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I had Windows 8 and Ubuntu 14 on my Dell XPS. I tried deleting Windows from Ubuntu by using this: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/OS-Uninstaller

I re-started my machine and saw a message which said No OS was found. I created a bootable USB having Linux Mint. When I plugged in the USB, at some point, I saw the grub error: "minimal BASH like line editing is supported". Online suggestions told me to do a boot-repair. On pressing F12, the USB wasn't showing in the UEFI mode, but only in the legacy mode. USB only in legacy mode

Question 1: How to fix this (if it is important to install linux in UEFI mode)?

Anyways, I reboot from the USB containing Mint in the legacy mode. In mint terminal, I try to run boot-repair: How to install the Boot-Repair tool in an Ubuntu live disc?

After following the steps, I get a Boot Repair message: "GPT detected. Please create a BIOS boot partition.(>1MB, unformatted filesystem bios_grub flag). This can be performed via tools such as Gparted. Then tryagain, Alternatively you can retry after activating the [Separate/boot/efi partition:] option" GPT error

Question 2: "Do I need to do this boot repair step in order? If I need to do the boot repair, how do I fix the GPT detected error?"

I noticed that my Ubuntu is still available somewhere, because when I tried installing Mint, I saw this message which detected my Ubuntu 14. Ubuntu detected

My objective is:

1) To keep Ubuntu as the only OS

2) if (1) is not possible, keep the new mint OS only. I can live with the data lost with Ubuntu.

Mayank Raj
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  • If you do need Boot Repair - usually you don't - then it should be booted in the same mode the OSes were installed. When that error message appears it means it was booted in Legacy mode and the OSes (or at least on) is installed in UEFI mode. And yes, use UEFI mode in UEFI machines. –  Jan 21 '19 at 11:02

1 Answers1

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In the windows world and by default on linux, there are only two possibilities:

old: BIOS-MB + MBR-disk
new: EFI-MB + gpt-disk

However if you have an old motherboard and a new disk linux gives you a chance

You can use a gpt disk with a bios-MB The key thing there is that you need to create a BBP — a tiny 1MB special bios boot partition near the beginning of the disk. [Not to be confused by EFI partition or linux separate boot ]

You can do that with parted though I'd recommend gpt things to be done with gdisk.

If you prefer (g)parted, do the actual partitioning with gdisk and examination/mkfs etc with (g)parted. This keeps alignment well. Thereafter marking the type as BBP may be easier with (g)parted.

This is a cutpaste of this post.

(No rep for making a comment. Mods can do that if they choose)

Rusi
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