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I have Acer Aspire E15 notebook that had Windows 10 OS (64 bits) installed in UEFI mode with Secure Boot option turned on. It has InsydeH20 utility to display some firmware options upon booting.

I made a bootable USB for Ubuntu Desktop 18.04 (and then for 19.10) using Rufus with GPT/UEFI options and corresponding 64-bits ISO. So far so good.

Then I installed Ubuntu (just it, instead of Win10) - initially I tried 18.04 but due to some driver issues it wasn't a success then I re-made USB with 19.10 and it let me install Ubuntu.

The installation process itself was successful - I set language, time zone, my user/password, added internet connection and then it asked me to unplug the USB and reboot.

After rebooting it just couldn't find any bootable device. Ok, I plugged the USB with ISO again and then it somehow let me in under ubuntu/ubuntu user. I didn't explicitly press Try without installing option though. It just happened, maybe by default after some timeout.

There I was able to explore and mount partitions that intially were unmounted. I mounted 2 partitions - 1 small partition (537 Mb, only 9 MB used) with FAT32 filesystem (ESP, I guess) and then big almost 500 Gb (the whole disk) partition with Ext4 filesystem. Both are set to mount on startup. Ok. Seems fine.

Then I was able to reboot and see in the bootable (F12) menu two options - my USB and HD. Success? Not so fast. Choosing HD I logged in under my user, walked around, unplugged USB - it all was working fine. Then I tried to reboot again with unplugged USB - this time nothing in the boot menu (F12) and message like No bootable device detected on the screen.

I haven't been able to log in the installed system under my user since then. I tried to turn off Secure Mode, played around with InsydeH20 boot options - no effect. I am pretty sure Ubuntu is there. Also when I boot in "Try w/o installation" mode I can set flags on partitions - System Partition and BIOS legacy - no effect.

I am puzzled. I see lots of similar topics but cannot find any solid definitive solution. It should work, but it doesn't work... How to make it all work? Very disappointing experience :(

curveball
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  • Sounds like grub was placed on USB by accident. Will have to install grub onto to the drive that you placed ubuntu on. – crip659 Nov 30 '19 at 22:59
  • @crip659 where can I learn more about it? How to correclty formulate this problem? – curveball Nov 30 '19 at 23:02
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    Might need to make a password in bios to turn off secure boot. Make sure you do not forget it(write it down if needed) – crip659 Nov 30 '19 at 23:02
  • @crip659 I already did so - set a password and then I became able to turn off that mode. No effect. – curveball Nov 30 '19 at 23:02
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    This link should give answer once you are back into the installed version. Remove USB drive before trying to install grub. Use the instructions in answer for UEFI. https://askubuntu.com/questions/831216/how-can-i-reinstall-grub-to-the-efi-partition – crip659 Nov 30 '19 at 23:08
  • Acer has unique requirement of setting "trust" on UEFI boot entries. Acer Trust Settings - details, some now report that then secure boot has to be on to set trust: https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2297947 & https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2358003 & Acer Aspire E15 will not dual boot, many details Trust settings in step 35 http://askubuntu.com/questions/627416/acer-aspire-e15-will-not-dual-boot – oldfred Dec 01 '19 at 04:45
  • @oldfred I am not trying to set dual boot, I want to replace Win10 with Ubuntu :( Thanks for the links – curveball Dec 01 '19 at 10:02
  • Make Windows backup first. Procedure for "trust" is still the same. But if only Ubuntu you can cheat and create a Windows UEFI boot entry that really boots grub/Ubuntu. It seems to automatically trust "Windows Boot Entry". But we can use that description for a grub or shim boot entry. Details in IV: https://askubuntu.com/questions/486752/dual-boot-win-8-ubuntu-loads-only-win (Do not use if dual booting as Windows will overwrite it, and grub only boots working Windows, so when Windows breaks, only way to repair is from Windows recovery disk. – oldfred Dec 01 '19 at 15:19
  • @oldfred thanks a lot for pointing out the right direction! The grub isn't considered trusted by default so that I had to add trusted EFI files and put them in the first place in the Boot tab as it is shown in the topics/answers you kindly provided me with. My trouble is solved now and I can normally boot and use Ubuntu :) – curveball Dec 01 '19 at 23:58

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