Xubuntu install on Win7 laptop fails

[Liam Proven]

On 13 July 2017 at 00:29, MR ZenWiz <mrzenwiz at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.

:-o

Wow! Well if they don't like you to install your own software, they
almost certainly won't like you installing a separate OS on it!

In this case: is the Windows disk encrypted?

I'm afraid I do not own any UEFI PCs (just one Mac) so I don't know
much about installing on UEFI or GPT. However, as others have
commented, I believe GRUB must go into the existing UEFI system
partition.

Installing into the MBR, the way you're doing, is the old DOS way. It
won't work on a UEFI system, as you have discovered. GPT disks have a
dummy MBR -- it doesn't do anything.


> 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 :-).

This any help?

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI

I used rEFIt on my Mac. Might be worth a look.


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