GRUB and sent me straight to Windows 8. So, I popped in the Ubuntu cd, rebooted from the disk, and did the boot-repair again. Once again, I got into the GRUB menu, and Ubuntu worked fine. Then, I again shut down my laptop and booted it back up. This time I chose the Windows Boot UEFI Launcher. This produced the same result as the other Windows option; it got me in, but it prevented GRUB from loading up the next time. So, once more I did the boot-repair, and am avoiding Windows at the moment.

Basically, my questions are as follows: 1) Should I be worried about the message I'm getting when I choose to boot Ubuntu, 2) Is my inability to use the Windows 8 (loader) (on /dev/sda3) option a (fixable) problem, the related 3) How do I boot into Windows 8 without losing GRUB, and 4) what are those other options for?

Thank you so much for all the help you've already provided, oldfred; hopefully, I'm almost done.

[laugustogs]

[...]

Basically, my questions are as follows: 1) Should I be worried about the message I'm getting when I choose to boot Ubuntu, 2) Is my inability to use the Windows 8 (loader) (on /dev/sda3) option a (fixable) problem, the related 3) How do I boot into Windows 8 without losing GRUB, and 4) what are those other options for?

Thank you so much for all the help you've already provided, oldfred; hopefully, I'm almost done.

I have exactly the same problem here, bro. No luck on finding a solution, though. I already tried disabling the fast startup on Windows, which was the first thing I thought (since it's skipping GRUB), but I still got the same behavior.

[oldfred]

Do not know about the kvm BIOS error. Is this install in a qemu/kvm or do have have some setting in UEFI/BIOS for kvm?

It seems like Windows is having to run repairs on its reboot and that is resetting it to the default in UEFI. Did you turn off fastboot (always used hibernation?).

Grub2's os-prober has a bug and only creates BIOS type boot entries that do not work with UEFI. You can turn os-prober off as the entries in 25_custom as the correct efi boot entries. More discussion and how to edit files are in the link in my signature.

grub2's os-prober creates wrong style (BIOS) chain boot entry
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...2/+bug/1024383
type of entry from Boot-Repair that should work.
menuentry "Windows UEFI bkpbootmgfw.efi" {
menuentry "Windows Boot UEFI loader" {
Type of entry that does not work:
'Windows ...) (on /dev/sdXY)'

[patspiper]

For the kvm error, check if there is a Virtualization setting in the bios and make sure it is enabled.

As for the booting issues, I have the exact symptoms on an HP Pavilion g6 (Win8/Ubuntu 13.04).

[jneedle29]

patspiper- thanks for the tip! Changed the setting in my BIOS, and the message went away

oldfred- I've had fastboot turned off- actually, oddly, it stopped showing up in the options where I did deselect it.
I followed your instructions on http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2147295 about efi menu cleanup, but I'm confused about what to do at the end- once I'm in /etc/grub.d/25_custom, what am I supposed to do in it?

[oldfred]

Any entries you do not want you can just delete. Just be sure to keep each entire boot stanza that you do want. You can also edit menu entry to anything that makes sense to you instead of default if you like.
If you have the backup then you can restore entries if need be.

[jneedle29]

So, after having done this code I should be able to run Windows 8 and still get the grub screen every time I start up?

sudo bash -c "echo GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=true >> /etc/default/grub"
sudo update-grub

[oldfred]

That should just add a line to the grub configuration that stops os-prober, but the rest of grub runs. And os-prober does not work with UEFI. When they fix os-prober your just need to delete line, comment it out, or change to false.
I have it off on my systems as I have too many old installs and it keeps finding all of them. So I just add the one's I want into my 40_custom.