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Laptop: HP probook 450 G

Main Hard drive: SSD 120 GB (Windows 10)

Secondary hard drive: 1TB (Ubuntu installed recently)

My laptop had Windows 10 on C drive and I tried to install Ubuntu on the other hard drive where I had created an extended partition for it (/, swap, home and root). After installation I could not boot into any operating system and it just goes into an infinite loop of restarting.

After some trial and error, I figured out I can select custom file from boot options and I managed to boot into Ubuntu by selecting the /EFI/Ubuntu/shimx64.efi file and it is working and booting me into Ubuntu directly, but there's no GRUB menu so I cannot get into my Windows.

GRUB menu entry

I have already tried updating my /etc/grub/40_custom and no luck. Also tried boot repair with MBR and without it (not relevant but tried).

Boot Repair

I have run boot repair multiple times with different configs, including to update the Windows files. You can access the boot repair report here.

Re-installing Windows

Finally I was trying to repair Windows again and it says drive is locked.

  • Windows is installed and configured to boot via UEFI.
  • Ubuntu is installed and configured to boot via UEFI.

So currently following is situation of HD

  • HD0
    • Partition1 - 800 MB reserved and contains /EFI/Microsoft/Boot file
    • Partition2 - 110 GB windows installation with other programs
  • HD1
    • Partition 5,6,7,8 - ubuntu
    • Partition 2 - ntfs windows file drive with my personal data

I have used a USB to boot into Windows troubleshoot command prompt and tried -/fixmbr, rebuildOS but it is not working; even scanOS can find the Windows installation folder.

Currently I have only UEFI is enabled in my BIOS settings

Can someone help me to boot into my windows installation?

Just to add if I don't select the Ubuntu shim file manually, my computer doesn't boot at all and it throws the following error only when I have my HD1 enabled as boot drive as well

System boot order not found. Initializing defaults
Creating boot entry "Boot0010" with label ubuntu for file "EFI\Ubuntu\shimx64.efi"

Reset System
Zanna
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Haseeb Asif
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  • IIRC there should be a separate .efi file for booting grub. – danzel May 17 '19 at 11:16
  • If you have UEFI you shouldn't be "fixing MBR", there's no MBR, you have GPT drives. The methods you tried aren't applicable. With both systems installed in the correct mode (UEFI) you should be able to boot each one independently from the boot menu of your UEFI settings (what you called "bios settings". Also you can dual-boit from Grub, the Ubuntu bootloader, just select "Ubuntu" as the first priority. –  May 17 '19 at 11:16
  • Already tried but it seems the difference is having it on separate hard drive probably and I don't even see the grub loader and it directly loads into the ubuntu – Haseeb Asif May 17 '19 at 12:14
  • Separate hard drive is rarely an issue. GPT/MBR and UEFI/BIOS confusion is a frequent cause. To see GRUB, see https://askubuntu.com/a/16049/19626 – user535733 May 20 '19 at 17:26

1 Answers1

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During installation of ubuntu two option come to us: One of them "Install alongside windows" another procedure is customizing hard drive partition and installing which is mentioned as "something else" during installation. The process you are going on is not right.Whatever you do you have to install grub boot loader on same drive so that u can boot windows and ubuntu. In bios option you must select ubuntu system boot loader as a first priority.

Sajjad Hoque
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  • In my case while installing the Ubuntu, it never gave me the option to do along side windows and I had only option to go with the "something else". I think we are beyond that step now, do you think is there a way to fix the issue? Thanks a lot for assistance. – Haseeb Asif May 17 '19 at 12:32