[xubuntu-users] xubuntu-users Digest, Vol 193, Issue 4

[Carl Snyder]

Using my AMD Athlon II quad-core machine, I install the 64-bit
versions of the distributions, but does not support EFI boot. I had
been having problems with the standard GRUB install since I upgraded
from 18.04 even with a standard DOS partitioning. This past autumn, I
re-partitioned my main 1.5T spinning rust drive to GPT to try it out,
and found that GRUB insisted that it had to boot as if I had EFI even
though my BIOS did not support it. I was forced to find a work-around.

grub-install /dev/sda does not work on my machine--all kinds of
errors. Whenever I update my GRUB using update-grub, I then __must__
re-install GRUB by using grub-install --target=i386-pc /dev/sda . The
--target=i386-pc is NEEDED to install to the Legacy-GRUB partition
with the newer distributions, and I have tried Arch, PCLinuxOS, SUSE,
Fedora, Debian, MX Linux, Linux Mint, Linux Mint Debian Edition,
Sparky Linux, and Salix, so far with similar results. Using a GRUB
rescue ISO on Ventoy, I am able to get into my installed
distributions, from which I may then use the sudo update-grub && sudo
grub-install --target=i386-pc /dev/sda from a terminal to recover a
working GRUB menu.

If you get errors because of the --target=i386-pc , as I said in my
earlier post, the folder to copy from an earlier version is
/usr/lib/grub/i386-pc and there may be an i386-pc.sh file to copy as
well, but I used the error message to copy it and did not record the
location.

Carl