I will try to make this as quick as I can, while still being as in depth as possible. I have a Gateway laptop running Windows 8. I tried to install Ubuntu 13.04 side-by-side with Windows, and I can not seem to boot into Ubuntu (or see GRUB at all), no matter what I do.
First I went into Windows Disc Management, and shrunk my Hard Drive (C:) by 120GB.
I downloaded the 64bit Ubuntu 13.04 ISO and used a Disc Image creator to burn the ISO to a disc creating an Ubuntu LiveCD. I then disabled FastBoot in Windows 8 through the Power Options in Control Panel (basically disables Hibernation, and doesn't save a Windows state to the HardDrive for faster bootup) and booted to the UEFI settings. I disabled Secure Boot inside of the UEFI firmware settings and changed boot priority to boot off of the DVD drive first, and inserted the disc, and booted into the LiveCD. I selected Install Ubuntu and continued to the installation. When the installation started up, Ubuntu did not find/recognize my Windows 8 installation. I selected Something Else from the menu and created two partitions on the Free Space portion of my HDD. I used 115GB as Primary, ext4 journaling file system, mount point set to root. I then created a 5GB swap partition (also set to primary I believe). The installation finished without a hitch.
Since finishing the install, I am unable to see GRUB on boot up, and am launched straight to Windows 8. I tried using EasyBCD to add Ubuntu to the Windows boot menu, which worked in adding Ubuntu, but when I select it, I get a "Windows is unable to load" error, and listed NST/NeoGrub.mbr as corrupt or missing. I have since restored the EasyBCD backup I made before changing anything, and uninstalled EasyBCD altogether. I then booted into the LiveCD again, this time selecting "Try Ubuntu Without Installing" and ran the following commands in terminal: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair
followed by sudo apt-get install boot-repair
I then ran a command to update Boot Repair (can't remember the exact command, maybe sudo apt-get update boot-repair
) and then sudo run boot-repair
.
I ran Boot Repair and the paste from that can be found at: http://paste.ubuntu.com/6156885/
It said that my kernel was "buggy" and should be backed up and replaced. I selected no, because I had read a lot about WINDOWS not booting once that is done, and I certainly didn't want to make matters worse than they already were.
I need to know how to fix my booting issues. I have a theory that the reason it will not work, is because my computer already had 3 partitions on it when I started (Recovery, C:/, and another Recovery). Could this cause the boot problems I am describing? Can I format the partition containing Ubuntu (would this completely uninstall Ubuntu?) and start over after backing up the Recovery partitions and formatting them? Would it even make a difference? I am mad, because I love my laptop. It's fast, its got a beautiful display, and plenty of bells and whistles, but I NEED Ubuntu. If I didn't RELY on Windows for work software that can't run inside of a VM, I would scrap Windows altogether. Please help me.