0

I just bought a new laptop (a lenovo ideapad Z500) and it came installed with Windows 8. I wanted to have Ubuntu on it too, therefore I resized the Win8 partition from the control panel and installed Ubuntu on the free space I created. Ubuntu works perfectly, Windows does not load anymore... I tried the recommended repair with Boot-Repair but it did not fix, now I get a "Windows boot loader failed to start" on startup and then I get the GRUB screen. The partition summery created by Boot-Repair is here: http://paste.ubuntu.com/1444837/. How can I fix this? Thanks in advance for your help.

Edit: some more info after trying this for yet another. It looks like I'm not the only one having troubles with this, it seems that the whole Lenovo Z series is affected by this. I tried so far:

  • I've followed this guide: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI I could not get the Live CD to boot. Tried the same with Live USB, no luck. The CD is not detected as a bootable device, the PC keeps rebooting with the live USB inserted.

  • I've also tried this guide: http: //www.linuxbsdos.com/2012/11/05/dual-boot-windows-8-and-ubuntu-12-10-on-uefi-hardware/

No luck either, I get the Win 8 boot loader but I get an error message whenever I try to launch ubuntu UNLESS I accessed the BIOS and altered the boot order, in order to have Ubuntu on top of the list. This way I can access Ubuntu but not Win 8, unless alter the boot order again...

  • Standard install from CD. After the installation completed I could not get Win 8 to boot anymore. Used boot-repair and I still had could not get Win 8 to boot.

Still looking for an acceptable solution, thanks for your help.

Gian Luca Scoccia
  • 133
  • 1
  • 1
  • 6

5 Answers5

1

Tried the whole process with Secure Boot and Fast Boot disabled, ran Boot-Repair after installing Ubuntu and now I can get to Windows 8 by choosing "Windows UEFI Recovery" on GRUB. I think, but I'm not sure; that Boot Repair was updated in the meantime.

Gian Luca Scoccia
  • 133
  • 1
  • 1
  • 6
0

try using an windows 8 cd and boot it up and check if it has an repair feature,it should have it,and then repair it.Something similar happened to me with windows 7 and repaired it with my windows 7 installation disc.

adi
  • 845
  • I do not have a Windows 8 cd, since it is pre-installed in a rescue partition. I can only restore the PC to it's initial state (but then I lose the Ubuntu partition). – Gian Luca Scoccia Dec 18 '12 at 20:36
  • Actually, I think it does not delete the data from the ubuntu partition, but I do not get to choose which OS to boot anymore... – Gian Luca Scoccia Dec 18 '12 at 20:42
0

Try the menu entry "Windows Recovery Environment (loader)". This is the boot loader which is stored in the EFI system partition and might work better than booting Windows 8 directly from its partition...

falstaff
  • 955
0

You're going to have to redo the Windows boot loader. More help here: https://superuser.com/questions/460762/how-can-i-repair-the-windows-8-efi-bootloader

Note: So far Windows 8 and Linux is problematic with the Secure Boot features. Expect bugs.

Community
  • 1
iamwpj
  • 231
  • 1
  • 2
  • 7
-1

I guess we both have (just had) the same issue. I am afraid we installed Ubuntu's bootloader over Windows 8's bootloader. Since "Windows hates Linux" and due to "secure boot tech" we got ourselves in a damn trouble. Here's a way to make each bootloader work correctly and separately from the other.

The Windows loader is installed on the first partition (disk 0 partition 1) of your hard disk. What has gone wrong is that we installed Ubuntu's boot loader also over the same partition. The solution is:

  1. You should format that partition (surf the net first) this way both loaders are deleted.
  2. Install Windows 8 normally.
  3. Install Ubuntu and be sure not to install the bootloader on partition 0.

P.S. Deleting partition 0 might get u another problem please do more researches about it.

Eliah Kagan
  • 117,780
Mohammed Qaddoura
  • 1
  • 1