installing ubuntu 14.04 on pre-installed windows 8 machine -- uefi or not?

[kimberly2]

Not sure why you are getting any partition list with fdisk unless using the very new versions of Ubuntu that have a very new version of fdisk that actually works with gpt.
Windows only boots from gpt partitioned drives with UEFI.
Windows only boots from MBR(msdos) partitioned drives with BIOS.
There is such a thing as hybrid, which you want to avoid at all costs. It is used primarily by Mac which are UEFI, to boot Windows in BIOS Mode. But requires syncing the gpt & MBR partitions.
http://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/hybrid.html

In post #5 your gpt list looks like a normal Windows gpt partitioned drive. But not sure why you then had any list in fdisk other than the normal one large gpt partition which is to prevent you from using fdisk and corrupting a gpt drive.

What brand/model system?

Most often the reason you do not see Windows partition is that you left fast boot or the always on hibernation on. But could be that Windows still needs chkdsk, which it always needs after a resize, ot other partition issues.

Fast Startup off
http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials...ndows-8-a.html
http://askubuntu.com/questions/14590...to-hibernation

Does Windows still boot?
In UEFI menu do you see both UEFI: and other boot options?
If a very new system, 15.04 may work slightly better as it has newer kernel & support software. But partition not seen issue will probably be the same.

Does gparted show NTFS partitions. There is a Windows reserved partition that gparted will show errors on as it is unformatted. But that is standard and it should not be formatted.

Partitions not seen in gparted
http://www.rodsbooks.com/missing-parts/index.html

With UEFI systems, you need to always boot in UEFI mode not BIOS/CSM/Legacy or else you may create issues. And do not use partition tools that are not gpt aware.

hi, thanks for the response.

i noticed the pic i inserted into my post didn't get inserted inline, here it is: i.imgur.com/TrTsyhq.png it shows the Disks utility, which is one of the circumstances that DOES show the unallocated space I created.

so with regards to the brand/model -- it's a little weird, it's a refurbished, "unbranded" HP Pavilion Slimline... i guess because they refurbished it, they weren't allowed to sell it under HP's name anymore, so they covered all the HP stickers with these generic globe stickers and even sharpied out some mentions of HP! i hope that doesn't mean there's something wrong with it...

i turned fast startup off and checked to see if it would see the unallocated space but it still didn't. however, i didn't chkdsk after that, i'll try that now.

at this moment, windows is still booting.

sorry, what do you mean by uefi menu? do you mean the one when i start up the comp, or that one you access within windows by clicking restart while holding shift or something?

i assume that the windows disk management tool i used is "gpt aware" right?

thanks!

[kimberly2]

ok, i also did chkdsk a bunch of times in a row. i don't know much about it, so this may be totally normal, but a few of the numbers it reports are changing each time i do it (though pretty slightly): <x> kb in <y> files, x kb in y indexes, x kb in use by the system, x kb available on disk, x allocation units available on disk. it says 0 kb in bad sectors and also says that it found no problems though. it also starts with "warning! f parameter not specified. running chkdsk in read-only mode"... is that bad?

anyway, booting back into the liveusb and trying the install again, when i get to the "something else" choice where it displays the partitions, it still just displays /dev/sda4 as one massive block.

also, since (i think) shutting off fast boot, when i do "sudo gdisk -l" in the liveusb, i get: gpt disk (gdisk) version 0.8.8. problem opening -l for reading! error is 2. the specified file does not exist!

okay, so i made what i might call a minor breakthrough, but i'm not gonna go through with it till i get the green light from someone more experience than me.

when i boot up, here's what it looks like:

http://i.imgur.com/g873YFF.jpg

the first thing is that f10 gives you the bios setup... but i thought there was no bios if it's uefi?

anyway, i'll get back to that in a second, but focus on f9, boot device options. if i select that, i get:

http://i.imgur.com/5kKHZ0G.jpg

now, notice a couple things. first, my live usb stick shows up in two places: uefi, and legacy boot sources. all this time so far i've been doing the uefi one to get into the liveusb. but also, if i select the sata0 hard drive under legacy boot sources, it just boots my windows as usual...so what does THAT mean, is windows uefi or not??

anyway, since in the past i've been doing the uefi one, right now i tried the legacy one. it first showed me that little man with the keyboard symbol, then very slowly booted ubuntu (more slowly than when i did the uefi one). it gave me the (graphical, not CLI like the uefi one!) options to either try ubuntu or install it immediately. i decided to poke around in it without installing. gdisk gave the same thing ("error is 2"), but when i go to try and install it, it DOES give me the "install ubuntu alongside windows 8" option!

...but nothing can ever be easy. it asks me to allocate space to both, but only looks at /dev/sda5 and /dev/sda6, which are 10 and 6.5gb respectively. if i go to the "advanced partitioning tool", it has the same thing as before (the massive 900gb block as just one thing).

so that's interesting at the least.

back to the bios thing. if i do that, here are a few things.

system info:

http://i.imgur.com/LZ6zoQS.jpg

secure boot (i thought that command i did in windows suggested i don't have that option...):

http://i.imgur.com/bfzBSyt.jpg

gives me this warning:

http://i.imgur.com/5Gd2rFQ.jpg

but then gives me these options:

http://i.imgur.com/JAj5SxA.jpg

i get the feeling the key is here but i don't know what to do. any ideas? thanks!


ok, so i did some more poking around and it gets more confusing (for me, but maybe it will make a lot of sense to you). here are a bunch of pictures, because i can't screenshot/copy during boot:

[ubfan1]

I think the "refurbished" is the key here. All "pre-installed" Win 8 machines are UFEI mode on a gpt disk. What you have looks like Win 8 was installed in legacy mode. This means Ubuntu should be installed in legacy mode so both may be booted without having to switch modes. Not sure what's with the disk reports. I'd use sudo gdisk -l /dev/sda to get a report down to the bytes (parted does not seem to work as the man pages advertise for selecting units). That way, you can copy them and restore if necessary (like maybe recreating the gpt partition table to fix any claimed damage). Maybe you already did fix it.

[oldfred]

I think I agree with ubfan1.
Windows reinstall in BIOS mode converts a gpt drive to MBR(msdos), but does it incorrectly.
It leaves the backup gpt partition table. And then Linux tools see both gpt & MBR and only assume you want to erase drive to clean it up.

Either way it needs to be housecleaned. Either drive must be fully UEFI/gpt or BIOS/MBR.
You can use fixparts to erase backup gpt data.

I do not know how to tell from inside Windows whether you have booted in BIOS or UEFI mode.

You can run Boot-Repair's summary report and it will show details, but may just show both?
Post the link to the Create BootInfo summary report. Is part of Boot-Repair:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Info


If Windows is booting in BIOS mode, you need to run this:
FixParts is the easiest way to remove the stray GPT data. GPT fdisk (gdisk or sgdisk) can do it, but the procedure's a bit more involved.
http://www.rodsbooks.com/fixparts/

[kimberly2]

I think I agree with ubfan1.
Windows reinstall in BIOS mode converts a gpt drive to MBR(msdos), but does it incorrectly.
It leaves the backup gpt partition table. And then Linux tools see both gpt & MBR and only assume you want to erase drive to clean it up.

Either way it needs to be housecleaned. Either drive must be fully UEFI/gpt or BIOS/MBR.
You can use fixparts to erase backup gpt data.

I do not know how to tell from inside Windows whether you have booted in BIOS or UEFI mode.

You can run Boot-Repair's summary report and it will show details, but may just show both?
Post the link to the Create BootInfo summary report. Is part of Boot-Repair:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Info


If Windows is booting in BIOS mode, you need to run this:
FixParts is the easiest way to remove the stray GPT data. GPT fdisk (gdisk or sgdisk) can do it, but the procedure's a bit more involved.
http://www.rodsbooks.com/fixparts/

thanks for the replies guys. i suspect w8 is booting in bios mode -- because in the pic i included above (of the boot sources), the HD that loads w8 if i select it is under the "legacy boot sources" section, and nothing's really under uefi. also, there's some sort of uefi menu you can access, like in this article: http://www.howtogeek.com/175649/what...d-of-the-bios/

i can get as far as the "troubleshoot->advanced options" menu, but mine has everything except the "uefi firmware settings" tile. so this further reinforces that it is installed with legacy.

in a way it is comforting that mine may be a special case, because it means i'm not just missing something obvious. but it's also awful, because now i have to do this stuff.

in my "secure boot config" pic above, what do you think about the fact that "fast boot" is enabled there, even though i disabled it from w8? is it like, having it enabled here allows you have it at all, but having it disabled in windows should still disable it?

i'm kind of confused now. if w8 is installed in bios/legacy mode, then what's the issue and why isn't ubuntu seeing the right stuff when i boot it in legacy mode?

the weird thing is that it IS seeing that windows is there when i boot it in legacy mode (see above) but it still doesn't see the unallocated space. do you think using fixpart to remove the gpt stuff would actually fix that and make it see that space?

what exactly is the Disks utility doing differently that it (and mostly none of the other utilities) sees the unallocated space from within ubuntu?

[oldfred]

Windows 8 has fast startup which is always on hibernation. You must turn that off if dual booting.

Fast Boot is an UEFI setting where it does not check system for new hardware and assumes it is the same. That speeds boot a lot, but can lead to issues where you cannot get into UEFI to change settings. Best to turn it off at least for now.

My UEFI motherboard has several fast boot settings. One for warm reboot, one for cold power down restart & timing on fast boot setting. So I set cold boot to normal, fastboot off & reboot to fastboot but with a 3 sec delay so I have a chance to press del key and get into UEFI to change a setting.

Not sure if disks then is recognizing drive as both MBR & gpt as in hybrid?

Whatever you do, I would fully backup Windows. Then even in worse case you can restore it.
My new Dell SFF system had Dell backup, Windows backup & I did a full backup with Macrium. But that was 2 flash drives & 5 DVDs.

Backup windows before install - post by Mark Phelps
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...0#post12611710
http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp

[kimberly2]

Windows 8 has fast startup which is always on hibernation. You must turn that off if dual booting.

Fast Boot is an UEFI setting where it does not check system for new hardware and assumes it is the same. That speeds boot a lot, but can lead to issues where you cannot get into UEFI to change settings. Best to turn it off at least for now.

My UEFI motherboard has several fast boot settings. One for warm reboot, one for cold power down restart & timing on fast boot setting. So I set cold boot to normal, fastboot off & reboot to fastboot but with a 3 sec delay so I have a chance to press del key and get into UEFI to change a setting.

Not sure if disks then is recognizing drive as both MBR & gpt as in hybrid?

Whatever you do, I would fully backup Windows. Then even in worse case you can restore it.
My new Dell SFF system had Dell backup, Windows backup & I did a full backup with Macrium. But that was 2 flash drives & 5 DVDs.

Backup windows before install - post by Mark Phelps
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...0#post12611710
http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp

hi thanks for the response again.

sorry, i'm not sure what you mean by "w8 has a fast boot that is always on hibernation". what do you mean by "always on hibernation"? i assume you also mean the fast boot whose option is found in the power options like this: http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials...ndows-8-a.html

if so, i've turned that off a while ago.

when you said "fast boot is a uefi setting..." you were still talking about that one?

when you said "My UEFI motherboard has several fast boot settings" did you mean still the windows one, or the one i found as in this picture? http://i.imgur.com/JAj5SxA.jpg

the backup shouldn't be too hard because the system has literally nothing on it except the OS.

so your suggestion right now is basically to backup, then use fixparts?

thank you!

[oldfred]

Backup is always a good idea, if your backup is not current.

Fast startup is a Windows setting. That is just hibernation.
Fast boot is a UEFI setting as you show in your picture. That can cause issues as system may boot so fast that you cannot get back into UEFI.
Design of fast boot seems to be that you are supposed to get into UEFI from Windows. But if Windows breaks, then you may not be able to get into UEFI. Most revert to a standard boot on a total cold boot or after power shutdown. But a few do not and users have not been able to get into UEFI to fix settings. Grub now also has a setting to get into UEFI, that may work for most systems.

[kimberly2]

Backup is always a good idea, if your backup is not current.

Fast startup is a Windows setting. That is just hibernation.
Fast boot is a UEFI setting as you show in your picture. That can cause issues as system may boot so fast that you cannot get back into UEFI.
Design of fast boot seems to be that you are supposed to get into UEFI from Windows. But if Windows breaks, then you may not be able to get into UEFI. Most revert to a standard boot on a total cold boot or after power shutdown. But a few do not and users have not been able to get into UEFI to fix settings. Grub now also has a setting to get into UEFI, that may work for most systems.

alright, i've been pretty busy but i'm gonna try backing it up and fixing it. i highly suspect that it will mess things up and i'll end up just nuking the HD and doing a clean install anyway, but it's worth a shot. i'll report back either way. thanks for the help.

[kimberly2]

Backup is always a good idea, if your backup is not current.

Fast startup is a Windows setting. That is just hibernation.
Fast boot is a UEFI setting as you show in your picture. That can cause issues as system may boot so fast that you cannot get back into UEFI.
Design of fast boot seems to be that you are supposed to get into UEFI from Windows. But if Windows breaks, then you may not be able to get into UEFI. Most revert to a standard boot on a total cold boot or after power shutdown. But a few do not and users have not been able to get into UEFI to fix settings. Grub now also has a setting to get into UEFI, that may work for most systems.

hi, so some progress i think. hopefully someone sees this soon so i can proceed.

i used fixparts (off a liveusb) and like he says on his webpage for it: http://www.rodsbooks.com/fixparts/

FixParts checks the validity of the partitions it finds on your disk and will automatically (and silently) make adjustments for certain problems it finds. Thus, you may discover that your partition table is fine at this point. It's also possible that you'll see some changes in primary vs. logical status, or even omitted partitions.

i'm pretty sure this was the case for me. i did sudo fixparts /dev/sda, and then had to hit w to write it, then q to quit.

now the unallocated space shows up pretty much everywhere, gparted for example.

w8 still boots, so that's good.

even now though, and i have no idea what this means, when i go into the boot menu, the liveusb still appears in uefi and legacy modes.

if i go into uefi mode and try to install, when i get to the "installation type" (where you choose what partition/etc to install to), it only has the "something else" choice, that basically leads you to gparted.

if i boot with legacy mode instead, it has both "install ubuntu alongside windows 8" and "something else". if i choose "alongside", i get this:

http://i.imgur.com/KRhKkl2.jpg

if i choose "something else" instead (this pic is for booting during legacy mode, but i'm pretty sure it looks the same if i boot into uefi): http://i.imgur.com/6n0UDjA.jpg

so you can see the free space there.

so, what should i do? do you think the stuff that it says will happen if i choose "alongside w8" is fine, or would it mess stuff up?

one person has told me that i should choose "something else", then choose to install to the free space, and choose /dev/sda for the "device for boot loader installation", and it will take care of the rest.

i think i've almost got it, any help would be much appreciated! thank you!