Linux dual boot help!
Discussion
Hi,
I have had dual boot which has been working fine for a long time but today windows came up with an error "file /efi/microsoft/boot/bootmgfw.efi not found"
I noticed that the entry in my GRUB menu was different. I opened up a boot repair programme in kubuntu and went through a few steps but it said that my system would be unbootable afterwards. I then went into "grub customiser" programme and I get a different menu come up from normal
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-Mu...ew?usp=shar...
and if I click accept I get this
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1W-a...ew?usp=shar...
Please can you advise what to do ASAP? I am too afraid to turn my computer off!!
I then used boot repair which gave the following message - please can you advise whether it's safe to turn my computer off!?
http://paste.ubuntu.com/p/KQ4QP4mzdR/
You can see there is no /etc/grub.d folder!?!?
running sudo update-grub gives:
Sourcing file `/etc/default/grub'
Generating grub configuration file ...
Script `/boot/grub/grub.cfg.new' contains no commands and will do nothing
Syntax errors are detected in generated GRUB config file.
Ensure that there are no errors in /etc/default/grub
and /etc/grub.d/* files or please file a bug report with
/boot/grub/grub.cfg.new file attached.
Thank you very much in advance!
I have had dual boot which has been working fine for a long time but today windows came up with an error "file /efi/microsoft/boot/bootmgfw.efi not found"
I noticed that the entry in my GRUB menu was different. I opened up a boot repair programme in kubuntu and went through a few steps but it said that my system would be unbootable afterwards. I then went into "grub customiser" programme and I get a different menu come up from normal
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-Mu...ew?usp=shar...
and if I click accept I get this
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1W-a...ew?usp=shar...
Please can you advise what to do ASAP? I am too afraid to turn my computer off!!
I then used boot repair which gave the following message - please can you advise whether it's safe to turn my computer off!?
http://paste.ubuntu.com/p/KQ4QP4mzdR/
You can see there is no /etc/grub.d folder!?!?
running sudo update-grub gives:
Sourcing file `/etc/default/grub'
Generating grub configuration file ...
Script `/boot/grub/grub.cfg.new' contains no commands and will do nothing
Syntax errors are detected in generated GRUB config file.
Ensure that there are no errors in /etc/default/grub
and /etc/grub.d/* files or please file a bug report with
/boot/grub/grub.cfg.new file attached.
Thank you very much in advance!
Edited by TyrannosauRoss Lex on Sunday 4th October 16:34
Paul Drawmer said:
I run one of my computers with a dual boot, but am not tech savvy enough to resolve your problem.
I use Deja backup and it just works extremely well.
I would go for a rebuild - reinstall - recreate from backup. My windows stuff is non-critical.
Thanks for your reply, I think this is the way I'm going to go.... Download the latest version and do a fresh install. The version on there will no longer be supported as of April anyway!I use Deja backup and it just works extremely well.
I would go for a rebuild - reinstall - recreate from backup. My windows stuff is non-critical.
Have just downloaded the latest version and have created a USB image but I'm having trouble booting from it. I don't have a dvd drive. Secure boot is enabled but if I choose to reboot in Windows using a device such as USB etc it doesn't seem to give me the option of USB. Do I need to disable secure boot? It was so long ago I did it but I think I disabled it to install it and then enabled it again but can't quite remember!
Cheers.
Cheers.
I'm hoping others will join in here...
I think that what you need to do is tell your computer bios to boot from USB.
Usually you can access the bios (or more conveniently, a boot device selector) by a function key press at start up time. Some bios systems will display the option briefly when starting from 'cold'.
Maybe if you posted the machine make/model someone could jump in tell you which key to press to access the bios or bootloader menu.
Edited to say - this has to be from switch on - not a hot re-boot.
I think that what you need to do is tell your computer bios to boot from USB.
Usually you can access the bios (or more conveniently, a boot device selector) by a function key press at start up time. Some bios systems will display the option briefly when starting from 'cold'.
Maybe if you posted the machine make/model someone could jump in tell you which key to press to access the bios or bootloader menu.
Edited to say - this has to be from switch on - not a hot re-boot.
Hi,
Yes I just had to turn off secure boot in the bios/uefi settings.
Managed to do a fresh install. It still was playing up with GRUB but once I got in I reinstalled GRUB and now all is well and working. On the plus side of this I now have a Linux system which is supported until 2022, whereas my last system was this coming April, so I'd have had to do an install soon anyway! Just a pain it happened this way, I've no idea what went wrong. I'm certainly no Linux guru but I've been using it for 16+ years and just like the security and speed of it.
Thanks for your help
Yes I just had to turn off secure boot in the bios/uefi settings.
Managed to do a fresh install. It still was playing up with GRUB but once I got in I reinstalled GRUB and now all is well and working. On the plus side of this I now have a Linux system which is supported until 2022, whereas my last system was this coming April, so I'd have had to do an install soon anyway! Just a pain it happened this way, I've no idea what went wrong. I'm certainly no Linux guru but I've been using it for 16+ years and just like the security and speed of it.
Thanks for your help
Do you have both operating systems on the same hard disk/SDD? If you have the option to do that then that can help protect you against stuff like this as you can leave the Windows bootloader on the first disk and install grub on the second. That does mean that if the grub configuration gets boned that you can still boot from the first disk.
These days, having been bitten by this numerous times in the past, I generally don't bother now, just run the secondary OS (i.e. the one you don't need the full, bare-metal performance and/or GPU acceleration from) in a virtual machine on the other. Much safer.
These days, having been bitten by this numerous times in the past, I generally don't bother now, just run the secondary OS (i.e. the one you don't need the full, bare-metal performance and/or GPU acceleration from) in a virtual machine on the other. Much safer.
8bit said:
Do you have both operating systems on the same hard disk/SDD? If you have the option to do that then that can help protect you against stuff like this as you can leave the Windows bootloader on the first disk and install grub on the second. That does mean that if the grub configuration gets boned that you can still boot from the first disk.
These days, having been bitten by this numerous times in the past, I generally don't bother now, just run the secondary OS (i.e. the one you don't need the full, bare-metal performance and/or GPU acceleration from) in a virtual machine on the other. Much safer.
Thanks for your input. I must confess I've never tried a virtual machine.These days, having been bitten by this numerous times in the past, I generally don't bother now, just run the secondary OS (i.e. the one you don't need the full, bare-metal performance and/or GPU acceleration from) in a virtual machine on the other. Much safer.
Here is my disk setup
fdisk -l
[sudo] password for ross:
Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 238.49 GiB, 256060514304 bytes, 500118192 sectors
Disk model: PM951 NVMe SAMSUNG 256GB
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: E1759D5F-E66F-4164-AD8D-1C0606EC9EE8
Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1 2048 1026047 1024000 500M EFI System
/dev/nvme0n1p2 1026048 1288191 262144 128M Microsoft reserved
/dev/nvme0n1p3 1288192 472838758 471550567 224.9G Microsoft basic data
/dev/nvme0n1p4 472840192 474882047 2041856 997M Windows recovery environment
/dev/nvme0n1p5 474882048 500117503 25235456 12G Windows recovery environment
Disk /dev/sda: 465.78 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
Disk model: Samsung SSD 840
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 065C7579-2817-12D8-AF68-409E07B2B396
Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sda1 2048 206847 204800 100M Microsoft basic data
/dev/sda2 206848 756570111 756363264 360.7G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sda3 756570112 757620735 1050624 513M EFI System
/dev/sda4 757620736 839540735 81920000 39.1G Windows recovery environment
/dev/sda5 975849472 976771071 921600 450M Microsoft basic data
/dev/sda6 839540736 956318079 116777344 55.7G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda7 956319744 975849471 19529728 9.3G Linux swap
Partition table entries are not in disk order.
From what I gather both drives are SSDs. Linux is on one, Windows installed on the other. on SDA (where my Linux is installed) I have 55GB for /home and 39GB as a general NTFS data partition (used by Windows but I also use it on Linux). It seems like I have a lot of partitions though!
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