Mint 18.3 KDE not showing up in UEFI boot order selection

[Skylekko]

I've been trying to dual boot Linux with Windows 10 on my Acer Aspire TC-710 and Grub never seems to show up on boot. I've tried distros such as Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Bodhi Linux, but I decided I'd try Linux Mint 18.3 KDE. The installation goes fine, but when I restart the PC it boots straight to Windows 10 with no Grub. I checked the UEFI boot menu, and it only shows Windows Boot Manager, CD/DVD, Removable Device and LAN. There is no Ubuntu/Linux Mint/Grub selection. I have made sure that both operating systems were installed in UEFI mode so it would have detected the EFI partition and installed Grub, but each time I've reinstalled Mint, Grub never seems to work. I'm not even sure if Grub is installed or not. How am I able to get Grub working? Thank you for any help.

[michael louwe]

@ Skylekko, .......

...

.
Assuming you have previously dual-booted other Linux distros on the same Win 10 computer, likely, the Boot partition, ie Win 10's EFI System Partition(= fat32/104MB), is already full = could not accommodate another Grub bootloader from the latest LM install = LM cannot be booted.
... This can be checked by the Win 10's Disk Management Tool or the Live Linux USB/DVD's GParted and Disk Tools.

If so, maybe you can try deleting some Grub bootloader files from that partition, ie by booting from a Live Linux USB/DVD.

By default, Win 10 only provides a 104MB EFI System Partition or Boot partition, whereas Linux will provide a 300MB(.?) EFI Boot Partition by default.
... Windows Boot Manager takes up about 30MB of disk space. So, Win 10's EFI System Partition only allows you to install another 2 bootloaders only. Linux kernel upgrades will also increase the size of the Grub bootloaders.
.

EDIT; ... Ensure that Fast Startup is disabled in Win 10, ie >Control Panel >Power options, Secure Boot, Fast Boot and CSM are disabled, and the Live LM USB/DVD is booted in UEFI mode in UEFI-BIOS setup.

[fabien85]

There is a well known bug with Acer firmware where the bootloader as to be "trusted for executing". This may be your case.
See the following link : https://itsfoss.com/no-bootable-device-found-ubuntu/
If you do find this way a file EFI/ubuntu/shimx64.efi on your EFI partition, then it means that grub was correctly installed and this is the problem. Select this shimx64.efi as trusted for execution, then save the BIOS setting and exit, and at reboot you should get to grub where you will be able to boot Linux Mint.

[Skylekko]

.
Assuming you have previously dual-booted other Linux distros on the same Win 10 computer, likely, the Boot partition, ie Win 10's EFI System Partition(= fat32/104MB), is already full = could not accommodate another Grub bootloader from the latest LM install = LM cannot be booted.
... This can be checked by the Win 10's Disk Management Tool or the Live Linux USB/DVD's GParted and Disk Tools.

If so, maybe you can try deleting some Grub bootloader files from that partition, ie by booting from a Live Linux USB/DVD.

By default, Win 10 only provides a 104MB EFI System Partition or Boot partition, whereas Linux will provide a 300MB(.?) EFI Boot Partition by default.
... Windows Boot Manager takes up about 30MB of disk space. So, Win 10's EFI System Partition only allows you to install another 2 bootloaders only. Linux kernel upgrades will also increase the size of the Grub bootloaders.
.

EDIT; ... Ensure that Fast Startup is disabled in Win 10, ie >Control Panel >Power options, Secure Boot, Fast Boot and CSM are disabled, and the Live LM USB/DVD is booted in UEFI mode in UEFI-BIOS setup.

I'm not sure if I'm suppose to mount the EFI partition so that I can delete the files or not, but I have booted to the live Linux USB and in Gparted it says that 56.49 MiB is used out of 100.00 MiB, but on Windows it says 104MB is used out of 104MB. I also cannot mount the EFI partition as the selection is greyed out, but I'm not sure if I am suppose to do that anyways.

[Skylekko]

There is a well known bug with Acer firmware where the bootloader as to be "trusted for executing". This may be your case.
See the following link : https://itsfoss.com/no-bootable-device-found-ubuntu/
If you do find this way a file EFI/ubuntu/shimx64.efi on your EFI partition, then it means that grub was correctly installed and this is the problem. Select this shimx64.efi as trusted for execution, then save the BIOS setting and exit, and at reboot you should get to grub where you will be able to boot Linux Mint.

I looked through the Boot, Security and Authentication tabs in the UEFI/BIOS and I didn't find any trusted for executing selection. Also I'm not sure how to get access to the contents of the EFI partition

[michael louwe]

@ Skylekko, .......

...

.
AFAIK, to access the bootloader files in the Win 10 EFI System Partition, you need to run the Live LM USB/DVD, mount the whole internal hard drive and use the File Manager to look through individual folders, eg for LM it will be / or root, bin, usr, etc, boot, var, sys, proc, etc and for Win 10 it will be programs, sys, documents, etc.

To access the "Select an UEFI file as trusted for executing" in BIOS setup, you need to enable Secure Boot and set the BIOS Supervisory password. ...
https://itsfoss.com/no-bootable-device-found-ubuntu/
viewtopic.php?t=236560

[fabien85]

in Gparted it says that 56.49 MiB is used out of 100.00 MiB, but on Windows it says 104MB is used out of 104MB

Did you disable windows fast startup ? If not, do it.

+1 on michael's instructions

[Skylekko]

@ Skylekko, .......

...

.
AFAIK, to access the bootloader files in the Win 10 EFI System Partition, you need to run the Live LM USB/DVD, mount the whole internal hard drive and use the File Manager to look through individual folders, eg for LM it will be / or root, bin, usr, etc, boot, var, sys, proc, etc and for Win 10 it will be programs, sys, documents, etc.

To access the "Select an UEFI file as trusted for executing" in BIOS setup, you need to enable Secure Boot and set the BIOS Supervisory password. ...
https://itsfoss.com/no-bootable-device-found-ubuntu/
viewtopic.php?t=236560

I enabled Secure Boot and set the Supervisory password, but I still don't have the "Select an UEFI file for executing." Could it be that I need to update the UEFI firmware?

[Skylekko]

in Gparted it says that 56.49 MiB is used out of 100.00 MiB, but on Windows it says 104MB is used out of 104MB

Did you disable windows fast startup ? If not, do it.

+1 on michael's instructions

Disabled windows fast startup, it still says 104MB out of 104MB on Windows, then on LM it says 56.49 MiB out of 100.00 MiB

[Skylekko]

There is a well known bug with Acer firmware where the bootloader as to be "trusted for executing". This may be your case.
See the following link : https://itsfoss.com/no-bootable-device-found-ubuntu/
If you do find this way a file EFI/ubuntu/shimx64.efi on your EFI partition, then it means that grub was correctly installed and this is the problem. Select this shimx64.efi as trusted for execution, then save the BIOS setting and exit, and at reboot you should get to grub where you will be able to boot Linux Mint.

I found the shimx64.efi in the file explorer, so yes it has installed correctly

[michael louwe]

@ Skylekko, .......

I enabled Secure Boot and set the Supervisory password, but I still don't have the "Select an UEFI file for executing." Could it be that I need to update the UEFI firmware?

.
That likely means that your computer does not have this obstructive setting in UEFI-BIOS setup = you are lucky.? Many newer(= from 2015 or Win 10 onwards) Acer, Asus and HP laptops have this BIOS setting.

The above latest(= 2017) OEM laptops, eg Acer E and S series, may have even removed this UEFI-BIOS setting( = only Win 10 can be booted = eg "No bootable device" after installing Linux and cannot be fixed), but may be restored by a new BIOS firmware update from the OEMs = update through Windows only. This was only after many complaints from affected users. ...
viewtopic.php?f=46&t=254948
... Another workaround is ... https://askubuntu.com/questions/862946/ ... re-es1-533 (unable-to-install-ubuntu-on-acer-aspire-es1-533)

In 2016, Lenovo started selling the Yoga 900-13ISK and Ideapad 710S laptops with Win 10 preinstalled in RAID disk mode using the proprietary Intel RST driver, without any BIOS setting option to change to AHCI disk mode = Linux cannot be booted or installed. Again, after much public complaints, Lenovo relented by issuing a BIOS firmware update in early 2017 to reinstate the AHCI option.

.
P S - For the launch of Win 10 in 2015, M$ issued new guidelines to the OEMs for Win 10 OEM Volume Licensing, ie it was up to the discretion of the OEMs whether they want to allow Secure Boot to be disabled or other EFI bootloaders to be installed.
... In comparison, when Win 8 was launched in 2012, at first M$ mandated the OEMs to only produce UEFI computers with Secure Boot enabled and cannot be disabled. After much public outcry, M$ relented and ordered the OEMs to allow Secure Boot to be disabled. Seems, recently, M$ are back to their shenanigans.

[fabien85]

The workaround https://askubuntu.com/questions/862946/ ... re-es1-533 would work for a Linux single boot : not finding windows, the firmware would go to the fallback bootloader /EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi
But if windows is really there, I am afraid you would still boot directly to it.

Another possible workaround is to try to set the bootloader from windows. The firmware/BIOS may react better to this and listen this time.
The howto is given in the following link for the case of refind : http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/installing.html#windows
In your case you would adapt steps 1,2,5,9 (optionally 10) to grub. Basically from an administrative command prompt, run

Code: Select all

bcdedit /set "{bootmgr}" path \EFI\ubuntu\shimx64.efi