BIOS not seeing Ubuntu installed on Acer Aspire ES1-132. Can boot via grub cli

Question

(Lots of info in the title so that other people with the same problem may find it.)

I bought an Acer Aspire ES1-132, knowing that installing Linux might be a bit of a hassle.

What I have done so far:

• Updated BIOS (InsydeH20) to version 1.09.
• Disabled "Secure Boot" in BIOS.
• Ran the Ubuntu Live-USB and installed on the HDD (eMMC).
• Did not use guided partitioning and created 3 partitions according to this guide: How to use manual partitioning during installation?
• Got "No bootable device" on startup.

This is where I am: If I start the computer with the live-usb I can access the grub cli (c key at the usb boot loader menu) and by running these commands I can mount access the installed Ubuntu desktop, seemingly without other problems:

set root=(hd1,2)
linux /vmlinuz root=/dev/mmcblk0p2
initrd /initrd.img
boot

And if I just put the computer in sleep mode it "starts" as usual. The annoying thing is having to carry a usb-drive around every time I need to restart the thing.

If I run lsblk I get:

NAME           MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE  MOUNTPOINT
mmcblk0rpmb    179:24   0    4M  0 disk  
mmcblk0boot0   179:8    0    4M  1 disk  
mmcblk0boot1   179:16   0    4M  1 disk  
mmcblk0        179:0    0 58,2G  0 disk  
├─mmcblk0p2    179:2    0 18,6G  0 part  /
├─mmcblk0p3    179:3    0 35,8G  0 part  /home
└─mmcblk0p1    179:1    0  3,8G  0 part  
  └─cryptswap1 253:0    0  3,8G  0 crypt [SWAP]

and df:

Filesystem          1K-blocks    Used Available Use% Mounted on
udev                  1913736       0   1913736   0% /dev
tmpfs                  387044    6472    380572   2% /run
/dev/mmcblk0p2       19091584 5867364  12231352  33% /
tmpfs                 1935208   63800   1871408   4% /dev/shm
tmpfs                    5120       4      5116   1% /run/lock
tmpfs                 1935208       0   1935208   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/mmcblk0p3       36819652  872108  34054168   3% /home
tmpfs                  387044      12    387032   1% /run/user/121
tmpfs                  387044      92    386952   1% /run/user/1000
/home/jens/.Private  36819652  872108  34054168   3% /home/jens

So when I restart the computer I get a "No bootable device".

What I have tried that didn't work:

• Set "trusted file" (or whatever it's called) in the BIOS, since that option isn't available to me, even after setting supervisor password.
• Running boot-repair, when I do I can no longer use the method I have now to access the OS.

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Many thanks fpl2 - you gave me vital info that I've been after having had a few runs at this.

Note all of this was done with Secure Boot disabled and starting with USB boot at top of list as bootable devices.

I managed to do a clean minimal install of Ubuntu 18.04 with a live USB stick on my Acer Aspire ES1-132-C8WF. This time, though, without requiring REFIND, I found that after my install if I run the Ubuntu installation USB again, then run a live session (Try Ubuntu) and do the following in a terminal (you obviously could do this in 3 or 4 commands, but this lets you see the manual steps as you go):

sudo mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /mnt
cd /mnt
ls
cd EFI
ls
sudo mkdir Microsoft
cd Microsoft
sudo mkdir Boot
cd Boot
sudo cp -r /mnt/EFI/ubuntu/* .
sudo mv shimx64.efi bootmgfw.efi

and hey presto! it boots, and the 'Windows Boot Manager' magically puts 'Windows Boot' (which is now actually Ubuntu 18.04) to the top of the list in the F2 boot menu.

Answer 2

Recently I installed LinuxMint in this laptop, and this is the link helped me to install...

I have found a way to boot Ubuntu on a russian linux forum, where the reason for this problem is explained. The reason for it is that someone naughty has hardcoded all possible paths you can use to boot your system ('thanks a lot'). The paths are:

\EFI\Linux\BOOTX64.efi (Linux)
\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi (Windows Boot Manager)
\EFI\ubuntu\shim.efi (ubuntu SECURE)
\EFI\ubuntu\shim$cpu$.efi (ubuntu SECURE)
\EFI\ubuntu\grub.efi (ubuntu NORMAL)
\EFI\fedora\shim.efi (Fedora)
\EFI\android\bootx64.efi (Android)
\EFI\opensuse\grubx64.efi (topenSUSE)
\EFI\redhat\grub.efi (Red Hat Linux)
\EFI\SuSE\elilo.efi (SuSE Linux)
\EFI\ubuntu\grub$cpu$.efi (ubuntu NORMAL)

Referring to this post on community.acer.com

Answer 3

Okay, I have no hair left, but a solution. If you are in the same state that I was this might work.

Here is what I did.

• Enter BIOS. Set an admin password and then disable secure boot.
• Install Ubuntu and use manual partitioning. Follow this post: How to use manual partitioning during installation? but also add a third partition that is 200mb, mount point /boot/efi, type fat32 and a boot flag.
• Create the /boot/efi/EFI/boot directory.
• Download rEFInd from here and install it. Then move and rename the /boot/efi/refind/refind_x64.efi file to /boot/efi/EFI/boot/grubx64.efi.

After that it COULD work. As I said, I've been back and forth with this and I might've missed something. If anyone else has something that I missed or any part of this ^ that looks stupid then please enlighten me, because I'm fairly lost.

Edit: If you do do this and then have the double login screen issue, try to fix it any other way than by removing gnome-screensaver. That just put me back at square one.

Luckily I was able to fix it by moving the refind boot-loader to /boot/efi/ubuntu/grubx64.efi.

Answer 4

For ubuntu: solution by fpl2 on ubuntuforums

The "refind" solution works on my ES1-132 crap. BIOS 1.15., hdd replaced with ssd, Supervisor password set ( not sure if any of this matters but you`ll need Windows to update your BIOS so do it if you can - thank Acer for this too)

It goes like this:

• enable secure boot
• install ubuntu - if secure boot is not enabled the installation won`t create EFI partition
• after install the ubuntu won`t boot
• disable secure boot - (not sure if this is needed but I`ve done so many things that this is how it was left on my successful run )
• boot from the flash drive using "try ubuntu..."
• mount the efi partition somewhere - in my case /mnt/efissd
• download and extract the "refind" package somewhere else
• go to /mnt/efissd/EFI/
• create Microsoft/Boot dir - endresult should be /mnt/efissd/EFI/Microsoft/Boot
• copy refind_x64.efi from "refind" package to EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
• reboot

Thanks to all the good people who found this solution in this and other threads

Answer 5

1. Boot from Ubuntu live USB and select the Try Ubuntu without installing option.

2. Launch GParted to get the EFI partition address. In my case this is /dev/mmcblk0p1.

3. Open the terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T).

4. Create a media directory and attach it to the EFI partition directory:

   sudo mkdir /media/EFI   
   sudo mount <enter your path here>/media/EFI

   In my case it looked like this:

   sudo mkdir /media/EFI   
   sudo mount /dev/mmcblk0p1/media/EFI  
   

5. Create the /EFI/Linux/ directory:

   sudo mkdir /media/EFI/EFI/Linux
   

6. Copy all existing files from the directory you created when installing Ubuntu. In my case the default directory is /EFI/ubuntu/:

   $ sudo ls /media/EFI/EFI/ubuntu   
   BOOTX64.CSV   
   fw   
   fwupx64.efi   
   grub.cfg   
   grubx64.efi   
   mmx64.efi   
   shimx64.efi  
   

   To do this run the following command:

   sudo cp -R /media/EFI/EFI/ubuntu/* /media/EFI/EFI/Linux/
   

7. Copy the BOOTX64.EFI file from the BOOT directory to the Linux directory (without confirmation that it did not work for 2 weeks):

   sudo cp /media/EFI/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI /media/EFI/EFI/Linux
   

8. Close all windows and reboot with sudo reboot.