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I had Ubuntu 17.04 installed on my Razer Blade 14.

I then connected an SDSSDA / Sata 6G/s external drive via USB 3.0 and installed Ubuntu 17.04 via a USB stick. Booted into it and used it successfully.

Then I shut down, disconnected it, inserted my official Razer Windows 8.1 recovery USB stick and reinstalled - intentionally replacing Ubuntu. And began using Windows 8.1 successfully.

Then I shut the computer down, plugged in my external drive again and rebooted, expecting to see an option to choose which drive to boot into. I was not prompted to so I reboot and held F12 until the boot menu appeared. I expected to see my external drive listed, but it's not. Only Windows.

Therefore I cannot boot back into Ubuntu on my external drive.

I read something about that possibility that it has something to do with GRUB vs DOS, but couldn't get any clarity on how to reinstall GRUB alongside DOS - or any other alternative approaches.

Can anyone help me understand what is happening and point me to any tutorials that would teach me how to resolve this issue? If there are none, could someone share any insights that can help me further debug?

Spencer Hill
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  • How did you install Ubuntu? UEFI or BIOS? And how did you reinstall Windows UEFI or BIOS? How you boot install media for both Windows & Ubuntu is then how it installs. Post the link to the Create BootInfo summary report. Is part of Boot-Repair: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Info – oldfred Oct 11 '17 at 03:32
  • I don't know how to tell regarding Ubuntu. But Windows was installed under UEFI. I ended up installed rEFInd, then reinstalling Ubuntu. I believe the other answers would likely be correct if I wasn't running UEFI for Windows. – Spencer Hill Oct 12 '17 at 04:01
  • If you install in UEFI mode to external drive, you have to partition in advance and include the ESP - efi system partition. And then copy /EFI/ubuntu from internal drive to external and create /EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi. http://askubuntu.com/questions/743095/how-to-prepare-a-disk-on-an-efi-based-pc-for-ubuntu & https://askubuntu.com/questions/221835/installing-ubuntu-alongside-a-pre-installed-windows-with-uefi & https://askubuntu.com/questions/786986/boot-ubuntu-from-external-drive/942312#942312 After install on external copy shimx64.efi to /EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi in ESP on external. – oldfred Oct 12 '17 at 14:19
  • Actually, I found the link to my original BootInfo: http://paste.ubuntu.com/25716929 – Spencer Hill Oct 12 '17 at 23:44
  • I think rEFInd has work arounds for external drive booting. But all external drives in UEFI boot mode only boot from /EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi and normal install of grub does not create that file. You have to manually copy shimx64.efi to /EFI/Boot and rename to bootx64.efi. – oldfred Oct 13 '17 at 00:00

4 Answers4

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You should try and reinstall Grub via a live session. As described in this post.

Biggybi
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  • Thank you, I tried this solution but it did not resolve my issue. I ended up installed rEFInd, then reinstalling Ubuntu. – Spencer Hill Oct 12 '17 at 03:57
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Or you can install EasyBcd on Windows, configure Windows bootloader to include Ubuntu's GRUB in OS list, and you're all set.

Bagas Sanjaya
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  • Hi! Welcome to Ask Ubuntu. This would be better suited as a comment rather than an answer, or perhaps a more verbose, detailed answer would be more appropriate. – Daniel Oct 11 '17 at 05:05
  • Thank you, I tried this solution but it did not resolve my issue because Windows is installed under UEFI - EasyBCD is not compatible with UEFI. I ended up installed rEFInd, then reinstalling Ubuntu. – Spencer Hill Oct 12 '17 at 03:58
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I tried Boot Repair, EasyBSD, manually reinstalling Grub on the same partition as the Windows boot loader, but I ended up installed rEFInd, then reinstalling Ubuntu. The solution I was seeking was to do this without reinstalling Ubuntu but it seems that is not possible when dealing with UEFI. Or if it is, it's beyond my skills.

Spencer Hill
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Maybe you should change BIOS setting to Legacy and try to reinstall both Windows and Ubuntu. Some Linuxes don't know how to deal with EFI's secure boot option so you should also disable Secure Boot.

Bagas Sanjaya
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  • Thanks. I did drop it down to Legacy and disable Secure Boot but that didn't get me a different result in any case unfortunately. – Spencer Hill Oct 12 '17 at 23:45