Unable to install grub in /dev/sda
Douglas McGarrett
dmcgarrett at optonline.net
Mon Oct 18 01:25:37 UTC 2021
On 10/17/21 8:59 PM, Phil Fraser wrote:
> Thank you Liam and Ralf,
>
> I'm still in an area with poor mobile phone reception and I still need
> to walk up a hill to do almost anything to do with Interneting.
> Anyway, I have managed to install Debian 9 but it's a 32 bit version
> and although it does run it's far from ideal.
>
> Please forgive me if this e-mail is not formatted correctly or I'm top
> posting it's been difficult to reply at all. I'm not on my phone and
> I'm struggling with gmail and a flaky Internet connection.
>
> It seems that Windows is the cause of my installation problems but I
> need it to update my GPS navigator every six months. I'll study the
> links provided but I'm truly at my wits end. I think that I might need
> some serious hand-holding to install Windows in a mode that's
> compatible with Linux.
If Windows is installed first--as it will be on a new or refurb
computer, then installing most versions of Linux will go practically
automatically, altho you might want to
set partition sizes by hand prior to installing Linux. (gparted is the
self-booting routine to do that. Download it and save it to disk or
flash drive to boot from it.) Make sure
that the Windows partitions still exist when you're done, but only the
main data partition is important in size. You might actually use it someday.
--doug
>
>
> On Sun, 17 Oct 2021 at 19:45, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com
> <mailto:lproven at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> On Sun, 17 Oct 2021 at 01:34, Phil Fraser <phillor9 at gmail.com
> <mailto:phillor9 at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >
> > 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.
>
> Hi. Typing on a T420 right now, on 20.04 with Unity. :-)
>
> > 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.
>
> Is your disk partitioned with MBR or GUID?
> Does Windows start in UEFI mode or in Legacy Boot mode?
> What are your startup settings in the CMOS Setup?
>
> The T420 is from the time when UEFI was coming in.
>
> If you partition the disk with MBR, boot in BIOS mode and install
> Windows and/or Linux in BIOS boot mode, it appears to the OSes and
> runs as a BIOS system. You can press the Thinkvantage key and enter
> the setup at boot time.
>
> If you partition the disk with GPT and boot and install Windows and/or
> Linux in UEFI mode, it appears to be and works as a UEFI machine. You
> can no longer get the startup screen, boot options etc. You have to
> choose the Windows "shutdown and restart in safe mode" option.
>
> In other words, it is both and it depends how you have it configured.
>
> I tried UEFI mode as an experiment, found it was a pain to use, and
> reformatted and reinstalled in legacy BIOS mode, which I find much
> easier.
>
> YMMV.
> >
> > 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>.
>
> Do custom partitioning. Tell the Ubuntu setup program where your EFI
> partition it.
> >
> > 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.
>
> 2 is bad.
>
>
> --
> Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
> <https://about.me/liamproven>
> Email: lproven at cix.co.uk <mailto:lproven at cix.co.uk> ~
> gMail/gTalk/FB: lproven at gmail.com <mailto:lproven at gmail.com>
> Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven
> UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420)
> 702-829-053
>
> --
> ubuntu-users mailing list
> ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com <mailto:ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com>
> Modify settings or unsubscribe at:
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users
> <https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-users/attachments/20211017/95299759/attachment.html>
More information about the ubuntu-users
mailing list