Grub Failure on 13.04 EFI Installation

[bj44]

Installed 13.04 like I did on previous releases but after restart I get Grub Rescue error. All seems to be OK as far as partitions go, ran Boot-Repair but still the same issue exists.
Ref: http://paste.ubuntu.com/5626684/

Appreciate any help...

TIA

[oldfred]

You have what looks like an old efi partition with efi boot files. But efi partitions are only in gpt partitioned drives.

Your drive is now MBR(msdos) not gpt.
Ubuntu will boot from gpt partitioned drives with BIOS or UEFI.
Windows will only boot from gpt partitioned drives with UEFI.

Are you booting in BIOS/CSM mode from UEFI/BIOS and booting Boot-Repair in BIOS mode?
Your fstab still shows a efi entry? Which in MBR mode should not be.

Because Boot-Repair sees the efi files and the Microsoft efi files in the old efi partition it thinks you still have an UEFI boot system.

[bj44]

I don't have Windows 7 OS any longer and as you mentioned perhaps this is an old EFI. However I made sure I have deleted every single partitions before installation and recreated them under Ubuntu. This is very strange indeed, not sure how to get around it. The BIOS is set to EFI mode.

Thanks for the hint...

[oldfred]

You should just be able to go into the old efi partition and delete the files & folders in it.

Then make sure you are booting in BIOS mode not UEFI.

[bj44]

Thanks, but I guess that is one way to get around it. I really wanted to be able to boot in UEFI mode to to take advantage of the firmware pluses. I did that in 12.10 installation and it worked perfect. Maybe 13.04 won't allow UEFI mode for single Ubuntu installation, perhaps you must have a secondary OS such as Win 7 or Win 8...

Thanks again for your help...

[oldfred]

It should install in UEFI mode. But how it installs is totally determined by how you boot installer.

You have to have secure boot off, if you have that setting, UEFI on, and CSM off and then boot live flash drive in UEFI mode. It should actually give two choices, UEFI or BIOS/CSM/Legacy or whatever.

If you want to partition in advance.
I have created my gpt partitions with gparted. Under device, create partition table, advanced, choose gpt not the default msdos (MBR) partitioning.


For the Total space you want for Ubuntu:
Ubuntu's standard install is just / (root) & swap, but it is better to add another partition for /home if allocating over 30GB.:
Only if gpt - all partitions in gpt are primary:
gpt: 250 MB efi FAT32 (for UEFI boot or future use for UEFI, you only can have one per drive, so if already existing do not attempt another)
gpt: 1 MB bios_grub no format (for BIOS boot not required for UEFI)
gpt or MBR(msdos)
Ubuntu partitions - smaller root only where hard drive space is limited.
If total space less than about 30GB just use / not separate /home or standard install.
1. 10-25 GB Mountpoint / primary or logical beginning ext4(or ext3)
2. all but 2 GB Mountpoint /home logical beginning ext4(or ext3)
3. 2 GB Mountpoint swap logical

Depending on how much memory you have you may not absolutely need swap but having some is still recommended. I do not hibernate (boots fast enough for me) but if hibernating then you need swap equal to RAM in GiB not GB. And if dual booting with windows a shared NTFS partition is also recommended. But you usually cannot create that as part of the install, just leave some space. Or partition in advance (recommended).
One advantage of partitioning in advance is that the installer will use the swap space to speed up the install. Thanks Herman for the tip.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DiskSpace
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2021534

[bj44]

Thanks again for your help oldfred. I did everything as you said, the only thing is I am still in Legacy Mode. I wasn't sure about the mount point for fat32 partition, so I set it to /efi as
you see on the image below. Please advise if I need to tweak any of the partitions...

[bj44]

[oldfred]

Partitioning looks fine. Just realize whatever partitions you now have after some use you may want to change.

I cannot tell for sure, but since efi partition is mounted are you in UEFI mode?

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

[bj44]

Thank you,

Here is the BootInfo ==>> http://paste.ubuntu.com/5628166/

I'll test it again and will report soon.

==========================

Yes after testing it this morning 13.04 failed to boot up. Boot-Repair does not work correctly either. I am back on 12.10 with EFI boot and all is working fine. I'll keep this thread open till this issue is resolved.

Thanks again for your support....