Install Linux mint and W10 in UEFI : deleting all partition table info !

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DrMethyl

Install Linux mint and W10 in UEFI : deleting all partition table info !

Post by DrMethyl »

Hello,

Now I have one SSD (MBR partion table) and one HDD (GPT partition table) .

I have W10, EFI and linux mint on the SSD, several different ubuntus on the HDD, another EFI partition and /home for the mint SSD.

I have problem because I accidentaly deleted the OS W10 partition and testdisk messed up but I still have the grub menu and all the linux worked but not W10.

A guy on ubuntu forum told me it was a mess because the linux mint 19 was installed in Legacy mode , not UEFI. BTW when I installed the distro, I placed the /boot in the EFI partition... How to be sure the distro will be installed on UEFI ? It is how I install it the live system because for the last Mint 19 I simply use dd to wrtie on the USB stick not used multisystem.

And I did not understand why I have another EFI partition table on my HDD ?

Now I want to delete everything and first install W10, but on the HDD.

Question 1 ) If I delete every partition table and replace with GPT tables, will the UEFI run again ? Which EFI partition will be chosen ? Can I install W10 on HDD and use the EFI partition of the SSD ?

Question 2) How to be sure I install mint on UEFI boot ? Where do I have to place the /boot dir, on the UEFI partition of the SSD ?

Question 3 ) It is the same if I want to install other distro ? Can I choose the correct EFI partition ?

Question 4 ) Is there any difference of speed-booting when I place the EFI partition on the SSD or HDD ? If not I let W10 place its EFI partition on the HDD, then install the linux.

Question 5 ) If I delete the actual EFI partition or ALL the partion table, Will the UEFI of my computer working again ? Where the UEFI infos/folder are ? On the firmware ?

Thank you in advance for all your answers,

I know I messed up a lot because my computer Asus N552VX is very linux resistant and I have to test several distro before installing one in the SSD... Now I want to start from the root.

Step 0) Recoveries with partimage and copy/paste
Step 1) Make the partitions tables
Step 2) Install W10 on the HDD
Step 3 ) Install Ubuntu on HDD with partion share on HDD for data
Step 4) Install Mint 19 on SSD with the /home on HDD

THANK YOU FOR THE TEAM !

I don't regret my donation because this OS was the only ONE that work on my resistant computer with this rainbows UDH screen. I tried a lot and some does not lauch at all like manjaro. And for other debian I had to make a lot of modifiation to make it work because of the nouveau driver that is not working at all and mess up everything...
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
DrMethyl

Re: Install Linux mint and W10 in UEFI : deleting all partition table info !

Post by DrMethyl »

Hello,

Does anyone can just quickly answer to my questions ? I find a way to start to reinstall everything...

Question 1 ) If I delete every partition table and replace with GPT tables, will the UEFI run again ? Which EFI partition will be chosen ? Can I install W10 on HDD and use the EFI partition of the SSD ?

Question 2) How to be sure I install mint on UEFI boot ? Where do I have to place the /boot dir, on the UEFI partition of the SSD ?

Question 3 ) It is the same if I want to install other distro ? Can I choose the correct EFI partition ?

Question 4 ) Is there any difference of speed-booting when I place the EFI partition on the SSD or HDD ? If not I let W10 place its EFI partition on the HDD, then install the linux.

Question 5 ) If I delete the actual EFI partition or ALL the partion table, Will the UEFI of my computer working again ? Where the UEFI infos/folder are ? On the firmware ?


Here is my fdisk -l

Code: Select all

mcseb@mcseb-N552VX:~$ sudo fdisk -l
[sudo] password for mcseb: 
Disk /dev/sda: 238,5 GiB, 256060514304 bytes, 500118192 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
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x11435316

Device     Boot     Start       End   Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sda1  *         2048    534527    532480   260M  b W95 FAT32
/dev/sda2          567296 294295551 293728256 140,1G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3       294295552 493705215 199409664  95,1G 83 Linux
/dev/sda4       493705216 500117503   6412288   3,1G  f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5       499095552 500117503   1021952   499M  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT




Disk /dev/sdb: 1,8 TiB, 2000398934016 bytes, 3907029168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 8C8F450D-7EC5-47F8-B5A8-F3FF3F79B70B

Device          Start        End    Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sdb1        2048 1158451199 1158449152 552,4G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sdb2  1953902592 2442184703  488282112 232,9G Linux filesystem
/dev/sdb3  2442184704 2446090239    3905536   1,9G Linux swap
/dev/sdb4  2948044800 2949095423    1050624   513M EFI System
/dev/sdb5  2555674624 2948044799  392370176 187,1G Linux filesystem
/dev/sdb6  2949095424 3730345983  781250560 372,5G Linux filesystem
/dev/sdb7  3730345984 3771361279   41015296  19,6G Linux filesystem
/dev/sdb8  1158451200 1953902591  795451392 379,3G Linux filesystem
/dev/sdb9  2446090240 2555674623  109584384  52,3G Linux root (x86)

Partition table entries are not in disk order.
gm10

Re: Install Linux mint and W10 in UEFI : deleting all partition table info !

Post by gm10 »

DrMethyl wrote: Tue Aug 14, 2018 1:26 pm Now I want to delete everything and first install W10, but on the HDD.

Question 1 ) If I delete every partition table and replace with GPT tables, will the UEFI run again ? Which EFI partition will be chosen ? Can I install W10 on HDD and use the EFI partition of the SSD ?

Question 2) How to be sure I install mint on UEFI boot ? Where do I have to place the /boot dir, on the UEFI partition of the SSD ?

Question 3 ) It is the same if I want to install other distro ? Can I choose the correct EFI partition ?

Question 4 ) Is there any difference of speed-booting when I place the EFI partition on the SSD or HDD ? If not I let W10 place its EFI partition on the HDD, then install the linux.

Question 5 ) If I delete the actual EFI partition or ALL the partion table, Will the UEFI of my computer working again ? Where the UEFI infos/folder are ? On the firmware ?
Ok, so to confirm, you want to delete everything, you backed up your data and are ok with wiping both disks clean, right?

re 1) Whether you are in UEFI mode or in legacy BIOS mode has nothing to do with your partitions, it's a setting you can only change within your UEFI/BIOS. To check whether your Linux Mint is in UEFI mode you can run this command:

Code: Select all

ls -d /sys/firmware/efi
If you get a "No such file or directory" message then you are in BIOS mode indeed, otherwise you already are in EFI mode.

The Windows 10 installer should handle the EFI partition creation for you, and I imagine it will place it on whichever drive is first in the BIOS boot order. You will want it on the HDD along with the rest of Windows, so make sure that it's first. Maybe just disable/remove the SSD during installation.

re 2) As long as your UEFI BIOS is in UEFI mode (see above) then it should boot the Linux Mint installation medium the same way. Once you booted into it you can verify the way I showed you above. You don't need a separate /boot partition, but you will want a /boot/efi partition (flagged boot, esp in gparted) on the SSD where you want to install Linux. Make sure that you select this partition as the boot loader device. You do NOT want to install the boot loader into the Windows EFI partition. That way it won't get overwritten when you do your semi-annual Win10 edition upgrade.

re 3) Same for all of them, the installers may look different but the principle is the same. Just note that if you are asking for *additional* distros then you won't need separate EFI partitions for those, they can all use the one on the SSD. In fact it's usually best if you install them without a boot loader at all (for Ubuntu-based distributions ubiquity -b starts the installer in a no-bootloader mode - that way your main Linux install keeps control of the boot loader).

re 4) I think I already answered where you should place the EFI partitions. Speed isn't really relevant for that, the EFI boot loaders are small, loading the actual operating systems takes time (your Win10 will boot much slower from the HDD).

re 5) see above on how to enable UEFI mode. And yes, I would actually suggested to delete the entire partition tables from the Linux installation medium before installing anything. You should have GPT partition tables on both drives. The Win10 installer can probably do that for you, too.

PS: This seems like a decent step-by-step guide: https://askubuntu.com/questions/726972/ ... ard-drives
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