Unable to install grub in /dev/sda

[Phil Fraser]

I attempted to install Xubuntu, alongside Windows 10, on my aging Thinkpad
T420 but have run into a problem, a serious problem. I spent all day
searching for a solution to what seems to be a common problem.

The installer warns me that I need to create an EFI directory or else the
installation will fail, which it did many times. I already have an EFI
directory, which it seems, Windows created when I upgraded Windows 7 to
Windows 10. I already had Kubuntu 20.10 installed at the time and didn't
need to reinstall it after the Windows upgrade.

One of the many suggestions that I came across was to select "Try Xubuntu"
and then select "Install Xubuntu" from the desktop. That also failed with
substantially the same  error. "Executing grub-install /dev/sda failed
cannot find EFI directory" which is not much different to "Unable to
install grub in /dev/sda". Logging out and then restarting I'm left with a
prompt grub rescue>.

The following may help:

xubuntu at xubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/loop0: 1.73 GiB, 1857892352 bytes, 3628696 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes


Disk /dev/sda: 931.51 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Disk model: CT1000MX500SSD1
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: dos
Disk identifier: 0x0878bd2f

Device     Boot      Start        End    Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sda1             2048     104447     102400    50M  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2           104448  839874676  839770229 400.4G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3       1952485376 1953519615    1034240   505M 27 Hidden NTFS WinRE
/dev/sda4        839876606 1952157695 1112281090 530.4G  5 Extended
/dev/sda5        839876608  840925183    1048576   512M ef EFI
(FAT-12/16/32)
/dev/sda6        840927232 1947567856 1106640625 527.7G 83 Linux
/dev/sda7       1947764736 1951670271    3905536   1.9G 82 Linux swap /
Solaris
/dev/sda8       1947568128 1947752447     184320    90M 83 Linux
/dev/sda9  *    1951672320 1952157695     485376   237M ef EFI
(FAT-12/16/32)

This shows that I now have two EFI directories and a large boot directory.
I had tried the installation without the second EFI directory and without
the boot directory. The partition table is a GPT.

I'm desperate to find a solution because I'm without my beloved Linux
except for the live USB key.
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