UEFI Booting problem

Question

I have HP Envy 6 1002TX. I updated it to Windows 8 and now I'm having trouble installing Ubuntu 12.10. I'm not really new to Linux or Ubuntu. As suggested https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI, I've tried it and it still doesn't boot. In that "Identifying if the computer boots the CD in EFI mode", I can confirm that my USB boots in EFI mode. Secure boot is disabled and my laptop has Insyde's BIOS.

I tried boot repair twice and as mentioned, here is the the pastebin link http://paste.ubuntu.com/1650182/.

Although it says I have Windows 8 installed in the MBR of /dev/sda, I remember wiping Windows 8 fully. Currently I have only one OS and that is Ubuntu 12.10. (I still regret paying $15 for Win 8 upgrade). I have tried searching for the same question or solution but haven't been able to. After I use boot-repair and it says boot .efi file from sda7/ & I do so in BIOS and this is what I get.

error: disk`,msdos5' not found grub rescue>_

Answer 1

You've got an MBR hard disk with what appears to be a set of EFI boot loaders for both Windows and Ubuntu on /dev/sda7. This is highly unusual, and most likely represent a GPT-to-MBR conversion on the disk. Some firmware implementations will boot from such a disk, and the fact that you're getting as far as GRUB suggests that yours does so; however, it's conceivable that this combination is causing GRUB to choke. It's also possible there's some more subtle problem with your partition table or GRUB configuration that I've missed.

I recommend doing one of two things:

• Boot your installer in BIOS mode and run Boot Repair. This should install the BIOS version of GRUB on the computer, which is a more conventional choice for your MBR partition scheme and is therefore more likely to work correctly. You might need to fiddle with your firmware options to get it to attempt a BIOS-mode boot, though.
• Download and boot Parted Magic, System Rescue CD, or a similar tool, and then run gdisk on the disk to convert it from MBR to GPT form and change the type code of partition #7 to EF00. (You should type p to verify that your partitions are all intact, type t to change the type code of partition #7, and then type w to save your changes.) With any luck this will get the computer working again; however, it's possible you'll need to run Boot Repair again.

If you try one solution and it doesn't work, you can try the other one; however, GRUB on a GPT disk booting from MBR works best if you've got a BIOS Boot Partition, so you should create one if you convert the partition table type and then install the BIOS version of GRUB.