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My laptop doesn't support UEFI. As shown:' $ sudo efibootmgr EFI variables are not supported on this system.' However, to create a bootable 'boot repair' liveUSB requires UEFI - there does not seem to be a BIOS alternative. Is this true?

When my whole system totally disappeared after an unsuccessful attempt repartitioning using GParted, I managed to rescue everything without resorting to my backups using a liveUSB with Ubuntu then downloading and running 'boot repair'. This rescued my system almost miraculously, but a liveUSB with 'boot repair' would have been so much easier.

I have created a liveUSB with 'boot repair' from the downloaded ISO and formatted as FAT32 but my system, dual boot Ubuntu and Windows 7, says it is not valid to boot, presumably because it is not UEFI; I also tried to format the live USB as UEFI but again it won't load. I hasten to add that I have a liveUSB with Ubuntui and another with Clonezilla, both of which will load from USB.

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Unfortunately, you can't use a Ubuntu Live USB on a Legacy system.

Edit: it works on my other Legacy system, turns out the USB port wasn't compatible on my first one. It booted on my second system. Make sure your USB is compatible with your port, for example, a USB 1 port might not be able to read a USB 3 stick.

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    If you can boot an Ubuntu live USB on a legacy system you can install the Boot-Repair application on the Ubuntu live USB which is what the author of this question did. – karel Feb 6 at 13:53
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    On my old motherboard I started using USB3 flash drives on my old USB2 ports as they were about 10% faster than USB2 flash drives. But some systems are particular about which ports can be used for booting. I now have two smaller SSDs in USB/SATA adapters and they are almost as fast as an internal SSD. I thought USB3 port was limiting, but it is just that flash drives are slow, especially for writes. – oldfred Feb 6 at 15:18
  • Most USB creator tools create drives that will boot both BIOS and UEFI unless UEFI only options are selected, as with Rufus GPT option. My USB2 ports read USB3 sticks just fine. Just because something doesn't work on your computer, doesn't mean it won't work on any computer. Please remove the erroneous info in your answer. – C.S.Cameron Feb 7 at 4:52

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