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I have a brand new HP Pavilion Desktop which came with Windows, which I detest. I immediately installed Ubuntu Bionic alongside Windows (in /dev/sda6), followed by reinstalling all my favourite apps I had on my old system (MySQL, Thunderbird, Dokuwiki...). After only 3 weeks of using the new system I found it had rebooted itself 4 days ago, despite the fact I have battery backup. I was presented with updates, which I installed. This required a reboot but Ubuntu failed to reboot.

I employed my favourite tool to repair Ubuntu, Boot-repair but, unlike the dozens of other times I used it, it went straight to the Boot Info without allowing me to select the partitions to install grub and all the other steps.

I even tried to reinstall Ubuntu from the installation CD.

I would welcome suggestions on how to proceed. This is the first PC I've had with UEFI and I'm not familiar with it.

A J
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user78290
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1 Answers1

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I kept getting errors about cache and cache write through on booting, then it asked for root password.

Anyway, I have fixed the problem. Here's how I did it: In the section "The GUI Way: Reinstalling Grub" in the URL https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCdRecovery I tried to follow the recommendations for reinstallation from the Ubuntu Bionic installation CD. However, after choosing "Something else" for the partitioning, and hitting continue, I kept getting a warning "No root filesystem defined". I set this to /dev/sda6, where the ext4 partition containing Ubuntu had been located. I chose not to reformat. The LiveCDRecovery article said I should expect errors saying it cannot install and choose the install grub option. That never happened and the installation completed. When I rebooted I found that most of my data files, including MySQL databases were still there though I needed to reinstall many apps.

So I had a scare, thinking I had days of recovery ahead of me but instead felt a huge relief.

What I'd like to know is why Boot-repair never gave me the grub options and skipped everything except the boot info.

user78290
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  • I used to rely on boot-repair as well but it has let me down a couple of times on UEFI systems. Looks like you had one of those cases as well. – Organic Marble Jun 08 '18 at 01:57