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Thread: Dual boot, lost the ability to boot windows

  1. #11
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    Re: Dual boot, lost the ability to boot windows

    Yes, I noticed those extra entries and gave them a try, but no joy for them, the ubuntu entry still works without going to the UEFI menu so grub is not totally trashed. I did not enable secure boot in Windows, or bios.

    Raccoon Strait
    Last edited by raccoonstrait; September 15th, 2018 at 01:09 AM.

  2. #12
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    Re: Dual boot, lost the ability to boot windows

    I do not see much difference between report that you say did not work and one that did work.

    It just about is that Boot-Repair added the new 25_custom boot entries and backed up /EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi to bkpbootx64.efi and made bootx64.efi a copy of shimx64.efi to boot Ubuntu from hard drive or fallback entry. It added in 25_custom a boot of Windows using bkpbootx64.efi.

    But if nothing works, I do not know what issue is. Still think it is more Windows as grub only boots fully working Windows, where from UEFI you can get Windows to boot but it can do its own fixes or recovery from hibernation.
    UEFI boot install & repair info - Regularly Updated :
    https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2147295
    Please use Thread Tools above first post to change to [Solved] when/if answered completely.

  3. #13
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    Re: Dual boot, lost the ability to boot windows

    I went back and tried those 3 additional entries. Two of them flashed an error message that went by so fast I had to get my camera out and snap a picture so I could read them. The message says:

    Failed to open /EFI/Boot/grubx64.efi - not found Failed to load image /EFI/Boot/grubx64.efi: Not Found start_image() returned Not Found

    Using Catfish I looked for grubx64.efi and found it in two places:

    /boot/efi/EFI/ubuntu
    /usr/lib/grub/x86_64-efi-signed

    I am wondering if it should also be in /boot/efi/EFI/Boot/ ?

    Could it be as simple as copying it over? I don't want to make things worse, so I don't want to attempt this unless you think it a good idea.

    I also tried loading Windows and then used shutdown rather than restart. It didn't help.

    Thank you again for your time and effort.

    Raccoon Strait

  4. #14
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    Re: Dual boot, lost the ability to boot windows

    I have seen that error, and I think it is from the shimx64.efi in /EFI/Boot.
    I would try copying grubx64.efi to /EFI/Boot. Copy from /EFI/ubuntu.

    I normally copy all of /EFI/ubuntu to /EFI/Boot and then just rename shimx64.efi. But I do not have a bootx64.efi as none is created. I believe new grub installs now do create a bootx64.efi if it does not exist. But Boot-Repair backups up the Windows copy & copies just shimx64.efi and that has worked in the past. Recently they have made some updates to grub and perhaps that is the change?
    UEFI boot install & repair info - Regularly Updated :
    https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2147295
    Please use Thread Tools above first post to change to [Solved] when/if answered completely.

  5. #15
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    Re: Dual boot, lost the ability to boot windows

    I first tried copying only grubx64.efi and tried it. No joy. I then tried copying all of boot/efi/EFI/ubuntu to boot/efi/EFI/Boot. Again no joy.

    You mention renaming shimx64.efi but you didn't say what you renamed it too. grubx64.efi is 1.1 mb and shimx64.efi is 1.3 mb. If you meant renaming shimx64.efi to grubx64.efi could that make some difference? They don't seem to be text files as mouspad won't open them so I cannot see the difference.

    There is a bootx64.efi in /boot/efi/EFI/Boot/ as well as a BOOTX64.CSV which has only one entry which is shimx64.efi.

    The error message went away in two of the alternate startups, but the third one still has an error message but it is so fast I cannot even capture it with my camera.

    I also took a look at /boot/efi/EFI/Boot/grub.cfg:

    search.fs_uuid 76d39694-ac38-49be-936e-e0e18122267f root hd0,gpt2
    set prefix=($root)'/boot/grub'
    configfile $prefix/grub.cfg

    The thing I noticed is that that uuid relates to sda2 rather than sda1, which is listed as the EFI system partition by blkid

    /dev/sda1: UUID="4B50-A76C" TYPE="vfat" PARTLABEL="EFI System Partition" PARTUUID="129e496b-1a4c-4469-9505-4c83015aeeec"

    /dev/sda2: UUID="76d39694-ac38-49be-936e-e0e18122267f" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="e8f00205-55ce-401f-8d6d-2de88f144130"

    Does that make sense to you?


    Raccoon Strait

    Oh, and there is a directory in /boot/efi/EFI/ubuntu called FW, which is empty. If empty, why is it there?
    Last edited by raccoonstrait; September 15th, 2018 at 04:53 PM.

  6. #16
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    Re: Dual boot, lost the ability to boot windows

    I rename shimx64.efi to bootx64.efi in /EFI/Boot.

    The 3 line grub.cfg in the ESP is a configfile entry to the full grub.cfg in your Ubuntu install's boot partition.

    I have multiple Ubuntu installs, and every new install overwrites my /EFI/ubuntu folder in sda. So I have multiple backups of my ESP. But I normally just edit grub.cfg in ESP with UUID of my 18.04 install and add entry into 40_custom to boot test install. I have os-prober off as it takes forever with many installs.

    My UEFI throws some errors that are not critical, system still works.

    I have lost track of what is correct in ESP, as I have same ESP since 14.04 with 16.04 & 18.04 and many test installs. Updates then have added & removed files & entries, but based boot is still the same.

    rant - not related to your issues.
    Something happened with my system and boot from my sda, stopped working. First error was out of space (in UEFI?) then I noticed it was updating UEFI with all the entries in all the folders in my ESP. Since I had many backups in ESP, I could see why it might be too much. But I housecleaned, reinstalled UEFI (which changes settings to defaults, but remembers most boot entries) and still can only boot with rEFInd that I have on sdc & on an emergency boot flash drive.
    https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...d/+bug/1787692
    /rant
    Last edited by oldfred; September 15th, 2018 at 06:17 PM.
    UEFI boot install & repair info - Regularly Updated :
    https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2147295
    Please use Thread Tools above first post to change to [Solved] when/if answered completely.

  7. #17
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    Re: Dual boot, lost the ability to boot windows

    Sorry, you lost me with ESP. I looked for grub.cfg but there are none in anything called ESP. I looked for ESP and got lots of them but the only stand alone ESP's were in places like /usr/src/linux-headers-4.15.0-33-generic/include/config/inet/esp/ and that doesn't seem to be relevant.

    What do you think about purging grub:

    sudo aptitude purge grub-common grub-efi-amd64 grub-efi-amd64-bin grub-efi-amd64-signed grub2-common

    Which should take the configuration files and then re-installing?

    sudo aptitude install grub-common grub-efi-amd64 grub-efi-amd64-bin grub-efi-amd64-signed grub2-common

    Would there be anything I would need to do after that to get it to look for all OS's?

    Raccoon Strait

  8. #18
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    Re: Dual boot, lost the ability to boot windows

    I believe the total reinstall of grub from command line as you posted is the same as what Boot-Repair does with a full reinstall of grub.

    The ESP - efi system partition should show in parted. It is the FAT32 partition with the boot flag and/or esp flag. One of my ESP, this one labeled as c so from sdc.
    Code:
     Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name      Flags
     1      1049kB  525MB   524MB   fat32        esp_c     boot, esp
    UEFI boot install & repair info - Regularly Updated :
    https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2147295
    Please use Thread Tools above first post to change to [Solved] when/if answered completely.

  9. #19
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    Re: Dual boot, lost the ability to boot windows

    Well oldfred, I did the command line re-install and it worked. I still have all those extra entries in the grub list, but the Windows Manager one worked...twice.

    So I guess I can mark this solved now.

    Thank you for your time, effort and patience.

    Raccoon Strait

  10. #20
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    Re: Dual boot, lost the ability to boot windows

    The extra entries are in 25_custom which is created by Boot-Repair not by grub.
    You can delete any or all of them, if desired or if not using any of them. If you turn off execute bit with -x, then it will not run with the update to grub.

    # Edit 25_custom entries created by Boot-Repair:
    sudo cp -a /etc/grub.d/25_custom /etc/grub.d/bkp25_custom
    # turn off execute bit or it will run backup also
    sudo chmod a-x /etc/grub.d/bkp25_custom
    edit entries:
    sudo nano /etc/grub.d/25_custom
    Or turn off entirely
    sudo chmod a-x /etc/grub.d/25_custom
    # Then do:
    sudo update-grub
    UEFI boot install & repair info - Regularly Updated :
    https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2147295
    Please use Thread Tools above first post to change to [Solved] when/if answered completely.

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