I am installing Ubuntu 16.04 in an Intel NUC computer with UEFI enabled. I am using an SSD from another computer. During the installation I chose Erase the disk and make a new full install
At the end of the process I see:
grub-efi-amd64-signed failed installation /target/ Ubuntu 16.04
And the system does not boot.
I tried to use boot-repair but apparently it does not solve the problem.
I had exactly the same issue installing 16.04 64 desktop on a new SSD with UEFI enabled using USB install media. Unlike in the question I chose to create my own partitions as I had other disks to mount. I hit this error near the beginning of the package installation.
After a bit of googling I found this page:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI#General_principles
which states in the General principles section:
if there was not any UEFI partition on your HDD, you first will have to create it
and points to:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI#Creating_an_EFI_System_Partition
Which states:
So I reinstalled and when I came to partition my drive, I chose the EFI option from the list that includes filesystems and swap etc and made it 200MB at the start of the disk. I did not get the option to select the filesystem or set the bootable flag.
After this the rest of the install went fine.
This is how the partitions on this disk look after the install:
The same information can be seen by running parted:
$ sudo parted /dev/sda
GNU Parted 3.2
Using /dev/sda
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted) p
Model: ATA Samsung SSD 750 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 250GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags:
Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
2 1049kB 200MB 199MB fat32 boot, esp
3 200MB 242GB 242GB ext4
1 242GB 250GB 8000MB linux-swap(v1)
(parted) q
Note that the partition that was created is an EFI System Partition (ESP) and the disk has a GUID Partition Table (GPT) rather than an MBR partition table.
If you look in /boot/efi or /sys/firmware/efi/ on this disk you should find them populated, likewise running sudo efibootmgr should provide real output, see the link below if you want more information.
If you wish to know more about how UEFI works then the post UEFI boot: how does that actually work, then? by Adam Williamson is highly recommended.
He describes the situation that causes this error in the article (note that he is a Fedora user but the same applies for Ubuntu):
Handling EFI system partition if doing manual partitioning
I can only give authoritative advice for Fedora here, but the gist may be useful for other distros / OSes.
If you allow Fedora to handle partitioning for you when doing a UEFI native installation – and you use a GPT-formatted disk, or allow it to reformat the disk (by deleting all existing partitions) – it will handle the EFI system partition stuff for you.
If you use custom partitioning, though, it will expect you to provide an EFI system partition for the installer to use. If you don’t do this, the installer will complain (with a somewhat confusing error message) and refuse to let you start the installation.
So if you’re doing a UEFI native install and using custom partitioning, you need to ensure that a partition of the ‘EFI system partition’ type is mounted at /boot/efi – this is where Fedora expects to find the EFI system partition it’s using. If there is an existing EFI system partition on the system, just set its mount point to /boot/efi. If there is not an EFI system partition yet, create a partition, set its type to EFI system partition, make it at least 200MB big (500MB is good), and set its mount point to /boot/efi
By luck I solved my problem.
I booted with the live usb and called Disks, and manually deleted all partions of the SSD.
Then I rebooted with uefi enabled in the computer firmware. I entered the live usb Ubuntu desktop and from there I installed Ubuntu.
I checked the two boxes saying install updates and software from others. This time the installation went fine.
/var/log/syslog, probably there are just before "grub-installer: info: Calling 'apt-install grub-efi-amd64-signed' failed" some lines like "Unable to locate package grub-efi-amd64-signed" and "Unable to locate package shim-signed". Probably Installer failed to reach deb packages from the "cdrom" (usb flash)?
I had the same problem installing Ubuntu MATE 17.04. I was trying to make a dual boot alongside Windows 10. My Windows is on Legacy mode and the UEFI support was enabled in the BIOS settings. I went and disabled UEFI support and the installation completed flawlessly.Hope someone finds this useful.
I faced the same problem when I tried to install mint 18 kde on a gigabyte motherboard. My problem was i was trying to boot from usb in Uefi mode.
You have too boot in compatibility mode. You most likely need to change some BIOS settings to do that. In my case I had to select "legacy only" in boot mode selection.
If you boot in compatibility mode you will get a screen that says automatic boot in 10 seconds then you will get a menu But if you boot in Uefi mode you will get the menu directly.
Got the exact same message and resolved it by simply connecting my computer to the internet (I was using a USB installer to install to a completely new machine with brand new SSD with nothing on it).
When connected, the installer can download any dependencies missing in the installer, as was required for my setup.
The giveaway it was a dependency issue and not a partitioning/disk issue was in the /var/log/syslog file. The message about Grub failing to install can mean a lot of things and generally you should check out /var/log/syslog to find out what the true problem is.
grub2 successfully.
You can also create a boot uefi partition, if the system allows it. I have the same problem, and unable the uefi is one option, and is more permanent, but I was in a run so I create the uefi boot partition: the option appears in the same option than /boot, in below
I faced the same issue. What worked for me, was during installation, when the installer asks you if you want to install in UEFI mode, tell it no. It should warn you of the repercussions of this, but having done it this route, I've faced no issues.
The other solutions I came across while researching this issue involved
Had the same error message, turns out I had a corrupted directory in the EFI partition that was causing grub to give up at every install attempt.
fsck took way too long, so chkdsk from Windows quickly cleaned up the corruption and the second install went fine.
I found the above did not really work for me trying to install Ubuntu 16.04 onto a USB stick from another USB stick. After 2 days of heartache, this is what I did to get it going. This gave me a dual boot Windows 10 and Ubuntu installation on the same hard disk and in the process, solved this problem:
That it was. When I now boot I get a prompt to ask whether I want windows or ubuntu or ubuntu advanced with more options. I had spent ages playing around with booting from USB sticks but that cost me a whole 2 days. Using the cdrom and hard disk, old style, seems to have helped.
My solution to the problem was the following.
1) Due to some reason my EFI disk was locked by Windows and that's why Grub was unable to be installed on my EFI.
I started Windows and shut it down (Windows -> Shut Down -> Shut Down, not restart). NB: in case of restarting, Windows may restart in Fast Restart mode which leaves EFI locked - this is what happened to me.
2) I run Ubuntu Live Disk, and run Boot-Repair utility (URL) using standard settings.
After this, my system started to boot normally via Grub.
The trick was that without item 1 (EFI was locked by Windows) Boot-Repair utility was unable to fix my Grub.
The issue itself was in grub package (grub-efi-amd64-signed_1.66.14+2.02~beta2-36ubuntu3.14+linuxmi.deb
for details check here).
Workaround was to connect to the Internet and check Download updates during installation.
just for the record I faced the same issue by installing 16.04 on an Acer tmb117 I erased totally the internal disk using the live usb then rebooted and simply launched installation (standalone, no other system alongside Ubuntu) connection was turned off.
