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I had a pre-existing Windows 10 & Ubuntu 18.04 dual boot, in UEFI mode, working with grub2. I previously used Boot-Repair to get that working. They are on separate disks.

I wiped and re-installed ubuntu, replacing it with ubuntu 20.04. I used a live USB in UEFI mode to do this, and the new ubuntu is in uefi mode. Ubuntu starts up and works fine, but grub doesn't load, and Windows is inaccessible.

So I ran Boot-Repair, but it first asked me whether my ubuntu drive is a removable drive (it isn't), then gave me the following message: "GPT detected. Please create a BIOS-Boot partition..."

Here's my pastebin: https://paste.ubuntu.com/p/JkKk7YBC6T/

All other solutions to this problem relate to accidentally mixing Legacy & UEFI boots. But as far as I know my Windows, Ubuntu, and Live USB are all set up to boot in UEFI mode. So I'm at a loss.

Any help? Thanks!

Masterfool
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    With Windows on a gpt disk, that means it runs in UEFI mode, but you have no Microsoft bootloaders in your EFI partition. Maybe you formatted your efi when you reinstalled Ubuntu? – ubfan1 Aug 19 '20 at 03:31
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    Do not run suggested fix from Boot-Repair. Its not seeing your UEFI and you show no Windows boot files nor UEFI boot entry for Windows. You can only repair with a Windows repair disk or installer that has a full Windows repair. Boot-Repair only works on Linux. – oldfred Aug 19 '20 at 03:48
  • Thanks guys, that sounds right, I think I might have created a new partition table when I wiped ubuntu -- and it probably broke the Windows boot files. I'll try to repair Windows -- but I haven't had any luck with that angle yet. – Masterfool Aug 19 '20 at 04:19
  • It worked. I just had to re-install Windows, then re-run Boot-Repair. – Masterfool Aug 19 '20 at 16:49

1 Answers1

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My Ubuntu 18.04.6 LTS laptop suddenly stopped booting; I couldn't even access the grub boot loader. I looked into the bios boot menu, it showed "Ubuntu Drive (Not present)". After 7 days of research, I commenced to fix the hard drive and solved the problem in less than 30 minutes. Here are the detailed steps I took:

Caution: I did not commence to change anything on the HDD before I thoroughly rescued and backed up its content. Every step I took had been experimented for many times on an SSD.

  1. Create a bootable USB (Ubuntu 20.04.4 LTS). I followed the instructions from this site: https://www.intowindows.com/how-to-create-ubuntu-bootable-usb-on-windows-10/ (I tried Ubuntu 18.04 live first, it wouldn't boot on my machine, so I went ahead with 20.04)

  2. Reboot with the USB drive created in step 1; select try Ubuntu.

  3. Run boot_repair. I followed the instructions from this site: https://www.howtogeek.com/114884/how-to-repair-grub2-when-ubuntu-wont-boot/
    I got the following error 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 try again.

  1. Run gparted on a terminal (press Ctl-Alt-t), delete and new (recreate) /dev/sda1, set the format to fat32. Then change the flag to "boot, esp". (I profited from this answer https://askubuntu.com/a/1089456 , but differed from his steps 4 and 5.)

The following is a screenshot of my gparted display:

enter image description here

  1. Run boot_repair again. Everything was smooth and successful.

  2. Shutdown, remove Live USB, then power up again. The system rebooted from the hard drive. Other than the "hard disk will fail soon" warning, everything else worked like it used to.

user2833393
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