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So I had a perfectly functioning triple boot system (Windows 10, Ubuntu 14.04, Kali Linux 2.0). Tonight I come home boot up my system and don't get GRUB. I tried to trouble shoot from Boot-Repair-Disk but when running boot repair I get a message "Please close all your package managers (software center, update manager, synaptic, ...). Then try again." ..... I don't have anything of the sort open.

My boot info summary is here. Looks like GRUB somehow got deleted from the fact that there is no boot manager installed.

So my main question is obviously how to resolve this since for some reason Boot-Repair-Disk isn't working

My other major question would be what caused this? I haven't done any major updates to windows. The only thing I can think of that might have caused this was flashing my BIOS the other day? Just want to know what to avoid for futures sake!

ImagineerCam
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    When you reflash UEFI, it resets everything to defaults. With my old BIOS I had to take photos to remember all my changes. With UEFI I can take screenshots and it gives me a list of changes I make. You have UEFI, not BIOS, so no grub in MBR, it & Windows are in ESP - efi system partition. And you probably have UEFI Secure boot on, or other settings. Redo all the settings you had to do when you first installed. – oldfred Apr 19 '16 at 03:57
  • First off, nice debug info - extremely useful. Now it looks like /var/lib can't be seen by the BootRepair. Is it mounted (you should mount it if it isn't). Is it empty? That's why you are getting the package manager errors, it can't create the lock file that they make when they run (so only one can run at a time). It can't create because the subdirectory doesn't exist. – AlwaysTalkingAboutMyDog Apr 19 '16 at 06:04
  • @Zzzach... so when I intsalled ubuntu I put /, /home, /var all on different partitions so would the problem be resolved by mounting my /var partition sdb5? Where should I mount it to from my live boot-repair-disk session? Also perhaps on an easier fix, I plan to clean install 16.04 on thursday and can live without my linux partitions until then. Will this fix my proble,? – ImagineerCam Apr 19 '16 at 15:08
  • Actually, Secure Boot is disabled on this system -- see line 1112 of the Boot Repair output. – Rod Smith Apr 19 '16 at 17:21
  • Boot-Repair does not work with separate /var. It will work with a separate /boot partition, but not with other separate / folders as partitions. Generally better for most desktops to have / (root) & swap. If newer user or large drive, /home may make sense as a separate partition. If multiple booting /mnt/data for all data folders in /home may also make sense. But every user has different requirements. – oldfred Apr 19 '16 at 17:48

2 Answers2

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You do have boot loaders installed. I suspect you're reading the following:

=> No boot loader is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda.

That, however, refers to BIOS-mode boot loaders. Your system, however, is clearly booting in EFI mode, and there are EFI-mode boot loaders on your EFI System Partition (ESP; /dev/sda2 in your case).

EFI boot loaders are registered with the firmware, and the Linux efibootmgr tool can display information on them. Your Boot Repair output includes this information on lines 1081-1108:

Boot0003* UEFI: Built-in EFI Shell  Vendor(5023b95c-db26-429b-a648-bd47664c8012,)..BO
Boot0004* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot0007* Hard Drive    BIOS(2,0,00)..GO..NO........o.S.a.m.s.u.n.g. .S.S.D. .8.5.0. .E.V.O. .2.5.0.G.B....................A...........................>..Gd-.;.A..MQ..L.2.S.N.1.X.N.G.A.0.C.8.1.2.3. .H. . . . ........BO..NO........o.W.D.C. .W.D.1.0.E.Z.E.X.-.0.0.B.N.5.A.0....................A...........................>..Gd-.;.A..MQ..L. . . . .W. .-.D.C.W.3.C.0.F.L.N.T.V.D.Y........BO
Boot0008* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot0009* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot000A* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot000B* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot000C* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot000D* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot000E* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot000F* Unknown Device    BIOS(b,0,00)..GO..NO........i.P.N.Y. .U.S.B. .2...0. .F.D. .1.1.0.0....................A.......................<..Gd-.;.A..MQ..L.P.N.Y. .U.S.B. .2...0. .F.D. .1.1.0.0........BO
Boot0011* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot0012* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot0013* UEFI: PNY USB 2.0 FD 1100 ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(12,2)USB(1,0)HD(1,70,1d19f90,c3072e18)..BO
Boot0014* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot0015* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot0016* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot0017  UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot0018  UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot0019  UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot001A  UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot001B* Windows Boot Manager  HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)File(EFIMICROSOFTBOOTBOOTMGFW.EFI)..BO

Two things jump out at me about this output:

  • There is no ubuntu entry, as there should be.
  • There are multiple duplicate entries for Samsung SSD.

You should be able to fix the first problem with the following command, typed from the emergency disk you used to run Boot Repair:

sudo efibootmgr -c -d /dev/sda -p 2 -l //EFI//ubuntu//shimx64.efi -L "ubuntu"

(If the system complains that there is no efibootmgr command, type sudo apt-get install efibootmgr to install it.)

That command should create an ubuntu entry and make it the default. That said, it's possible that the ubuntu entry does not exist because whatever has caused the redundant Samsung SSD entries to appear has messed up the NVRAM data and pushed the ubuntu entry out. This type of problem could also prevent the new entry from "taking." If so, there are at least a couple of possible workarounds:

  • You can use efibootmgr to delete the redundant entries. Typing sudo efibootmgr -b 0004 -B will delete the Boot0004 entry. Repeat the command, but changing 0004 to each of the Samsung SSD entries in turn, to delete them all (or perhaps just all but one of them). Do not delete the various entries other than the Samsung SSD -- those all seem to be valid, and I've seen EFIs flake out if you delete certain necessary entries.
  • You can use the firmware's setup tool to reset all the firmware options to the default. This may eliminate all the NVRAM entries, whereupon you'll need to use efibootmgr to re-create the ubuntu entry, as just described.

If you continue to have problems after trying this, I recommend you read the following pages for more background information before trying anything else:

With any luck, the information on those pages will help you understand EFI-mode booting, which should help you debug EFI boot problems and, if you can't figure it out yourself, ask the right questions.

Rod Smith
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  • Thank you for this detailed response! I'm excited to get home from work to try all of this. As a side note is there any value in keeping one Samsung SSD boot entry or could I delete them all? Also what could be causing all the duplicates? And mainly, will all of this be rendered null when I do a clean install of 16.04 on thursday? – ImagineerCam Apr 19 '16 at 20:15
  • Also when you mention resetting all the firmware options would this be in the BIOS settings or would it be closer to clearing my CMOS (and forcing all BIOS settings back to default?) – ImagineerCam Apr 19 '16 at 20:24
  • Technically, you don't have a BIOS; you have an EFI (or really a UEFI, which is just EFI 2.x). Thus, you also don't have "BIOS settings"; you have EFI settings, or the more generic term, "firmware settings" or "firmware setup tool" that I used. What caused the duplicates? I don't know for sure, but it's probably a bug in your firmware. – Rod Smith Apr 19 '16 at 23:11
  • Just the first command cleared everything up for me! I'm going to investigate a little more on what caused this and work on deleting all the extra EFI bootloaders @Rod thank you so much! – ImagineerCam Apr 20 '16 at 00:58
  • Just kidding, it worked on first boot, choose to boot into windows, restarted my computer, didn't grub again and booted straight to windows. Here's my current boot repair log. http://paste.ubuntu.com/15940039/ .... Ubuntu is there now (actually multiple times because I tried again.) but every time I execute the command it resets the boot order to put windows first. – ImagineerCam Apr 20 '16 at 01:35
  • See this question and answers for information on your new problem. – Rod Smith Apr 20 '16 at 12:48
  • thank you! the combination of both of these answers got me up and running! – ImagineerCam Apr 21 '16 at 02:00
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I encountered this error message from Boot Repair when trying to use it to install GRUB for an installation with a separate /var partition. Deselecting the option "Purge GRUB before reinstalling" got rid of the error and Boot Repair successfully installed GRUB.

(In my case, GRUB was not previously installed. The Ubiquity installer for Linux Mint 18.1 failed - and crashed - to install it to a disk on a Promise fakeRAID controller, meaning I had to use the --no-bootloader option for Ubiquity to get the installation - into LVM partitions - to complete.)

user646296
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