Ubuntu – Installed Ubuntu, but when I boot it always brings me to grub rescue

bootdual-bootgrubrescueuefiwindows 10

This is my first time posting on this website so I hope you can help me out!

I downloaded Ubuntu recently, but ever since whenever I boot my computer I get brought to the grub rescue page. The only remedy I've found is hitting delete and startup and going to the BIOS, changing nothing and exiting and then it brings me to the boot menu and lets me pick between Ubuntu or Windows 10.

I've looked up things before to try and fix this and nothing has worked. Whenever I try to do things like root=(hd0, msdos0) it says that it is not a recognized command. ls works. Let me know if there is something else I can try, or if you need any other information. Thanks for any help!

Best Answer

There are two methods that are likely to be relatively easy fixes, but neither is guaranteed to work:

  • Use Boot Repair
    1. Boot to the Ubuntu installation medium.
    2. Run the Boot Repair tool, as described here.
    3. Use the "recommended repair" option.
    4. Note the URL provided. If the repair does not work (and if rEFInd doesn't help), post a comment to my question and add the URL provided to your question. This will provide extra diagnostic information that may be helpful.
  • Use rEFInd
    1. Download the USB flash drive or CD-R image of my rEFInd boot manager from its downloads page.
    2. Prepare a boot medium from the file you download.
    3. If necessary, disable Secure Boot on your computer. (You can use rEFInd with Secure Boot, but doing so requires jumping through some extra hoops, as described here.)
    4. Boot to the rEFInd boot medium. It should show options for booting both Windows and Ubuntu.
    5. Test both the Windows and Ubuntu boot options.
    6. If you can boot both Windows and Ubuntu, install the rEFInd Debian package or PPA. (If you use Ubuntu 17.04, rEFInd is also available in the main Ubuntu repository.) rEFInd will then become the default boot manager for your computer, bypassing the malfunctioning GRUB.

Ideally, you'll need to do only one of these two things; however, if one fails you can try the other one. If both fail, the Boot Repair output (in the URL it provides) may contain helpful diagnostic information, so it's important you provide that. Note that rEFInd will work only on EFI-based computers with EFI-based installations. It's not clear whether your system is EFI-based or BIOS-based; if the latter, rEFInd won't work -- or at best, it will boot Ubuntu but should not be installed permanently.

If rEFInd works on a USB drive or CD-R but you prefer to stick with GRUB, you can use rEFInd on the external medium on a temporary basis as you further diagnose the GRUB problem.

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