Xubuntu install on Win7 laptop fails

[MR ZenWiz]

On Wed, Jul 12, 2017 at 4:20 PM, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> :-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!
>
That does appear to be the case.  Nevertheless, I'd like to give it a
shot.  I can always back out if I get it working, and I'll know that
much more about the process.

> In this case: is the Windows disk encrypted?
>
No.

> 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.
>
Agreed.  However, the UEFI boot and secure boot and all the related
options are off or disabled in the boot PROM.

> This any help?
>
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI
>
I didn't see anything there that would help so far.  I'll have to try
tthe boot repair option and see what happens.

My latest effort involved removing the three new partitions and
re-setting them, then reinstalling Xubuntu 16.04.  It did install
without any complaints, and when the system boots, I noticed something
different - the default is the Windows boot loader.  If I skip past
that to the HDD itself, it comes up in Grub, starts to boot, then
falls back to BusyBox.  In grepping through dmesg for something that
looked of use, I found no errors, no "find"s, no "can't"s and nothing
unusual with "boot" in it.  It just can't seem to find the boot
partition or kernel.

I did try running grub-install after the installation, and I got this:

xubuntu at xubuntu:~$ sudo grub-install --boot-directory=/mnt/boot/grub /dev/sda
Installing for i386-pc platform.
grub-install: warning: this GPT partition label contains no BIOS Boot
Partition; embedding won't be possible.
grub-install: warning: Embedding is not possible.  GRUB can only be
installed in this setup by using blocklists.  However, blocklists are
UNRELIABLE and their use is discouraged..
grub-install: error: will not proceed with blocklists.

I also tried with /dev/sda5, just to see if that worked, and got the
same result.

There's something on this disk that makes it difficult (at best) to
boot anything but Windows.

MR