Xubuntu install on Win7 laptop fails

[MR ZenWiz]

On Wed, Jul 12, 2017 at 5:28 AM, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> What was the *exact* command?
>
grub-install --boot-directory=/mnt/boot/grub/ /dev/sda

> But you have lots of primary partitions -- therefore this is not a
> traditional MBR disk. It must therefore be a GUID Partition Table
> (GPT) disk. I do not recall you specifying that before.
>
I was not aware of this.  It does appear that you are right.

> If it is a GUID disk, then the laptop has UEFI, not a BIOS. I don't
> recall you specifying _that_ either.
>
> That being so, almost all bets are off.
>
> GPT is only _needed_ for disks over 2TB. For 500GB it's not needed.
> So, if it was me, for simplicity, I'd repartition with MBR. In my
> experience it is much easier to troubleshoot.
>
> In your UEFI settings, have you disabled Secure Boot?
>
Didn't have to - I just checked and it is already disabled.

> This is what I'd do if this were my machine:
>
All good advice, except this is not my laptop, it belongs to the
company and the IT department is rather picky about anything installed
on it.  I'm taking the roundabout method and going underground.
However, that's not working.

I did some poking around and I found the bare bones of how to install
(an) Ubuntu on a GPT disk, but what's missing is this:

They all say to do the partitioning by hand, which is what I always
used to do anyway, so no big deal.

But, it doesn't make clear what to do when this fails, which I believe
it has.  That extra 1MB partition in /dev/sda5 makes no sense at all,
and the laptop doesn't boot even with all that in place.

I'll see about trying again soon - I have a few minutes here :-).