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cryptoparrot
September 17th, 2013, 09:07 PM
Hi all, I'm having an issue installing Ubuntu on a dell XPS 14.

Steps so far:
Turned off secure boot in BIOS
Turned off the Intel Rapid Storage and returned SATA operation to AHCI
Shrunk the Windows 8 partition by 100GB
Booted Ubuntu from USB

It didn't detect the presence of the Windows 8 OS on installation, so I had to manually partition the free space I had created. I added 40GB for Home, 55GB for / and 4GB of Swap. The installation was successful and upon boot I'm presented with the GRUB menu, which only offers me Ubuntu (No windows is listed). If I try and boot into Ubuntu I just hang on the purple background screen and nothing happens. I've managed to boot back into Windows by selecting boot options on startup and selecting the Windows Boot Manager from the UEFI boot menu. In Windows diskmgmt.msc it almost seems like the partitions haven't been written to. I don't know if this is normal but the partitions for /home and / are listed as RAW.

Any ideas as to what I can do to fix this? If you need anymore info then please ask and I'll do my best to provide it.

Thanks

ajgreeny
September 17th, 2013, 10:32 PM
How did you shrink the windows partition?
How did you make the partitions for ubuntu? If you did that in windows disk management you may have dynamic partitions which Linux is unable to use.

You should always shrink Windows using the windows disk management tool, and then boot into windows and run chkdisk to make sure everything is OK.
Never make partitions for linux using windows, but leave the space unallocated.

Tell us in more detail what exactly you did and we may be able to help more.

cryptoparrot
September 18th, 2013, 11:05 AM
Hi,

Thanks for the reply.

I shrank the system volume in Windows using Parted Magic. I initially tried this in Windows but it threw errors about the disk not having enough space to Shrink by 100GB (Which it definitely did). I thought this may be an error with a system file in use that needed to be moved, so I went with a live boot USB. I left this as unallocated space. After this I logged back into Windows and everything was working perfectly, with 100GB of free unallocated space at the end of the disk.

I then booted the Ubuntu installer, it didn't detect my Windows 8 install so I clicked 'Do something else' and partitioned the disks manually. I found the freespace I had created and chopped it into:

40GB ext4 Primary - /home
56GB ext4 Primary - /
4GB swap

The installer seemed to run with no issues, when the system rebooted I was presented with the GRUB menu. In the menu I could only boot from Ubuntu (and the other utilities that GRUB comes with as standard) and I couldn't see my Windows 8 boot option. When I selected the Ubuntu option I was presented with a purple screen, where the system just hangs.

I could get back into my Windows 8 install by selecting the boot menu in UEFI and selecting the Windows boot manager option.

I the

oldfred
September 18th, 2013, 04:33 PM
Did you install in BIOS mode not UEFI mode?

How you boot install media is how it installs. Or boot in BIOS mode installs in BIOS mode.
Shows install with screen shots.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI

Boot-Repair can convert a BIOS install to UEFI by uninstalling grub-pc and installing grub-efi. May be best to see details.

Post the link to the BootInfo report that this creates. Is part of Boot-Repair:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Info
Boot Repair -Also handles LVM, GPT, separate /boot and UEFI dual boot.:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair
You can repair many boot issues with this or 'Create BootInfo' report (Other Options) & post the link it creates, so we can see your exact configuration and diagnose advanced problems.
LighterWeight (Lubuntu based) Boot-RepairCD
http://sourceforge.net/projects/boot-repair-cd/files/
Full Ubuntu 13.04 liveDVD or USB Flash drive Installer with Boot-Repair included (for newer computers)
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LinuxSecureRemix

Did you turn off fast boot or hibernation. That is one reason the installer will not see the Windows partition. The other is if this is an Ultrabook, it uses Intel SRT which has RAID meta data on drive.

Dell seems very similar across models, main difference is screen size and whether Ultrabook or not.
Dell 14z & 17r with Intel SRT
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2038121
Dell UltraBook - Instructions & Details in Post #15 & 16 Devine Shine
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2144853
Installing Ubuntu 12.10 x64 on Dell XPS 13 Alongside Windows from USB New user with Details post 10
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2108450
Dell Inspiron 17R SE - 12.04.2 but otherwise similar to XPS13 above
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2125701
Dell XPS 14 Ultrabook what works
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2116597
Dell 14z used Dell Recovery and Refind
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2125397
HOWTO Ubuntu 12.10 x64 Dell XPS 14 (UEFI + Intel Rapid Start Technology + Flashcache), bumblebee - Details
Do not understand why flash cache is required, just install to SSD?
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2117166