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Trying to install latest Ubuntu desktop release 14.10 on a new system with 64-bit Intel X99 motherboard having UEFI firmware. For the installation I am using a USB EFI formatted live USB stick. My system has 2 physical 1TB Winchester hard drives (sda and sdb), where sda contains a bootable and working Windows 8.1 UEFI partitioned installation and sdb has been pre-partitioned for a Ubuntu UEFI installation. When running the Ubuntu installation process, the installer crashes while installing grub2 with the message:

The 'grub-efi-amd64-signed' package failed to install into /target/. 
Without the Grub boot loader, the installed system will not boot.

I have uploaded a detailed boot-repair description of how my hard disks are partitioned at http://paste.ubuntu.com/10300722 for your review as necessary. I have created a separate partition on the second hard disk (sdb1) for Ubuntu's boot files to reside in. However, for some reason, even when selecting this partition in the installer when using option "something else", the installer fails to properly install the required UEFI boot files.

My goal is to boot using the UEFI firmware's boot menu, not grub or the Windows boot menu. Can this be accomplished with Ubuntu?

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Thanks Fabby for your response. Your answer to copy the ubuntu UEFI files to a UEFI partition is correct. However, I was only able to resolve my problem by first disconnecting the Window's hard drive altogether from the system before running the ubuntu system installer. This allowed the installer to correctly copy the grub2 UEFI files into the EFI system partition on the ubuntu hard disk. It seems that the ubuntu installer has bugs that need to be worked out with regard to dual boot configurations that rely on UEFI and Widows 8+. With regard to your comment of disk partition /dev/sdb1 not being a UEFI partition, I assume that I used the wrong term. I should have stated this as being an ESP (EFI System Partion) as stated in the disk partitioning report that I have provided a link to in my original note. The good news is that the system now dual boots properly displaying a grub menu for selecting ubuntu or windows and everything is fine :). Hope this chain helps some other frustrated users out there.

With regards,

DougC

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What you're trying to do is impossible with your current configuration.

UEFI is like BIOS, but on a disk. /dev/sdb1 is not an UEFI partition: it's just an empty VFAT partition. To keep the analogy with the BIOS: you've bought en EEPROM chip, stuck it on your motherboard and expect it to contain a BIOS. It does not! :-( You need to load the UEFI system files to the drive before you can attempt to try what you want to do... This can only be done if your system supports multiple UEFI partitions: I've never seen any system that can do this, but that doesn't mean it's impossible.

So with the current system set-up you have, what you need to do is to put the Ubuntu UEFI system files on the UEFI partition and then you can put the rest of the OS anywhere you want... (including on /dev/sdb)

Sorry to be the harbinger of bad news...

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