Acer EFI Laptop / Grub Win10 Problems
by LinWinux from LinuxQuestions.org on (#5FYJX)
Hi there, everyone.
I have an installation problem that has me stumped.
A client of mine has an Acer Windows 10 laptop. The laptop has two drives on it, that's how he bought it new from the retailer. Drive D:\ which shows up on a live boot as SDA ist just a 1TB SATA Data drive where he's been dumping all of his personal files. Drive C:\ is the one that has EFI boot with Windows 10 installed and that one's a 128 GB SSD drive.
At some point in time he decided to play around with Linux, added a partition to the C:\ drive, followed by installing Linux Mint (Cinnamon) on that partition. On a live boot that partition shows up as SDB5 and the entire SSD is being recognized as an SDB drive, which I always thought was a designation for a secondary or an external stick/drive? (see image)
Anyway, he made the partition too small because he dumped too much personal data on it, causing Grub to no longer work in order to boot up his Cinnamon. Every time that he tried using Linux, a boot loop would occur. So he brought his Laptop to me. I don't use Cinnamon or any version of Mint. My preferred Linux is MX Linux.
Windows 10 used to work from the Grub menu, but not the Linux. But he wanted for both to work. So I tried the latest edition of Boot Repair Disk but wasn't able to correct anything at all. That's the first time that Boot Repair Disc (actually used a live stick) has failed me. so he said that if Grub can't be repaired, then just wipe out that partition completely, leaving only Windows on the SDB drive, along with the empty partition that used to have Mint / Cinnamon on it.
Did that, the partition is now gone.
Consequently Windows only works by selecting Windows boot loader from the F12 menu with a Linux live stick. It's a solution, but obviously not the desired one. My client would like to have either Mint / Cinnamon or MX Linux installed since he saw what I was using and likes that as well.
So I tried making the installation, figuring that the install process would configure grub correctly automatically. I checked the box to install grub in the same partition as the Windows EFI, but that didn't work.
Then I went ahead and removed the esp/boot flag from the Windows EFI partition, added the boot flag in the SDB5 partition for the Linux installation, but that didn't work either. Upon 95% completion of the installation process an error appeared on the screen, letting me know that grub could not be installed.
Okay, back to the beginning. With a live usb I went ahead and placed the flags exactly as they were before. Right now at this moment we're back with the SDB drive as it was. EFI partition with Windows and also an empty SDB5 partition which is where I'd like to install MX Linux from a live usb for my client.
I have no idea how to get grub placed/working correctly during the installation, so that the client can boot into booth, Windows as well as Linux. Any ideas from any gurus out there?
Thank you.
Attached Thumbnails
I have an installation problem that has me stumped.
A client of mine has an Acer Windows 10 laptop. The laptop has two drives on it, that's how he bought it new from the retailer. Drive D:\ which shows up on a live boot as SDA ist just a 1TB SATA Data drive where he's been dumping all of his personal files. Drive C:\ is the one that has EFI boot with Windows 10 installed and that one's a 128 GB SSD drive.
At some point in time he decided to play around with Linux, added a partition to the C:\ drive, followed by installing Linux Mint (Cinnamon) on that partition. On a live boot that partition shows up as SDB5 and the entire SSD is being recognized as an SDB drive, which I always thought was a designation for a secondary or an external stick/drive? (see image)
Anyway, he made the partition too small because he dumped too much personal data on it, causing Grub to no longer work in order to boot up his Cinnamon. Every time that he tried using Linux, a boot loop would occur. So he brought his Laptop to me. I don't use Cinnamon or any version of Mint. My preferred Linux is MX Linux.
Windows 10 used to work from the Grub menu, but not the Linux. But he wanted for both to work. So I tried the latest edition of Boot Repair Disk but wasn't able to correct anything at all. That's the first time that Boot Repair Disc (actually used a live stick) has failed me. so he said that if Grub can't be repaired, then just wipe out that partition completely, leaving only Windows on the SDB drive, along with the empty partition that used to have Mint / Cinnamon on it.
Did that, the partition is now gone.
Consequently Windows only works by selecting Windows boot loader from the F12 menu with a Linux live stick. It's a solution, but obviously not the desired one. My client would like to have either Mint / Cinnamon or MX Linux installed since he saw what I was using and likes that as well.
So I tried making the installation, figuring that the install process would configure grub correctly automatically. I checked the box to install grub in the same partition as the Windows EFI, but that didn't work.
Then I went ahead and removed the esp/boot flag from the Windows EFI partition, added the boot flag in the SDB5 partition for the Linux installation, but that didn't work either. Upon 95% completion of the installation process an error appeared on the screen, letting me know that grub could not be installed.
Okay, back to the beginning. With a live usb I went ahead and placed the flags exactly as they were before. Right now at this moment we're back with the SDB drive as it was. EFI partition with Windows and also an empty SDB5 partition which is where I'd like to install MX Linux from a live usb for my client.
I have no idea how to get grub placed/working correctly during the installation, so that the client can boot into booth, Windows as well as Linux. Any ideas from any gurus out there?
Thank you.
Attached Thumbnails