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After two years of using 14.04 LTS I went to install it on my desktop, but wanted a newer ISO and was surprised to see the new 16.04 LTS sitting front and center a few days ago. So I said what the heck, may as well enjoy the new stable release. What was I thinking in putting stable and long-term in the same category for a release this new?

Anyways, after having to reinstall due to an infinite login loop after updating my Nvidia proprietary drivers, I finally got my system back up and running, then I decided to fall back to 14.04 LTS and wait on the upcoming 16.04.1 (if not much farther out) update(s). Problem is, my Grub2 boot loader is gone. I can't boot into Ubuntu at all.

I tried the boot-repair and even deleting grub2 with Windows repair disk, but I am still getting a broken grub2. I want to get this resolved before installing 14.04 LTS.

Boot-repair gave me this link.

I am running a Core i7 4771 CPU, 2GB GTX770 GPU and 16GB DDR3 Gaming RAM with two 1TB 7200RPM HDDs for storage. My Windows 10 (less than 200GB total) and Ubuntu are both running on the first 1TB and Ubuntu has a 16.3GB swap set up just for giggles. I am running 14.04 LTS on my Dell Inspiron M531R-5535 with zero issues and have even repaired the grub once, but I can't remember what broke it. I am not sure what is the problem.

Zanna
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Crony
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    Possible duplicate of Installing Ubuntu on a Pre-Installed Windows with UEFI – David Foerster Jun 02 '16 at 22:05
  • I have read through this thoroughly. Nothing of help. I am still unable to get rid of the grub and get it reinstalled next to Windows 10. – Crony Jun 02 '16 at 22:42
  • You have Windows installed in UEFI boot mode. So you must always boot in UEFI mode. But you must have booted 16.04 installer in BIOS mode as it has no reference to /boot/efi in fstab and now you have a BIOS boot grub in MBR. And the BIOS grub is not installed correctly as you have no bios_grub partition which is required for BIOS boot on gpt drives. But you really want UEFI anyway. Use Boot-Repair's advanced mode when booted in UEFI mode, and do the full uninstall/reinstall of grub. – oldfred Jun 02 '16 at 23:00
  • @oldfred I have no idea by what you mean by with "Use Boot-Repair's advanced mode when booted in UEFI mode, and do the full uninstall/reinstall of grub." but I will look into it. In my mind's eye, I did install grub in UEFI; I never had any problems with 14.04 and will be rolling back to it. Not sure what this new LTS is doing, I will give it until the holidays or so until I get into it and start delving into its greatness (it does look great) then. – Crony Jun 02 '16 at 23:16
  • @oldfred: It seems your comment solved OP's issue. Would you mind converting it to a proper answer? Ping me if you want an up-vote. – David Foerster Jun 03 '16 at 07:29

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If Windows is UEFI, you need to install Ubuntu in UEFI mode. How you boot install media from UEFI/BIOS is then how it installs.

But if you have installed in BIOS boot mode, you can convert from BIOS to UEFI without reinstalling by uninstalling grub-pc(BIOS) and installing grub-efi-amd64(UEFI) and some settings changes. Boot-Repair in its advanced mode makes this relatively easy with the full uninstall/reinstall of grub. Be sure to boot Ubuntu installer in UEFI mode, and add Boot-Repair.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

Details on screens in Boot-Repair:

https://sourceforge.net/p/boot-repair/home/Home/

How you boot install media from UEFI may not match default boot settings in UEFI for the actual install. Make sure you always boot in UEFI boot mode and have settings for UEFI.

oldfred
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