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On my Dell Inspiron 5558 I used to have the double booting of Windows 8.1 alongside with Ubuntu 18.04.5 LTS. Now I decided to upgrade the Ubuntu 18.04 to Ubuntu 21.04. However, I met some technical problems and I can not run my Windows 8.1 anymore, just live Ubuntu 21.04. And one of the problems is this error

Invalid partition table!

My question how can I repair now everything? Though I can again possess double booting of my old Windows 8.1 together with the new Ubuntu 21.04. Or now I have to start from scratch with a new Windows and a new Ubuntu (I hope not...).

Here are the steps that I executed and brought me to a failure:

  1. Creating with Rufus a bootable USB drive of the ubuntu-21.04-desktop-amd64.iso

  2. Running this USB in BIOS as UEFI Boot (Boot mode: UEFI, Secure boot: Off) and following further the steps on the Ubuntu 21.04 installation

  3. I decided to have the same partition of my SSD as I had before (swap, efi, /, and /home under the hood of /dev/sda4), see image below partition

  4. Unfortunately, almost on the last step I encountered the first error, see image below error_1

Executing 'grub-install/dev/sda' failed.
This is a fatal error.

  1. After all I wanted to check my Windows, and this time I could not access my Windows. I got such response, see image below error_2

Invalid partition table!
error: unknown filesystem
Entering rescue mode...
grub rescue >

  1. The same thing happened here, after restarting my PC. restart
    I got the same issue:
    error_3

error: can't find command parttool
error: can't find command drivemap
error: invalid EFI file path.

Press any key to continue...

  1. I decided to run the installation process of Ubuntu again with formatting the partitions where was the old Ubuntu. At that time I could see my SSD in the UEFI boot menu, see image below. booting

    Then via the Ubuntu Live and GParted I checked what is going on with my partitions gparted1

    Thereafter I formatted the old partitions, to be able to install the Ubuntu 21.04 again gparted2

    But this brought me to the same errors, described in steps 4 and 5.

  2. I also tried to make from old Ubuntu partitions a normal NTFS drive and simply running just Windows gparted3 Nevertheless, after restarting the computer I got an explicitly described error
    error_3

  3. I ran also the Dell's Support Assist and ended up with this response support_assist

I tried these solutions:

Hence I do not have that my experience with Linux and partitions I barely understand what shall I do now...any suggestion are appreciated. and welcomed.

Luckily, I can access my data on the Windows 8.1 through mounting the drives in Ubuntu 21.04 Live. data

Taras
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    Rufus creates either a UEFI only or BIOS/CSM only live installer. It looks like you made the wrong choice and created an installer in different mode that Windows install. Did you install Windows as Microsoft has required vendors to install in UEFI boot mode to gpt drives. But users could install in BIOS boot mode to MBR drives. It looks like Windows is BIOS/MBR and you tried to install Ubuntu in UEFI boot mode. Make sure boot flag is on NTFS partition with boot files & restore Windows boot loader to MBR. Since UEFI system better to have UEFI installs. You have used all 4 primary partitions. – oldfred May 04 '21 at 14:03
  • @oldfred thank you for a comment. Till now I don’t have a clue what shall I do next. Can you suggest me something? I am now about installing purely Ubuntu 21.04 without Windows at all, however I will loose my Heroes of Might and Magic III ... – Taras May 05 '21 at 18:52
  • Since newer UEFI hardware, you have to decide if you want old BIOS/MBR or newer UEFI/gpt. Since drive is MBR, you have to convert to gpt which will erase it. So backup anything you want to keep. But of course you already have good backups. And then make installer in mode your want UEFI or BIOS. Partitioning in Advance: http://askubuntu.com/questions/743095/how-to-prepare-a-disk-on-an-efi-based-pc-for-ubuntu UEFI install: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI General UEFI install Info (not for Macs) http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2147295 – oldfred May 05 '21 at 18:58

0 Answers0