upgrading to 18.3 from 17.3 on dual boot dual hdd with win7

[michael louwe]

@ Swiso, .......

Thank you.

Unfortunately when installing GRUB on sdc1 I receive a fatal error saying it is not possible.

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Ensure that Secure Boot, Fast Boot and CSM(or Legacy BIOS) are disabled, and the Live LM 18.3 USB/DVD is booted in UEFI mode in UEFI/BIOS setup.

In your case, to reinstall LM 18.3, you need to use the manual "Something else" install method, delete all the Linux partitions to create a new free-space and recreate the EFI Boot Partition, /, Home and Swap partitions.
... UEFI/GPT disks can have 128 Primary partitions. So, normally, no need to use Logical partitions.

[Swiso]

Ensure that Secure Boot, Fast Boot and CSM(or Legacy BIOS) are disabled, and the Live LM 18.3 USB/DVD is booted in UEFI mode in UEFI/BIOS setup.

In your case, to reinstall LM 18.3, you need to use the manual "Something else" install method, delete all the Linux partitions to create a new free-space and recreate the EFI Boot Partition, /, Home and Swap partitions.
... UEFI/GPT disks can have 128 Primary partitions. So, normally, no need to use Logical partitions.

Thank You Michael !
The problem was Fast boot, CSM and secure boot !
I think now I booted in the right way because when booting I saw the Linux GRUB option and when Installing LM I see on sdc1 the "windows boot manager" that on the previous installs I didn't saw.

Now for the partitions I need to create:

1) EFI Boot partition : how big ? I should choose "Use as: EFI System Partition" ?
2) "/" partition, this is where LM 18.3 will be installed right ?
3) "/home" partition : this is where all the programs, my backups, and all the data go, right ?
4) "swap" : this should be 1.5-2 x size of RAM, right ?
5) on which device I should put the boot loader ? sdc1 (Windows Boot Manager ) or in the sdd EFI Boot partition ?

Thank you very much !

[michael louwe]

@ Swiso, .......

...

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Please refer to these links on manual partitioning ... https://www.tecmint.com/install-linux-m ... uefi-mode/
viewtopic.php?f=42&t=122276 (this is for Legacy BIOS ms-dos/MBR disks but can be used as a partitioning guide)

1. The LM EFI Boot Partition(= /sdd1) = fat32/550MB/mount point is boot/efi = should be the 1st partition at the beginning of this space or disk/drive.
2. The / or Root or System partition should be about 50GB = set as at the beginning of this space. It contains the OS(= operating system).
4. The Swap partition should be 1.5 to 2 times RAM size and should be set at the end of this space. It is used for supplementary virtual memory or RAM-disk and Hibernation.
3. Use the remaining disk space as the Home partition and set as at the beginning of this space. It is used for storing your app/program configurations/settings and data storage.
5. The "Device for boot loader installation" should be the Windows EFI System Partition, ie /sdc1.

After installation has completed, set your computer to boot first from the LM drive, ie /sdd or Samsung Pro 840.

UEFI computers require only one active EFI System/Boot Partition to store all the efi bootloaders. The efi bootloaders should not be installed on separate drives or Boot Partitions, unlike for Legacy BIOS computers.

[Swiso]

Thank you very much Michael,
partitions done :

1.png

Now proceedings with the install.

[Swiso]

I receive this error message :

2.png

[Sir Charles]

Your partition table looks as it should.

fwiw,
I wouldn't want to go against @michael louwe's instructions, but, personally, in my triple-boot setup (Win 10 + 2 Linux OSs). I have installed the bootloader for each Linux OS in its own /boot/efi and my set-up works perfectly. But, my whole set-up is on one SSD, so that might have made a differnce. I can't tell.

Edit: if you choose to install the bootloader on /boot/efi (in your case sdd1), you would have to flag it as both "esp" and "boot". That you can do by marking the partition and clicking on "modifica". You will get a dialogue box in which you choose "use as: EFI System Partition" and then you can set those flags.

[michael louwe]

@ Swiso, .......

...

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Sorry, my apologies.

Please "go Back" to the Partitioning table, click on the EFI Boot Partition of the LM drive(= /sdd1), click "Change" or "Edit" and do not set mount point boot/efi for it. Alternatively, just delete the EFI Boot Partition and recreate it without the mount point.

[Sir Charles]

Sorry @ michael louwe for having chimed in like that, this is obviously the problem, since two EFI partitions have been marked for to be mounted at the same point

[Swiso]

It work !
Thank you very very much austin.texas, michael louwe, Marziano and everybody else !

One last question...now that I have LM 18.3 "basic" ( without any apps that I had on 17.3) , to restore my backup, I can do it without any problem or I should pay attention to something in particular ?

[Joe2Shoe]

Michael louwe had it right in his post:
5. The "Device for boot loader installation" should be the Windows EFI System Partition, ie /sdc1.

That's the key to a successful and worry-free dual-boot with Windows.
Good job.

[Sir Charles]

@Swiso
Such a relief


@everyone

UEFI computers require only one active EFI System/Boot Partition to store all the efi bootloaders. The efi bootloaders should not be installed on separate drives or Boot Partitions, unlike for Legacy BIOS computers.

(Sorry @michael louwe for quoting you. I do that because this seems to be the the recommended, conventional way)


I understand now that my set-up is kind of unconventional, apparently, regarding the location of the bootloader. And since my question has remained unanswered in another thread (viewtopic.php?f=46&t=262112) until now, I still don't know why one should install the bootloader in Windows EFI partition. I have applied the same method in several multi-boot set-ups (triple- and quadruple- boot) With Windows and other Linux Oss as diverse as openSUSE, Korora, Manjaro and Mint and all have been functioning without any problem (for an example, see below). I would appreciate any explanation on this matter, since for now i don't understand why you should but I know what you could and I know it works.

Code: Select all

Device         Start       End   Sectors    Size Type
/dev/sda1       2048    923647    921600    450M Windows recovery environment
/dev/sda2     923648   1128447    204800    100M EFI System
/dev/sda3    1128448   1161215     32768     16M Microsoft reserved
/dev/sda4    1161216 125944796 124783581   59,5G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sda5  125945856 126988287   1042432    509M Windows recovery environment
/dev/sda6  126988288 127512575    524288    256M EFI System
/dev/sda7  127512576 179941375  52428800     25G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda8  179941376 182011687   2070312 1010,9M EFI System
/dev/sda9  182011904 234440703  52428800     25G Linux filesystem

[michael louwe]

@ Marziano, .......
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...

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You are multi-booting from a single internal hard-drive. Swiso is dual-booting from two internal hard-drives. Likely, that is the difference.
... Did you install the Grub bootloaders on different EFI System Partitions.? Do all your EFI System Partitions have mount points as boot/efi.?

AFAIK, even installing LM on an external USB hard-drive in UEFI mode with UEFI Windows already installed on the internal hard-drive is quite complicated.

[Sir Charles]

michael louwe wrote

You are multi-booting from a single internal hard-drive. Swiso is dual-booting from two internal hard-drives. Likely, that is the difference.

Yes, this is what I suspected too as I wrote above. That the set-up on one drive might have made the difference.

... Did you install the Grub bootloaders on different EFI System Partitions.?

Yes.

Do all your EFI System Partitions have mount points as boot/efi.?

When installing the Linux OSs, I marked the partitons to be mounted at /boot/efi, so I guess,.. yes, but when running the system I don't actually know which one is mounted at /boot/efi. The Grub has always been controlled by the last installed Linux OS, in almost all cases, Mint.

Edit: I have checked now. The EFI parttion mounted at /boot/efi is that of Windows.

[Swiso]

UPDATE :
In the process of fixing the install, before following the suggestion of michael louwe to disable fast boot, secure boot and CSM, I installed rEFInd Boot Manager.
After fixing the problem, I completely forgot about rEFInd.
I now am able to see the GRUB boot option and LM start perfectly.
The problem is that when i want to boot Windows 7, I see the EFInd Boot Manager screen:

8.jpg

If I select the Windows logo, the boot remain stuck at the "Starting Windows"screen, while in the background after 10 seconds I hear the typical sound of W7 at the login page:

5.png

I tried to uninstall rEFInd following the instructions in this page http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/install ... installing , and specifically this part "If you installed via an RPM or Debian package in Linux, using your package manager will remove the package files, but not the files that the installer places on your ESP. Thus, you must uninstall those files manually, as just described. To complete the job, you'll also have to remove /boot/refind_linux.conf, and perhaps the /etc/refind.d directory."

That was what I did, but after rebooting, I keep seeing rEFInd boot manager screen.
How I should do to completely remove any files of that program ?
Thank you very much

[michael louwe]

@ Swiso, .......

...

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Try reinstalling rEFInd manager and use rEFInd to boot into Win 7 or LM 18.3. rEFInd is a good EFI Boot manager program. No harm using it instead of LM's Grub.

AFAIK, rEFInd will automatically scan your drives for all installed EFI bootloaders and make them available to you as a menu. rEFInd is normally used for boot repair of UEFI systems.

[Swiso]

I tried that.
After reinstalling it, the first boot manager I saw was rEFInd and I saw 7 boot options:
1) Windows: Boot Microsoft EFI boot from EFI system partition
2) Windows: Boot EFI\Microsoft\bootmgfw.efi from EFI system partition
3) Boot EFI\Boot\bkpbootx64.efi from EFI system partition
4) Ubuntu: Boot EFI\ubuntu\gubx64.efi from EFI system partition
5) Boot Fallback boot loader from EFI system partition
6) LM: boot\vmlinuz-4.10.0-38 generic from 46GiB ext4 volume
7) Boot fallback boot loader from Paging

I tried both Windows options and both got stuck.
I removed rEFInd with Synaptic , selecting "Mark for Complete Removal".
After rebooting, appear GRUB, and if I select sdc1 ( Windows) , appear again rEFInd boot manager screen.

I would like to get rid of this program....what I miss to do ?

[michael louwe]

@ Swiso, .......

...

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http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/installing.html

Uninstalling rEFInd from Linux

In Linux, a command like the following, typed as root, should remove rEFInd:

# rm -r /boot/efi/EFI/refind

You must type this command as root (or use sudo in some environments, such as under Ubuntu). This example assumes that your ESP is mounted at /boot/efi and that rEFInd is installed in EFI/refind on that partition. If you've mounted your ESP elsewhere, or installed rEFInd elsewhere, you should adjust the command appropriately.

If you installed via an RPM or Debian package in Linux, using your package manager will remove the package files, but not the files that the installer places on your ESP. Thus, you must uninstall those files manually, as just described. To complete the job, you'll also have to remove /boot/refind_linux.conf, and perhaps the /etc/refind.d directory.

Did you run sudo rm -r /boot/efi/EFI/refind.?

[Swiso]

I did that before trying with Synaptic, but to no success.
Last method tried is with Synaptic, then with EFI Boot Manager delete refind item as suggested here : https://www.lifewire.com/change-the-efi ... gr-4028027
This is the actual state of EFI Boot Manager :

a.jpg

After booting again, I keep seeing rEFInd Boot Manager screen....there must be some hidden files somewhere I guess...

[michael louwe]

@ Swiso, .......

...

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After uninstalling rEFInd, try sudo update-grub and reboot.

Earlier, found the Terminal way to uninstall rEFInd ...
sudo dpkg -P refind
sudo rm -rf /boot/efi/EFI/refind
sudo update-grub

[Swiso]

@ Swiso, .......

After uninstalling rEFInd, try sudo update-grub and reboot.

Earlier, found the Terminal way to uninstall rEFInd ...
sudo dpkg -P refind
sudo rm -rf /boot/efi/EFI/refind
sudo update-grub

Tried that, but no success....

When typing first command (sudo dpkg -P refind) I see the message telling me that the request is ignored because refind is not installed
When typing second command (sudo rm -rf /boot/efi/EFI/refind) nothing happen
When typing third command (sudo update-grub) I see this happening: "Generating grub configuration file ...
Found Image linux: /boot/vmlinuz-4.10.0-38-generic
Found Image initrd: /boot/initrd.img-4.10.0-38-generic
Found Windows Boot Manager su /dev/sdc1@/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
Adding boot menu entry for EFI firmware configuration
done"

When booting after this, I keep seeing rEFInd boot screen....