Ubuntu – How to make the BIOS boot on shimx64.efi file

I had this same problem with my HP Pavilion g6 when trying to dual boot Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS and Windows 8. That is, even after "successfully" running Boot-Repair, I still had the notebook booting directly into Windows 8. If I pressed F9 before the HP symbol showed up, I was able to get into a Boot Menu (HP's menu? I don't know...) and from there, to select the "Ubuntu" entry, which in turn took me to GRUB 2 and finally to my Ubuntu installation.

Still, I wanted to be able to have the computer boot directly to Linux, without the need for any user intervention.

In the end, Rod Smith's answer above, combined with the information that I found in another forum, did the trick for me. I have Secure Boot disabled and Legacy Boot also disabled.

This is what I did:

• I booted into my Ubuntu installation using the trick of the F9 key in the start up to be able to choose the boot loader.
• Once in Ubuntu, I opened a terminal.

• Using the command below, I checked where Windows boot loader was located:

  $ sudo efibootmgr -v
  

• In my case, the original boot loader was in here: /boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi . Please note that in your computer it might be in a different place. If so, you will need to adjust the commands below.

• As per Rod's recommendation in his answer (the one about how to repair the boot loader manually), I made a backup of that file by moving it one level up:

  $ sudo cp /boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi /boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/bootmgfw.efi
  

• Finally, I copied GRUB2's boot loader in that place, "tricking" the system into loading the boot loader I wanted instead of Windows' original boot loader.

  $ sudo cp /boot/efi/EFI/ubuntu/grubx64.efi /boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
  

So finally I had my dual boot working with GRUB2. In case Windows overwrites the boot loader again after an update (as it did with me), I already know the steps to get grub back to its place.

Hope this helps someone. Please let me know if there are any issues with my solution.

Ok so after much searching I found out that if you try and install ubuntu and it works, but then when you shut down your computer, you can not boot, it may be because 1. You never installed an EFI partition (if you have a EFI system). or 2. During the installation wizard, you didn't select the location of your EFI partition (to be the location to install your boot loader files).

Once I did that it finally worked. Hopefully this helps someone out there!