Computer won't boot after installing Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS to replace Windows 8.1

Question

My problem is extremely similar to the one found here: Just installed ubuntu 14.04 but after restart it wont boot. However, the solution there did not work for me.

I am using a Toshiba satellite laptop that came preinstalled with Windows 8.1. When I tried to install Ubuntu on it, it didn't detect my Windows 8.1 partition. That's fine with me - I wanted to replace it anyway - but after the installation was complete (I checked for defects in the DVD and found none) my computer won't boot. It just says

Reboot and select a proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device and press any key.

I found that question here (Just installed ubuntu 14.04 but after restart it wont boot), so I tried what it said. Unlike the user in that problem I am using a DVD to install Ubuntu. So I started a live session, opened gparted, and found a few drives. To my memory, they were:

sda1: about 1GB of space, ~500MB used and ~500 MB unused. This had a "boot" flag. I figured it was the live CD I was using.

sda2: about ~450GB of space, most unused. I figured this was my hard drive. It did not have a boot flag.

sda3: some puny drive I didn't pay attention to. It said "Linux-swap".

Unallocated space.

I added a boot flag to sda2, as the user question I referred to instructed me to, exited the live session and tried to boot, but that did not work. I restarted a live session and ran a boot repair.

http://paste.ubuntu.com/9632311/

Then I figured I'd ask here, since what worked for him didn't work for me. So I reopened gparted, removed the boot flag from sda2, and did another boot repair to try to go back to where I was.

http://paste.ubuntu.com/9636163/

I have gone into my BIOS settings, and my HD is the first thing my computer tries to boot. It is still not working. I should note that I am afraid to remove the "boot" flag from the sda1 drive since I'm afraid I may not be able to boot from the liveCD again.

Thank you for any input you have.

Answer 1

I did some reading and found that this issue was more common than I thought. Even though it may not be optimal, I just ended up switching my comp to boot in CMS (or legacy/bios/whatever) and reinstalled the disc in that mode. It works fine now. Thank you two for your help.

Answer 2

Your machine is a UEFI machine, so bootloaders are stored in the EFI partition, FAT, bootable and you have all that. Lookd like a good UEFI setup, but you must have switched to compatibility mode in your UEFI settings (BIOS). Some Reading:

General UEFI information

specific instructions on a preinstalled Win 8.1 machine

Complaints about the lack of a bootloader in the MBR indicate you are not in UEFI mode. Fix that first get into UEFI mode, forget the MBR, that's history. What you posted last in pastbin looked like a good grub2 install, with a good nvram entry for shim, which should work for either secure or non-secure boot. Try the F12 (?) at power-on and select HDD, then select ubuntu and see if that runs grub.

Answer 3

If your laptop has EFI firmware and you want to run only linux:

Use GPT partition scheme not MSDOS.

Make the first partition 100MB+ (I use 200MB) and flag it as type EF00. EFI System Partition must contain a FAT filesystem.

mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/<THAT_PARTITION> 

Use the EFI System Partition that you created as /boot

With proper partitioning and the system in EFI Boot mode, Grub2 should install correctly.

Some UEFI firmware looks for the .efi stub to be in a particular place such as /EFI/boot/boot64.efi

You may need to copy the grubx64.efi to this location. Or alternatively you can use a different EFI bootloader such as Gummiboot