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It took me days to overcome my pride and come out with a question that basic but I kept hitting brick wall with my head for too long now..

I have installed Ubuntu 16.04.2 last week. My PC is currently running on Windows 8.1. I have an Acer VN7-571G-586D.

I had no problem with Ubuntu installation, but eversince it was done I didn't access the OS. I have of course tried to run grub menu by pressing, holding, clicking (in different quantities) shift (left+right), esc, space and more keys during BIOS boot, after it and beforehand not to avail. I have put windows boot manager on first slot in BIOS boot order. I have just ran the general process of Boot-repair via USB (I rather didn't try other repair options so far being an amateur). Here is the log http://paste.ubuntu.com/25178328/.

None of those worked and finally I feel like I can't continue on my own. I haven't received any error message during installation, nor while trying the options above. Any ideas?

Bold Moves
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  • Are you not able to access Ubuntu? Or Windows 8.1? It's not clear in your question. – G Trawo Jul 26 '17 at 18:33
  • Please edit in a listing of your partitions and what's in them (Windows, Ubuntu, swap, etc.) along with which one is first in the system boot order. – Zeiss Ikon Jul 26 '17 at 18:34
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    I recommend turning fast boot off if you are having trouble accessing the BIOS – NerdOfCode Jul 26 '17 at 18:43
  • @ZeissIkon I have installed both Windows and Ubuntu on the same HDD partition, elsewise there is no other OS if that answers your question. – Bold Moves Jul 26 '17 at 18:44
  • @GTrawo I can't access Ubuntu, but I bet I'd have the same problem if Ubuntu was booted automatically. So the biggest problem is with accessing Grub menu I guess. – Bold Moves Jul 26 '17 at 18:45
  • I don't think that's even possible -- same physical drive, yes, but not same partitions. Your log has the information, and you assuredly have multiple partitions. – Zeiss Ikon Jul 26 '17 at 18:45
  • @ZeissIkon Well I thought you meant the partitions I choose to install an operating system (like here https://www.vyhodny-software.cz/pictures/moznosti%20jednotky.png ). I did split the partition during the installation though – Bold Moves Jul 26 '17 at 18:48
  • According to your log there's nothing wrong with your installation. The expected EFI entries for both OSes are there. Now, if you can change to or don't any Ubuntu entry in the boot order then probably your ACER is one of those that need a supervisor password enabled so anything else but he original OS can be " trusted" by UEFI. Unfortunately this is pretty much what I know / remember reading from @oldfred 's posts. The half baked answers you got so far do not address your specific situation. –  Jul 26 '17 at 19:43

2 Answers2

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I run a dual-boot on a couple machines. Once in a while, Windows 10 will decide to override my BIOS settings and will change the default boot from 'ubuntu' to 'Windows'.

Once you go into the BIOS (in Windows, hold SHIFT when pressing the Restart button. It will bring you to your boot prompt settings. Go to Troubleshoot > Advanced > UEFI Firmware), you can check to make sure SecureBoot is off, and under BOOT that 'ubuntu' is the first boot option.

This will get the GRUB boot screen to show when booting. There you can chose Windows or Ubuntu (default).

UPDATE: Taken from this post:

After reboot, I needed to go back into the bios, re-enable Secure Boot, then under the Secure Boot specific menu option, chose the "Add a trusted boot option" or similar (I will try to take a photo of this in the bios later). Navigate to the EFI/ubuntu/ folder, then choose either the shimx64 or grubx64 depending on if you have Secure Boot enabled or disabled respectively. Give the boot option a label, then go back to the boot options tab, and it should now appear in the list. After highlighting it use F6 to bring it up to the top (or at least above Windows Boot Manager). Now save the changes and reboot once more. This should drop you into the Ubuntu Grub boot options.

G Trawo
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  • I have disabled secureboot, but unfortunately there is no "ubuntu" option and none of the options seems to be the HDD partition I am looking for.. :/ But I've had an idea - what if the problem is that I have installed Ubuntu straight through my bootable USB and not any other software dealing with two OSs on one PC? – Bold Moves Jul 26 '17 at 19:34
  • @BoldMoves Sounds to me then that Ubuntu was not able to register with your UEFI to have a boot option. Or running the Boot Repair messed something up. In either case, without getting more information from you we are all flying blind here. What boot options do you have? – G Trawo Jul 26 '17 at 19:42
  • @BoldMoves At the bottom of your log file it pretty much said what I said:

    *Please do not forget to make your BIOS boot on sda2/EFI/ubuntu/shimx64.efi file!

    If your computer reboots directly into Windows, try to change the boot order in your BIOS. If your BIOS does not allow to change the boot order, change the default boot entry of the Windows bootloader. For example you can boot into Windows, then type the following command in an admin command prompt: bcdedit /set {bootmgr} path \EFI\ubuntu\shimx64.efi* Try these suggestions and see if you can't get it to boot into Ubuntu.

     – G Trawo Jul 26 '17 at 19:46
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    @BoldMoves Oh, and another tip: don't be too quick to down vote an answer either. Just because it didn't necessarily work right away doesn't mean that the answer was downright wrong, and deserved to be down voted. You have not been very clear in your issue and we are somewhat guessing here. Down voting will discourage others from trying to help you here. – G Trawo Jul 26 '17 at 19:51
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    I have never downvoted anybody in here or other phorums of this type. I have been wondering why anyone would do that and not post anything suggesting his reasoning. Quite the contrary - I greatly appreciate and admire the effort people are putting in these servers to help others out, because I am pretty hopeless with my current skills and at the same time I love everything I know so far about Ubuntu and can't wait to finally use it.. – Bold Moves Jul 26 '17 at 20:01
  • I am allowed to change the boot order, I have sucessfully changed the default boot entry in accordance with the command provided with no result. :/

    Here are my boot options (in escalating order) -- Windows boot manager ; HDD: ST1000LM014-1EJ164 ; USB HDD: SM1 USB DISK ; ATAPI CDROM: MATSHITA DVD-RAM UJ8HC ; USB FDD: ; Network Boot-IPV4: ; USB CDROM: ; Network Boot-IPV6: ; If I could provide any further information, please don't hesitate to ask. :-)

     – Bold Moves Jul 26 '17 at 20:08
  • @BoldMoves Were you able to try changing the default boot order in Windows (instead of in BIOS)? Hit the windows key, type 'cmd', left click on command prompt and select 'Run as Administrator'. Then type 'bcdedit /set {bootmgr} path \EFI\ubuntu\shimx64.efi ', as per the log report. – G Trawo Jul 26 '17 at 20:48
  • yes I was, I have typed in the same thing and cmd responded that operation was successfully completed :-/ – Bold Moves Jul 27 '17 at 09:12
  • I'm a newbie so I am adding @GTrawo just in case you didn't get the last notification (not that I mean to urge you or anything!). :-) – Bold Moves Jul 27 '17 at 16:33
  • @BoldMoves Once you entered the command and restarted, did it give you the GRUB boot menu then? Or are we back to square one? – G Trawo Jul 27 '17 at 17:57
  • square one I fear.. There was no change, I have also tried shift and esc not to avail.. Is there a way to manually add Grub menu/Ubuntu into BIOS maybe? I also remember that when I had Windows/OS X on my other laptop at the same time I could simply swich between those within OS (I think I used to have an app too), but I can't find anything like this for Ubuntu/Windows boot.. – Bold Moves Jul 27 '17 at 18:07
  • @BoldMoves I updated the answer if some more info specific to Acer's UEFI implementation. See if it will help. – G Trawo Jul 27 '17 at 18:26
  • Writing from Ubuntu, thank you so much for your persistence and insight, I have learned a lot from you and finally I can use a secure, transparent operating system I have yearned for. You're great!!! :-) – Bold Moves Jul 27 '17 at 20:17
  • @BoldMoves now you can help someone else that is learning how to install Ubuntu. This kind of question is very frequent here and we know that beguinners may need assistence. – Vitor Abella Jul 27 '17 at 20:22
  • @BoldMoves Glad to hear you got it working! Enjoy – G Trawo Jul 27 '17 at 20:33
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Supposing you really installed it correctly. The problem is that your computer doesnt boot on grub, but automatically on windows.

First of all, you need to ensure it! So, how to do it?

On acer there is a key to enter on boot options on startup that you have to press, it can be F2, F9, F10,... Research for your model on google or try those I just cited.

But on BIOS this shortcut key to go to boot options may be deactivated, so look for something that seems "allow boot options" on startup...

Then, press this key on startup, and you will (if you installed ubuntu correctly) see the Ubuntu option, choose it and ubuntu will launch.

If it worked, now you have to solve the grub problem that doesnt boot automatically, then follow this tutorial

Vitor Abella
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