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I've have Ubuntu installed on a hard drive, which I installed as per this guide. Somehow, however, my EFI partition got messed up, and so I can no longer boot. I have created a Live USB, so I can try to fix it from there. My EFI partition is currently empty (no files or folders). How can I install Grub onto this partition?

A couple of things to note:

  1. I've tried this answer, and it seemed to work, but upon rebooting and selecting my drive, it didn't boot.

  2. I've also tried several of the answers to this question, but to no avail.

  3. When I do try to boot it by selecting my hard drive in the boot device list, my computer simply shows a black screen for less than a second and then goes right back to the boot menu.

  4. My system partition is /dev/sda4 and my boot partition is /dev/sda3. My system partition is 900GB ext4 and my boot partition is 300MB FAT32.

Any help would be appreciated and I can answer questions if they come up. Thanks!

applemonkey496
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2 Answers2

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The guide you mentioned in your question outlines installing on a USB storage device. That guide says: (Booting BIOS mode preferred). You may have installed Ubuntu in BIOS mode. Your third point (screen goes black, then returns to boot selection) suggests that your computer is (back?) in Secure or UEFI First mode.

Go back into the UEFI settings, turn secure boot off, enable CSM and select Legacy (and UEFI, in that order, if your UEFI firmware supports that).

Also, you could install boot-repair and take it from there.

Adriaan
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  • If there's a EFI partition, that suggests that Ubuntu was installed in UEFI mode. Secure Boot should be disabled. – heynnema Sep 19 '20 at 14:08
  • @heynnema: The guide used specifies the allocation of a partition to be marked as boot,esp. IF the guide was followed, it has the markings of an UEFI Secure install, but that does not mean it's installed in UEFI mode. – Adriaan Sep 19 '20 at 18:18
  • @heynnema 's answer got right to the point that solved my problem, but this answer helped me as well, so it gets an upvote. Also about what you mentioned regarding BIOS/UEFI and secure boot, my computer does use secure boot, but it still worked fine. – applemonkey496 Sep 20 '20 at 03:48
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Boot to a Ubuntu Live DVD/USB

Install and run boot-repair, following the instructions here.

heynnema
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