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Sony VAIO with Insyde H2O EFI bios will not boot into GRUB EFI

The answer to this question was immensely helpful to me and my new Vaio Z3. The issue that I am having now is that after replacing bootmgfw.efi with grubx64.efi and renaming, it boots directly to grub console. I dont even get a menu where i can chose ubuntu. I tried putting a grub.cfg file next to the new bootmgfw.efi(grubx64.efi), no go?

Any ideas how i can get the renamed grubx64.efi to find all the rest of the grub stuff outside of the ESP in my linux parition?

Or do i have to move all grub files to /EFI/Microsoft/Boot on ESP?

Thank you!

Community
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4 Answers4

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If you're using the grubx64.efi file from Ubuntu, in theory it should be looking on your Ubuntu /boot/grub directory for its support files. If it's not finding them, then I'm not sure what's wrong. If you've built GRUB from source code or installed in some other way, though, you might need to copy all its support files, as you suggest.

Another alternative is to install rEFInd as EFI/Microsoft/boot/bootmgfw.efi on the ESP and leave GRUB where it is (presumably EFI/ubuntu/grubx64.efi). With a little extra configuration (described on the rEFInd Web page), you should even be able to bypass GRUB completely, if it's giving you problems.

More broadly, you may want to check out my Web page on EFI boot loaders, which includes information on boot loader installation and at least the basics of configuring all of them. (GRUB 2 is the hardest in this respect. It's only easy when the distribution installer gets it right.)

Rod Smith
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I have found that putting grub.cfg into /EFI/ubuntu works, even when grubx64.efi is in /EFI/Boot

ubfan1
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  • Actually, I think that the grubx64.efi signed by ubuntu looks for grub.cfg in /EFI/ubuntu/ – Dolanor Feb 18 '16 at 08:58
  • because at that time of the boot, the only partition that is mounted is the ESP (EFI System Partition). So I think that whatever you put in your EFI boot manager will be overriden by the fact that the grubx64.efi will look in /EFI/ubuntu/ for the grub.cfg file – Dolanor Feb 18 '16 at 09:19
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  1. Run Boot-Repair from a liveCD/liveUSB
  2. Click the Recommended Repair button. (this will automatically install correct parameters for grub-efi, including SecureBoot parameters if needed, and renaming the EFI files in case the UEFI firmware is locked to Windows files). Indicate the URL that will appear if any problem.

Boot-Repair

LovinBuntu
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It is more correct for grubx64.efi to look for grub files as well as to be stored itself in /efi/ubuntu than /efi/boot. I had a grubx64.efi that was saying it could not find /boot on the ESP, the vfat fat32 file partition, but that's desperate. /efi/ubuntu and other custom names in /efi/* are the right way. Then you can have efibootmgr write your choice into the nvram.

I can boot linux with rEFInd, but I need rEFInd to hand off to grubx64.efi to boot linux iso's.

I had InsydeH20 "open file", grubx64.efi, and grub.cfg in /efi/ubuntu/grub would do if grubx64.efi was in /efi/linux on the ESP. Then it's off to efibootmgr to write either grubx64.efi or rEFInd to nvram.

I have ubuntu 16.10 loading on Nextbook Ares 11.6, Intel z8500 Atom, a Cherry Trail. Touch works. Somehow I deleted my grubx64.efi. I need that to load ubuntu iso and install into internal mem. Then grubx64.efi, or in my case rEFInd, will boot directly with itself and its files stored in /efi/ubuntu or anything other than /efi/boot.

BobDodds
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