Grub2 and UEFI, ASUS Zenbook

Question

I just bought a new laptop "Asus Zenbook UX32L". I had Windows8 preinstalled. But I needed Ubuntu. So I tried to install Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. I totally cleared my HDD and I just clicked Install Ubuntu. After some time I got an error Installer crashed. I didnt understand whats happening so I tried to install Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. This installation crashed too. I had pretty same error, but here, in Ubuntu 12, I was able to see where the installation crashed. It has crashed when it was trying to install grub2. Its new laptop so it had UEFI. Seems like this grub is not appropriate for UEFI. (Although, when installation crashed, it destroyed my Win8, and before Installation Ubuntu didnt see her.)

I have searched a bit and looks like I need to change grub or UEFI, but I didnt get how. And I dont want to break whole computer while changing UEFI.

How can I solve it? As I understand I need at least to upgrade grub to grub-efi on my liveUSB, but dont know how.

Answer 1

Using unetbootin to create a boot disk for a UEFI (I tend to use the term EFI, though it's technically incorrect) system is a common mistake. unetbootin, last I checked is not EFI-aware and only makes BIOS-type boot disks. This is where the problem originates. Since unetbootin creates BIOS-type boots disks, you had to enabled BIOS mode in your EFI in order to boot it, forcing Ubuntu to install in BIOS mode, rather than EFI mode.

So, how do you fix this?

Given your information from the comments, we're going to use your second flash drive as it should be easiest.

1. Back up your second USB to your other computer. This process will destroy everything on the second drive.
2. Boot up the Ubuntu drive you've already created, and tell it "Try Ubuntu", we'll be working from the LiveUSB.
3. Re-download the Ubuntu ISO from releases.ubuntu.com (it will be saved in RAM). Alternatively, if you've got Linux and the ISO on your other PC, you can do this process form there as well.
4. Once the download is completed, open a terminal.
5. cd ~/Downloads
6. Type mount

7. Now, plug in the second drive and once it shows up as plugged in, run mount again. We're trying to find the device name of the newly-plugged device. You will see a new entry in the second output that didn't exist in the first. It will start with something like this:

   /dev/sdX# on /media/ubuntu/[...]
   

   where X is a letter, # is a number and [...] may be the label of the drive or a random set of characters and dashes. It'll look something like /dev/sdc1, /dev/sdd1, /dev/sde1, etc. This is your second flash drive, hopefully. Take note of the /dev/sdX# part, we'll need it later in step 11.

8. To verify that it is, in fact your second drive, enter the command ls /media/ubuntu/[...] (The /media/ubuntu/[...] part is what shows up from the second mount command in step 6-7). If it's not the right drive, unplug the second USB again and repeat steps 6-7 again until you're sure you have the right drive and device name (i.e., /dev/sda1).
9. If the output of the ls command shows the file structure of your second USB drive (the one you're not booting off and the one that you don't mind wiping) then we're ready to go!
10. At this point, we're going to write this ISO directly to the second USB drive. This next command WILL destroy all data on your drive, so make sure you have backed up the drive and that you have selected the correct device (the /dev/sdX# part).
11. sudo dd if=ubuntu-14.04-desktop-amd64.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=1M (Note: drop the # off the /dev/sdX# above and just use the /dev/sdX part -- replacing the 'X' with the actual letter of course. /dev/sdc1 becomes /dev/sdc, /dev/sdd1 becomes /dev/sdd, etc.). After this you will have a fully bootable Ubuntu USB drive (both EFI and BIOS).
12. Now, reboot the computer and change the EFI settings back to EFI mode (i.e., not BIOS/Legacy/CSM mode).
13. Plug in the newly formatted USB drive and boot off it. That should be all there is to it, Ubuntu should boot and install in UEFI/EFI mode.