2

This is a repost because my original post was marked as having a solution/duplicate somewhere else and I read those solutions before and tried them countless times with no success. I followed the advice in my original post and I would like to say thank you for your help but the problem still exists.

I am using a Toshiba Satellite L850-1L1 Laptop with the following specs

· Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3630QM CPU @ 2.40 GHz

· 8 GB RAM

· 64 bit Operating System, x64-based processor

· 1 TB HDD (No SSD), GPT Partitioning scheme (GUID Partition Table)

· System BIOS Version 6.7 / EC Version 6.00 (no idea if this bit of info will help or not)

Note: in the My computer window i can see only 3 Partitions (C, E and G). There are 3 Other partitions - OEM Partition, UEFI Partition, OEM/Recovery Partiton. After Installing Ubuntu u can add a swap area partition and the ubuntu system partition. Is the max number of 4 primary partitions the problem with my system or am I in the clear on this one?

With try Ubuntu I was able to boot the live version without problems, then started installing Ubuntu and when I got to the system installation window there was no option that said “install alongside windows 8”. So I picked “something else”, made a 5.77 GB partition (read somewhere that it is supposed to be 10% the size of the main system partition) for swap area and 51.22 GB for booting the main system ( / ). After Installation GRUB menu opened and I could open Ubuntu without problems but with windows, it gave me an error and did not want to boot it. I ran boot repair and it closed with an error and gave me a pop out message saying I should turn off secure boot. After that, there was no GRUB and it boots straight to windows.

Here is the first boot repair link: paste.ubuntu.com/7517709

I then formatted the partitions twice more and did the whole thing again with secure boot disabled this time. Again no GRUB menu and boots straight to windows 8 (yes windows 8 on my laptop works with secure boot disabled), so I entered the live version and ran boot repair again. This time it did not tell me that I should disable secure boot, but it did not solve the problem either. Same problem, no GRUB and boots straight to windows.

Here is the boot repair link: paste.ubuntu.com/7536732

Here is the boot repair link: paste.ubuntu.com/7565465

A couple of more points:

· I cannot change the OS boot manager in BIOS, i.e. I cannot choose boot priority between windows 8 & ubuntu. Simply because that option does not exist

· Boot Manager in BIOS allows me to choose between CSM and UEFI only

Plus Hibernate and fast startup are disabled. No matter what I do grub never comes up and boot repair ends with an error.

Please i need advice urgently. It has been a week now

Amro A.
  • 21

1 Answers1

1

Is the max number of 4 primary partitions the problem with my system or am I in the clear on this one?

That's a problem only with the old Master Boot Record (MBR) partitioning scheme, which your computer does not use; it uses the new GUID Partition Table (GPT), which does not suffer from that problem.

I picked “something else”, made a 5.77 GB partition (read somewhere that it is supposed to be 10% the size of the main system partition) for swap area and 51.22 GB for booting the main system ( / )

The "traditional" rule for swap space is to make it about twice your RAM size. These days, that's usually overkill. You need at least as much swap as RAM if you expect to use the suspend-to-disk feature. If not, then many uses don't need swap at all, although I'd be reluctant to recommend a no-swap setup by default. Setting swap to a percentage of the root (/) filesystem size is a poor rule of thumb unless that value happens to work out to something sensible. In your case, the value you set might be OK if you don't need to use suspend-to-disk.

no GRUB and boots straight to windows.

Try this:

Windows 8 removes Grub as default boot manager

If that doesn't work, look for a firmware update from your manufacturer. If there's no such update or if any updates you find don't work, and if you're within the return period from the store, return your computer for a refund because it's defective. There are other workarounds you can try, but at this point in time, I don't recommend you try them; manufacturers have had long enough to fix their defective firmware, and I refuse to offer more free support to the manufacturers to nurse people through the problems they've caused.

Community
  • 1
Rod Smith
  • 44,284
  • 7
  • 63
  • 105
  • Wow, that did the trick, when i entered the line "bcdedit /set {bootmgr} path \EFI\ubuntu\grubx64.efi" into the Command prompt and restarted, everything was there and both systems boot normally. Thanks for saving my work, i really appreciate it – Amro A. Jun 01 '14 at 21:35
  • oh just to be sure, i can safely add a new partition to set my things in order right? coz i crammed everything together and its kind of a mess right now :) – Amro A. Jun 01 '14 at 21:37
  • Adding a partition should not disrupt the boot process unless the partition numbering of the existing partitions changes or the existing partitions are otherwise disrupted. The EFI System Partition (ESP), where boot loaders reside, is particularly important on this score. It's usually partition #1, or sometimes #2, and appears near the start of the disk, to minimize the risk of such problems with adjusting other partitions. – Rod Smith Jun 04 '14 at 01:51