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I am not very good with Linux and EFI, but I wish to dual-boot Ubuntu and Pre Installed Windows 8 on my laptop. Windows 8 is definitely installed in EFI mode, and I boot ubuntu from my flash drive in EFI mode. I have been looking at the page explaining UEFI (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI) but it is all very confusing to me, as I am inexperienced with these things. I know how to partition my hard drive and everything, but according to the page, if I have windows 8 partitioned in an EFI partition, I can install ubuntu into the same partition and it will be installed in EFI mode? Excuse me if I'm wrong, but is this true? I cannot afford to mess up my laptop, as I only saved up enough money to buy 1. So can anyone offer me a simple, step by step explanation on how I can install ubuntu to dual-boot with pre-installed EFI windows 8 successfully? All I have seen is a "Figure it out yourself" and "Poke around in BIOS" tutorials with just snips of information.

Thank you, and I will appreciate any help I can get. -Ben

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To put it simply, the only major difference between installing ubuntu in UEFI mode and normal mode is the installation of grub in the GPT partition (grub-gpt instead of grub-bios).

Please refer to the following documentation and especially the part about how booting your Ubuntu CD in EFI mode and how to tell if it was done properly:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI

I'd highly recommend creating recovery media for your Windows 8 installation (which is normally done through a pre-installed tool on your Windows installation that comes with your laptop) plus copy or move your files/documents/videos/music/data to a USB or some other external media. And also I'd like to point to the fact that even if something goes wrong your laptop's hardware shouldn't be damaged and as long as you have the recovery disks on hand you can always go back to where you were before (as long as you didn't have any non-backed-up files on your disk).

I've done the above successfully with Ubuntu 13.04 and Linux Mint 15 and 14 before that.

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  • This information was helpful, but it was not what I had asked for help with. I do not know how to install grub in such a way, and you referred me to the very article that mad me ask this question in the first place. Sep 9, 2013 at 2:58
  • If you are successfully able to boot the installation CD in UEFI mode, the installer will automatically choose grup-efi and install it and you don't need to do any special step or selection in the setup. So all that is needed is to ensure that the installer CD booted in UEFI mode. (Points 3 and 4.1-4.2 in the article explain this) Sep 9, 2013 at 6:45

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