Boot-Repair not properly recognizing partitions

[slochower]

Thanks for the tips. I did use "something else" to delete the unformatted BIOS-Boot partition, delete the FAT32 partition, and reformat /. But still no dice. I used the live USB image to run Boot Repair and it complained about the missing BIOS-Boot partition, so I created it in GParted and Boot Repair finished the recommended repair. But I still couldn't boot from the BIOS. So I used the live USB image again, and Boot Repair complained about missing the EFI partition. I create that in GParted, but Boot Repair can't see the EFI partition. Any suggestions? I don't care about UEFI booting and I'd be happy with a legacy solution...

[oldfred]

You have to be consistent.

If you want UEFI boot you must have the ESP - efi system partition.
Or if you want BIOS you must have the bios_grub partition.

If it still cannot see efi partition, I might delete & recreate. If it has any efi files in it back those up first. It must be FAT32 formatted and with boot flag.

Did you run the sgdisk commands?
sudo sgdisk -v /dev/sda

[slochower]

You have to be consistent.

If you want UEFI boot you must have the ESP - efi system partition.
Or if you want BIOS you must have the bios_grub partition.

I have been told both things by Boot-Repair, so I've created both partitions.

If it still cannot see efi partition, I might delete & recreate. If it has any efi files in it back those up first. It must be FAT32 formatted and with boot flag.

Yup. I deleted the EFI partition during the clean install, tried to boot and it wouldn't work. So I launched Boot Repair which told me to recreate it. Boot Repair still can't see the new, blank EFI partition (screenshot attached).

Did you run the sgdisk commands?
sudo sgdisk -v /dev/sda

Yup. It says no errors.

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo sgdisk -v /dev/sda

No problems found. 2016656378 free sectors (961.6 GiB) available in 4
segments, the largest of which is 2016651264 (961.6 GiB) in size.

[oldfred]

Boot-Repair cannot create partitions.
And if it is updating a UEFI install it must see the ESP, or if updating BIOS on gpt partitioned drive, it must see the bios_grub partition.

I still think it may be something related to out of sync GUID, but do not know an easy way to list or compare GUID. I thought deleting & recreating FAT32 partition may fix that?

Do you have efi files in the ESP partition?
If you get errors, run this:
sudo fsck -t vfat /dev/sda5

[slochower]

Boot-Repair cannot create partitions.
And if it is updating a UEFI install it must see the ESP, or if updating BIOS on gpt partitioned drive, it must see the bios_grub partition.

I still think it may be something related to out of sync GUID, but do not know an easy way to list or compare GUID. I thought deleting & recreating FAT32 partition may fix that?

Yeah, me too. I don't know why or how, but that didn't do the trick.

Do you have efi files in the ESP partition?

Not that I know of.

If you get errors, run this:
sudo fsck -t vfat /dev/sda5

fsck says that a dirty bit is set and the partition may not have been unmounted properly. I tell it to fix the dirty bit, but when I run fsck again, it says the same message.

[oldfred]

Then delete & recreate it again.

[slochower]

I'm stuck in the cycle. I delete the unformatted bios_grub partition and I delete the boot FAT32 partition. I launch Boot Repair. First it says GPP detected and I have to create the unformatted bios_grub partition. So I do that in GParted and relaunch Boot Repair. Then Boot Repair says I'm missing the FAT32 partition, so I go ahead and create that in GParted and relaunch Boot Repair. Boot Repair still stays it can't find the EFI partition. There's no way out of the loop. This is a really unfortunate position and the only thing left to do is to do a complete reinstall, letting the installer take over the entire disk and restore from backups. Simply reinstalling the / partition didn't work.

[oldfred]

You are booting or repairing in different modes.
If it is asking for the bios_grub then that is BIOS/CSM mode.
If it is asking for the ESP then that is UEFI mode.
And you need one or the other.

[slochower]

I was using UEFI boot the whole time (though I was willing to forgo that if it would solve the issue). Boot Repair would complain about both bios_grub and ESP partitions in the same session -- that is, without rebooting. The cycle I described in post 17 would happen running Boot Repair twice in a row. So I suspect that Boot Repair was just confused. I couldn't spend any more downtime on fixing the issue, so I reinstalled and let the Ubuntu installer take over the disk. I restored my data from backups. For the record, the installer created only the ESP partition, not the bios_grub partition.