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So, I installed Ubuntu so I could dual-boot Windows 10 and Ubuntu. I split my 1TB hard drive in half so one could be Windows, the other Ubuntu. After the installation of Ubuntu, I rebooted. I pressed ESC then F9(way to get to boot menu on some HP devices), selected not the Windows hard drive, but the Ubuntu hard drive. I did it this way because I saw nothing about Grub. It said "No bootable device found. Insert the disc and try again." Have I done something wrong?

RedStar12
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  • This does not make sense if you have a single (physical) hard drive: In BIOS you select the actual hard drive only; regardless of partitioning. The boot loader is at the beginning of said hard drive and only then you can start seeing partitions (i.e. though the boot loader). Splitting a 1000GB HD for BIOS means sawing it in two (and I'd be astonished if you could boot from that ....) – FelixJN Oct 26 '16 at 20:58
  • What model HP? That error is from UEFI. Either you have Secure Boot on, but installed in UEFI without secure boot or in CSM/BIOS/Legacy mode. Or are booting in UEFI mode but installed in BIOS mode. HP also does not like anything but Windows, you may need a work around: https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2332681&p=13527216#post13527216 or: http://askubuntu.com/questions/486752/dual-boot-win-8-ubuntu-loads-only-win/486789#486789 Or this (HP same issues as Sony) http://askubuntu.com/questions/150174/sony-vaio-with-insyde-h2o-efi-bios-will-not-boot-into-grub-efi – oldfred Oct 26 '16 at 20:59
  • @Fiximan: So I need to install Ubuntu again and do Grub? oldfred HP Pavilion Notebook PC – RedStar12 Oct 26 '16 at 21:01
  • @RedStar12 Doesn't sound like you have to reinstall Ubuntu. I'll assume that your partitioning went fine, and so did the Ubuntu installation. Test this via booting from the Ubuntu installation CD and selecting a live session ("Try Ubuntu") and then checking if you can see the two hard drive partitions (one looking like windows one like Ubuntu). If this is fine, all you need to do is install grub (without reinstalling Ubuntu). For this just run the boot repair program. – FelixJN Oct 26 '16 at 21:11
  • @RedStar12 Glad it worked - I made this an answer so the question can be tagged as solved. – FelixJN Oct 27 '16 at 22:23

2 Answers2

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First off a few words on UEFI/BIOS boot device selection versus a boot loader (e.g. grub) for selecting an OS to be booted:

Any hard drive has a master boot record at the beginning of the drive. In this area the information on how to start the boot loader of this drive is stored (e.g. where to find it, what to do). The boot loader then can see the different operating systems of the hard drive and the partitioning scheme. The BIOS selection is only to define which medium to boot from - and this means which medium to use for reading said master boot record. The medium could be an optical disk (drive), a flash drive or a (physical!) hard disk. It does not know about anything written on this disk and thus cannot see any partitioning. However you may e.g. choose if you want to boot from your SSD or your HDD.

Now for the solution of your problem:

As explained above, you always need a boot loader on a hard drive with different OSs (and the respective partitions). This is the very thing missing in your installation. The Ubuntu you installed is fine, but it cannot be found, the Windows boot loader that is still active won't display it (complain to MS for that matter).

So all we need to do is install grub.

For this boot from your Ubuntu installation CD and select a live version ("try Ubuntu"). If the live version doesn't already have boot-repair available (I think it is included by now), install it by opening a terminal and typing:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install boot-repair

Start the program and follow the instructions.

FelixJN
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Edit the file /etc/default/grub with the following

  • comment outGRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=hidden
  • Add wait time to GRUB_TIMEOUT=0

Save the file and update grub using the command sudo update-grub.

This works for ubuntu 20.04.

Shameerariff
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Aditya vikram Shekhawat
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