Ubuntu – Windows 8 OS not detected, 12.04 install (new computer build, UEFI/Secure Boot enabled)

bootdual-bootinstallationuefi

I recently built a new computer with the intent to dual boot Windows 8 and Ubuntu 12.04. I first installed Windows 8, and elected to do so in UEFI mode with Secure Boot enabled. My understanding is that I should be able to install Ubuntu 12.04 LTS alongside Windows 8.

I burned the 12.04 image to DVD and was able to boot (from the installation DVD) in EFI mode as expected. What was unexpected was the installer's inability to recognize my existing Windows 8 installation on the machine.

Based on my reading of previous threads, I went ahead and ran boot-repair from the Ubuntu Live DVD (that is, "try Ubuntu without installing"); the output information is here: http://paste.ubuntu.com/5902713/

The Windows 8 installation is on drive sdb, and I noted in the output (line 189) that os-prober does not detect Windows on sdb4 where I believe it should be found.

In original dump files I noticed lines which stated "/dev/sdb1 ends after the last sector of /dev/sdb" for sda/b/c, and (following instructions from another thread) used gdisk to generate fresh protective MBRs for each.

The installer is still unable to detect my installation for Windows 8. Instead, it presents me with only the following options:

Erase disk and install Ubuntu
Something else

What actions should I take? Any help would be very much appreciated. Thanks!

UPDATE Thanks again for the help so far everyone! I went ahead and partitioned the drives manually for the install; the brief summary is as follows:

sda(1-3): Microsoft (MS) reserved; NTFS data; swap
sdb(1-5): MS (EFI install); EFI; MS reserved; Windows 8 OS; Ubuntu 12.04.2 OS (/)
sdc(1-3): MS reserved; NTFS data; ext4 data (/home)

I completed the install, and have no problems booting into Windows 8. However, I have not been able to boot into Ubuntu. Initially, prioritizing ubuntu in the BIOS boot order briefly showed an Ubuntu splash screen before going black and hanging. Since that first attempt, the BIOS skips Ubuntu entirely and progresses straight to booting Windows.

I went back to the installation DVD and "tried Ubuntu" to run boot-repair again. The updated output information is here: http://paste.ubuntu.com/5909477/

My thought is to try and run boot-repair after backing up Windows. Is that the right course of action, or what would you all recommend? Thanks for your continued help!

Brian

Best Answer

Installing Ubuntu

If your system does not detect Windows 8 OS but want to check where it is, you could just mount all /dev/sdaN (N is number, you can type ls /dev/sda* to view all partitions) and check which partition is for windows.

If you want to allocate another partition for Ubuntu (Recommended), minimize a partiton, and mount the free space as ext4 file system and set it as root on the installation window.

Then GRUB would not detect Windows 8, so..

Try 'Boot-repair'.

sudo apt-get install boot-repair
boot-repair

It would fix almost all GRUB/bootloader problems. I solved my problems too with it.

Another solution (Easy):

Check your System settings (BIOS settings). If there is Windows 8 bootloader, try exiting GRUB when booting. Then the Windows 8 bootloader screen would appear.

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Windows 8 Dual Boot Ubuntu 12.10 with UEFI broken Windows boot manager

Just to flesh out a couple of details:

1) Get hold of USBs with Windows 8 Pro and Ubuntu 12.10.

2) Enter BIOS (F2)

3) Switch Sata configuration to AHCI (better for SSDs than IDE)

4) Turn off Fast boot, turn on Legacy CSM and the PXE oprom option

5) Turn off Secure boot control

6) Boot to Ubuntu using the USB and remove leftover RAID data (see eg here

7) Gparted may show errors with one or both of the disks - you need to reformat the disks as MBR partition tables rather than GPT - (eg here)

8) Create partion for Windows 8 on first SSD.

9) Boot Windows 8 in non-UEFI mode (in the bios you can change the BBS order to put the USB at the top, then go to the Save screen and there should be two USB boot options - choose the one which doesn't say UEFI in front of it) and install.

10) Boot Ubuntu in non-UEFI mode - it should recognise Windows 8 installation. Proceed as normal, with the bootloader on /dev/sda.

Ubuntu – Dual boot problem Windows 8 & Ubuntu 12.04

Your Boot Repair output shows a GRUB configuration for Windows as on a BIOS-based computer, but you seem to be running in EFI mode. That's the root source of your problem. One solution is to create a manual GRUB stanza, like this:

menuentry "Windows 8" {
    insmod part_gpt
    insmod chain
    set root='(hd0,gpt2)'
    chainloader /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
}

You can place this directly in your /boot/grub/grub.cfg file, but it will be temporary. A better long-term solution is to put that in /etc/grub.d/40_custom and then run update-grub. This will create a new entry that will (perhaps) work.

One complication is that you seem to be using Secure Boot. I'm not sure about the version of GRUB that ships with Ubuntu 12.04 (presumably 12.04.2, actually), but some versions of GRUB have problems launching Windows in EFI mode with Secure Boot active. Thus, the preceding solution might not work unless you disable Secure Boot. You'll need to rummage about in your firmware settings to find how to disable Secure Boot; the details vary greatly from one computer to another. Even then, launching Windows from GRUB seems to be hit-or-miss; what works on one computer fails on another.

An entirely different option is to install rEFInd, which supplements or replaces GRUB. This also might require you to disable Secure Boot; and if you don't, you'll need to enroll rEFInd's key the first time you reboot; see rEFInd's Secure Boot documentation for details. (I'm assuming that Ubuntu 12.04.2 has an updated version of shim that supports MOKs. If it doesn't, Secure Boot becomes even trickier, since you'll need to install a new version of shim.) Ideally, though, simply installing the rEFInd Debian package should get things working correctly, especially if you first disable Secure Boot.