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After I updated BIOS/UEFI version to 1101 on an Asus P8Z68-V PRO motherboard Ubuntu (11.10) did not boot. After POST all I saw was a black screen with a blinking cursor in the top left corner.

I booted an Ubuntu 11.10 live-CD and set the flag for the 20 MB partition before my boot partition to "bios_grub". Then I was able to boot and login. But now every time I boot and Ubuntu loads I get the following message:

Disk drive for /boot/efi is not ready or not present.
Continue waiting or press s to skip or m for manual recovery.

I am able to login if I choose to ignore it by pressing s, but what does this message mean?
How can I fix what the message warns about?

After logging in I have noticed that /boot/efi is empty.

The following forum post speaks of the same issue ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1893030.

Updating to the latest BIOS/UEFI - version 3203, did not have any effect on this issue.

v2r
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N.N.
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  • You are still experiencing this issue then? – jrg Dec 20 '11 at 15:09
  • @jrg I still get the /boot/efi not ready message and I have to press S for it to ignore it so that I can login. Also, /boot/efi is empty. – N.N. Dec 20 '11 at 15:29
  • Which VGA solution do you use? If it's a dedicated GPU, does it also happen with the integrated Intel GPU? I'm using the non-Pro version of that board and have no such issues using the Intel HD Graphics. Haven't tried a dedicated GPU yet. – htorque Jan 12 '12 at 22:57
  • @htorque I am using the integrated graphics via DVI. Also, I am not sure if I follow why you ask me about graphics for this issue? It seems to be connected to UEFI and not graphics. – N.N. Jan 13 '12 at 08:58
  • Too bad. I asked this, because that's the only hardware difference - besides your board being "Pro" - that I could think of. I usually disable everything I don't need in BIOS, so I'll try to enable stuff bit by bit and see if I can reproduce this problem. Anyways, I think this should be reported as bug (against linux or grub, no idea). – htorque Jan 13 '12 at 09:12
  • @htorque My guess is that the BIOS updated removes or mess up some GRUB stuff. So you had no problem after updating to UEFI 1101? – N.N. Jan 13 '12 at 09:27
  • That's the problem: there is no 1101 for my board, but I updated to a newer version (0902) yesterday and had no problems at all. All the V models (V, V LE, V LX, V PRO, V/GEN3, V PRO/GEN3) have different BIOS versions, but I assume that they use the same UEFI core. – htorque Jan 13 '12 at 09:36
  • I have 2 drives both GPT. one for windows 7 and windows 8 and other for Mac and Ubuntu. when setting bios to Uefi i can get windows to load and choose either win7 or win 8. if i want to load ubuntu i use a usb flash where i have installed __UEFI_Duet_ it gives me the choice to boot what i want from efi shell. So to boot normal i remove usb and if i want ubuntu i plug in the USB and boot into ubuntu from efi partition on second drive. it worked fine –  Jan 14 '12 at 13:28
  • OP are you still looking for an answer? If so, you may need to repost your question as this is flagged for closure. Regards, – Ringtail Mar 23 '12 at 21:03
  • @BlueXrider Still got the problem. Rather reopen than close? Seems inappropriate to repost since it creates duplicate content. – N.N. Mar 23 '12 at 21:38
  • @N.N. - can I encourage you to regularly review and edit this question to bump it up the activity list. A small bounty can often help as well to get it on the front page. – fossfreedom Mar 23 '12 at 23:09
  • @fossfreedom Sure, but as you can see in the revisions I have edited it regularly and I have offered a +50 bounty for it already. – N.N. Mar 24 '12 at 14:53
  • does this still occur with 12.04? – fossfreedom Mar 24 '12 at 17:18
  • @fossfreedom I have not tried to upgrade. I think any reinstall would fix it but that seems to be an overkill solution. – N.N. Mar 24 '12 at 19:24
  • This does sound very much like what the amd+mac image is supposed to fix - N.B. it isnt specifically for Macs but to fix efi issues. Any-way, hope you find the answer you are looking for. – fossfreedom Mar 24 '12 at 19:41
  • What is the "amd+mac image" you are referring to? – N.N. Mar 24 '12 at 19:55
  • @N.N. - I'm referring to this Q&A (http://askubuntu.com/questions/37999/what-is-different-about-the-mac-iso-image) - the bounty answer is the bit I was referring to. – fossfreedom Mar 25 '12 at 11:25

1 Answers1

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My suspicion is that your firmware upgrade changed the rules for whether the computer tries to boot in BIOS mode vs. EFI mode, and that your installation was such that the computer has now switched from EFI mode to BIOS mode. I'm not 100% positive of this, though; more information is required. Please post back with the output of the following commands:

sudo parted /dev/sda print
ls /sys/firmware/efi
grep efi /etc/fstab
blkid /dev/sda1

The combination of those commands' output will probably tell me what I need to know to give you a better solution. Please be sure to format them as code by indenting every line by four characters; that will help keep them legible.

Rod Smith
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  • I appreciate your answer but I am afraid I have made a clean install since this happened and, thus, no longer have the problem. – N.N. May 03 '12 at 20:13