Fresh install Kubuntu 14.10 won't boot, no grub, straight to black screen

[finny388]

Just built new machine
Gigabyte H97N-wifi, i5 4590, samsung 840, wd black 4TB, Asus Strix 970

Live USB would go to black screen after grub until I learned to press 'e' and replace 'splash quiet' with 'nomodeset'.

So then I was able to install Kubuntu
sda (840) partitioned 50MB for EFI partition (sda2) and the rest for / (sda1)
sdb (WD 4TB) 8GB for swap (sdb2) and the rest for /home (sdb1)

Now when I try to boot it posts and then 'booting in insecure mode' appears, then screen goes black, a short press on the power button will power it down.

I'm new to EFI and secure boot, I only created the 50MB EFI partition as I was prompted to do so during install
Bootloader was assigned to sda during install
Hacking around to install linux is somewhat nostalgic but more so embarrassing when people ask how I'm loving my new pc.

I suspect I have to do the nomodeset thing again until I can install nvidia drivers but don't know why grub won't come up.

Any help appreciated.

[oldfred]

Is video card then nVidia?

I just built new UEFI system with Asus AR. I had to change a lot of settings in UEFI/CSM to get it to work.

Your efi partition is a bit small. Windows default is 100MB and we often suggest 300MB or a bit more. I do like to have a working install on every hard drive, just to make it easy to boot when something unexpected happens. But I also have a full UEFI boot install on a flash drive also.

My nVidia is an old card as I wanted to test the internal Intel video. But I guess I selected the wrong motherboard as my monitor only has DVI or VGA and motherboard has HDMI and Displayport. :(
So I installed my nVidia 620gt card and was surprised it has worked without issue. My older still nVidia 9600GT always required nomodeset until I installed the nVidia driver from the repository. All live boots and first boot after install.

Best to see details. Post link to summary report.
Boot Repair -Also handles LVM, GPT, separate /boot and UEFI dual boot.:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair


Note that I have not yet fully partitioned either SSD nor hard drive.


fred@trusy-ar:~$ sudo parted -l
[sudo] password for fred:
Model: ATA Samsung SSD 840 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 128GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 1049kB 525MB 524MB fat32 efi boot
2 525MB 527MB 2097kB bios_grub
3 527MB 26.7GB 26.2GB ext4 trusty
4 126GB 128GB 2000MB linux-swap(v1)


Model: ATA WDC WD10EZEX-00B (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 1000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: gpt

Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 1049kB 525MB 524MB fat32 msftdata
2 525MB 527MB 2097kB bios_grub
3 527MB 26.7GB 26.2GB ext4
4 26.7GB 446GB 419GB ext4
5 446GB 476GB 29.9GB ext4



My sdb3 is for another install, not yet done, my sdb4 is for data ( I do not have a lot), and sdb5 is backup from sda, mostly just /home settings as all data is in my data partition on sdb. My data gets backed up, partially to another computer, DVD, flash drives and where ever. :)

I include a bios_grub incase I want to experiment with BIOS boot mode. And sdb1 is FAT32 but boot flag not set yet to be the efi partition for all installs on hard drive. My old hard drive had at least 10 mostly obsolete test installs, just because I had space for another 25GB / (root) partition for next test.

[finny388]

Thanks Fred, yes the Asus Strix 970 is nVidia.
I followed steps from the Graphics Resolution sticky in this section. This worked:

Booted with live usb and:


sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt

sudo mount -o bind /dev /mnt/dev
sudo mount -o bind /sys /mnt/sys
sudo mount -t proc /proc /mnt/proc

sudo chroot /mnt /bin/bash

found grub file in etc/default

opened with sudo

sudo kate grub

commented out the GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0 line (put an # at far left of line)

saved grub file


sudo update-grub

rebooted

voila, there's my grub menu

hit enter, same thing, black screen

try again only this time replace 'quiet splash' with 'nomodeset'

and voila 2, kubuntu booted.

sheesh.

So far so good although in the Additional Drivers section it is not detecting anything but that is another topic. Once I get the video driver installed I'll see if this will reboot without intervention and report back.

[finny388]

Had to install nVidia drivers from edgers ppa.
Once that was done booting was smooth.
Marking as ridiculous and solved. ;)