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I'm trying to install Kubuntu 22.04 and I'm having problems with the EFI partition not being found. Is the correct name for that partition uppercase (EFI) or lowercase (efi)? Or does it not matter?

Update 1: The machine is an HP Pavilion Desktop with an extra hard drive. I'm trying to install Kubuntu 22.04 on the second drive. I created a new GPT partition table on that drive. I've already installed the Kubuntu system on one partition there, but I can't boot into it because of the lack of an EFI partition.

Update 2: I'm asking this question because grub-install fails with a complaint that it can't find the EFI directory. The (second) drive contains what should be a perfectly usable EFI partition: 5GB formatted as fat32 which contains an EFI directory.

Update 3:My question embodied an underlying confusion on my part. There's the mount name and separately from that the partition label. The mount name would be either /boot/efi or /boot/EFI. The partition label would be eitherefi or EFI.

Paul A.
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  • The obvious question is does the partition exist or not? If it does and you're trying to dual-boot with Windows already installed make sure you disable its Fast Startup feature and shutdown before booting the Ubuntu installer. If it doesn't and you want to manually create it then use "something else", press "+" and select size and partition type as "efi". – ChanganAuto Oct 17 '22 at 20:06
  • See Update 1 for details. – Paul A. Oct 17 '22 at 21:41
  • OK, the ESP (EFI System Partition) is only needed if installing (and booting, obviously) in UEFI mode. So how come you can't boot into it because of the lack of an EFI partition? Was it installed in UEFI mode and now the ESP is missing? You can easily check the drive status and all partitions from the live session using KDE Partition Manager or similar. Or did you installed it in Legacy/CSM"BIOS" mode and then changed the firmware setting to UEFI only? THAT would surely explain why it doesn't boot. – ChanganAuto Oct 17 '22 at 21:46
  • This ^^^ is the clarification needed for your question. Asking about capitalization in this context is nonsensical and an X-Y problem of which I'm sure you're familiar with the meaning. In a nutshell, so far you aren't asking about your actual problem but about something you think is conducive to a solution (it isn't) without a proper understanding of the issue. As usual you can use Boot Repair - https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair#A2nd_option_:_install_Boot-Repair_in_Ubuntu - and post the summary URL here – ChanganAuto Oct 17 '22 at 21:50
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    Can you boot from HP's UEFI boot menu. Same place you used to boot live installer. HP does not seem to recognize UEFI boot changes with efibootmgr which grub also uses to install & update UEFI settings. All other vendors seem to work Most with HP say they have to go into UEFI settings & change boot order in boot tab. HP - escape + F9 for UEFI boot menu, F10 for UEFI/bios settings Do you have Optane, that always seems to be another HP issue. – oldfred Oct 17 '22 at 22:00
  • Please see Update 2. – Paul A. Oct 17 '22 at 23:36
  • I'll admit to some confusion about the EFI directory versus the EFI partition. I've tried to have it both ways by providing an acceptable partition labelled EFI and including an EFI directory within it. – Paul A. Oct 17 '22 at 23:41
  • What I'm trying to accomplish should have been pretty straightforward. I want to install Kubuntu 22.04 on the second hard drive and boot into it, essentially ignoring the first hard drive. The installation failure I got was an ugly surprise. #################################################

    I'll mention another problem I encountered: the installation simply froze after the initial prompt. I solved that with acpi=off. The need for that is probably an artifact of the way HP sets up the Pavilion.

     – Paul A. Oct 17 '22 at 23:51
  • Note: it is possible to convert a Linux install between booting with EFI and booting the DOS/MBR way by installing the appropriate grub package and running through its install script, though you have to know what you're doing and mistakes can lock you out requiring a live USB - if you don't know what you're doing a reinstall can be easier. Another tip is that as you've no doubt discovered a lot of computers have "quirks" when it comes to the way they implement EFI boot which will affect your ability for a new OS install to "just work". Google your laptop and "efi boot linux" – thomasrutter Oct 18 '22 at 02:32
  • You cannot easily use any ESP other than one one first drive. Whatever system sees as first drive. Ubuntu's Ubiquity only uses first drive, see this very old bug, not fixed. It also has multiple work arounds. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1396379 In bug report & probably easiest for most: Remove esp flag from Windows before install to second or external drive - Tim Richardson https://askubuntu.com/questions/16988/how-do-i-install-ubuntu-to-a-usb-key-without-using-startup-disk-creator & – oldfred Oct 18 '22 at 15:25
  • Please see Updat 3. – Paul A. Oct 19 '22 at 03:18

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The important thing for the EFI system parition is that it's flagged as such when creating the partition, by a partitioning tool that is aware of EFI system partitions. The details of how this is done under the hood, I believe, is that on GPT partitioning schemes it's given a particular GUID and on MBT schemes it's given a particular partition type.

Filesystem should also be FAT32 and it should be big enough (I think most recommend 512MB now which is more than plenty).

The filesystem label is a feature of the filesystem, not the partition table, and doesn't matter what it is. A typical label would be "EFI system partition".

In Linux it should be mounted at /boot/efi for various tools to work with it like grub.

thomasrutter
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