Linux Dual Booting: Unable to install GRUB

[Dilukshan]

Hi Guys, I'm having a problem when Dual Booting a Linux distro in my laptop.. 

 

I'm getting an error which is "Unable to Install Grub In Dev/sda (the partition. I chose to install grub)

 

how to Dual boot kde neon correctly. I'm a beginner, please explain it very easily....

 

And if I set a efi partition and install boot loader into that partition it also gives me an error.. it is "failed to install grub-amd64" ... Please help me...

[inalone]

What distro is this out of curiosity? Also, what type of partition is /dev/sda8? Is it FAT32? Also, what are on the other partitions - 8 partition is a hell of a lot for a single drive.

[Sauron]

what did you do to get there? grub should be installed to the drive itself, so /dev/sda, not a partition (sdaX indicates a partition).

[Nayr438]

3 hours ago, inalone said:

What distro is this out of curiosity? Also, what type of partition is /dev/sda8? Is it FAT32? Also, what are on the other partitions - 8 partition is a hell of a lot for a single drive.

Its KDE Neon (Ubuntu Based Distro) and 8 partitions is perfectly fine.

 

3 hours ago, Sauron said:

what did you do to get there? grub should be installed to the drive itself, so /dev/sda, not a partition (sdaX indicates a partition).

Not in EFI Instances, it would be installed to a Fat32 Partition. Even Grub legacy can be installed in MBR mode to a set partition, though I imagine he is using ext4 which I don't believe supports it.

 

7 hours ago, Dilukshan said:

Hi Guys, I'm having a problem when Dual Booting a Linux distro in my laptop.. 

 

I'm getting an error which is "Unable to Install Grub In Dev/sda (the partition. I chose to install grub)

 

how to Dual boot kde neon correctly. I'm a beginner, please explain it very easily....

 

And if I set a efi partition and install boot loader into that partition it also gives me an error.. it is "failed to install grub-amd64" ... Please help me...

 

Make sure Secure Boot is turned off in your BIOS and your Bootable media was made in GPT mode using DD. If you are unsure, use etcher. Otherwise if all that is good and your install was completed but with just a grub error, try the following.

Boot into your Live Install Media and open a terminal.
Run fdisk -l
Find your 2 partitions, one should be whatever your root that you assigned during install and one should have its type as EFI. example. /dev/sda1
mkdir /mnt
mount /dev/rootpartition /mnt
mkdir /mnt/boot/EFI
mount /dev/efipartition /mnt/boot/EFI
chroot /mnt
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi  --bootloader-id="KDE Neon" --recheck
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
exit
reboot

Ubuntu likes to do things differently so hopefully this still applies.

[Sauron]

3 minutes ago, Nayr438 said:

Not in EFI Instances, it would be installed to a Fat32 Partition. Even Grub legacy can be installed in MBR mode to a set partition, though I imagine he is using ext4 which I don't believe supports it.

Fair, I was assuming legacy bios.

[Dilukshan]

Thank you very much guys, I will try and let you know

[Dilukshan]

Do I need to install boot loader into a fat32 partition or a EFI partition... Also I'm having a UEFI Boot modd

[Dilukshan]

Also, can I install Boot loader into windows boot manager EFI partition??

[Nayr438]

Your EFI Partition is just a FAT32 Partition with the boot flag. fdisk-l will report its type as EFI (FAT*)

You can get away with installing the boot-loader into the Windows EFI Partition.

[Dilukshan]

Totally 3 partitions

 

Home - /home

EFI 

Root - /

Am I correct??

 

Device for boot loader installation 

- (THE EFI PARTITION)

 

AM I CORRECT??

[Nayr438]

yes

[Dilukshan]

Thanks... Nayr438 where are from

[Dilukshan]

20 hours ago, Nayr438 said:

grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --bootloader-id="KDE Neon" --recheck

After this command, I Get an error like this

 

grub-install: error: cannot find EFI directory

[Nayr438]

Did you create /boot/EFI and mount the EFI partition to it?

Try this

grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/EFI --bootloader-id="KDE Neon" --recheck

 

[Dilukshan]

15 minutes ago, Nayr438 said:

grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/EFI --bootloader-id="KDE Neon" --recheck

Now I get an error like this.

grub-install: error: cannot find a device for /boot/EFI (is /Dev mounted?)

[Dilukshan]

I created a partition with EFI partition system

There is no Boot/EFI in Fat32

There is only /dos and /windows...

[Dilukshan]

What to do... I'm going study with Linux.... Please help.....

[Nayr438]

/ is your root file system, probably ext4

/boot/EFI will be a directory on /

The FAT partition has to be mounted to the directory /boot/EFI

I don't know whats inside the Windows EFI Partition, grub will automake everything it needs inside of it.

 

Honestly if you just want something to work, you might try Manjaro KDE. I could better help you with issues there as its based on Arch. I personally run Arch and Ubuntu behaves differently.

 

[Dilukshan]

Thanks.... Will Manjaro works without this error??

[Nayr438]

5 minutes ago, Dilukshan said:

Thanks.... Will Manjaro works without this error??

IDK you will just have to try. Use Etcher to make your bootable USB installer. https://www.balena.io/etcher/

I am not sure why GRUB is failing to install in the first place, if its related to Neons installer then it should install fine on Manjaro. If its something else then we will have to dig into other things that can cause GRUB to fail.

If efibootmgr outputs a efi boot list then it should work.

you can run efibootmgr in a terminal to see if it can read your efi entries.

 

[Dilukshan]

Oh shit... I installed kde neon in my laptop like 2019 November... But, I can't reinstall it again... What is this??

 

[Nayr438]

KDE Neon's installer might just be borked at this time, it does happen.

[Dilukshan]

No also Lubuntu got that error

[Dilukshan]

Also, I can install Deepin OS with the partition configuration I used for kde neon......

[Nayr438]

Ubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntyu, kde neon, whatever else that's built on ubuntu all use the same installer from the same package set. If its borked for one its more than likely borked for all of them.

Also if you value privacy, I would stay away from Deepin and its environment. Linux Deepin is a Chinese Distro funded by the Chinese government to replace Windows, its Environment, Deepin, sends data back to Linux Deepin regardless of the Distro your on. Some people care and some don't. As to what it collects I don't personally know, but there was some talk about its cloud services gathering passwords in the past so security was questionable.

 

If Deepin installs however, then its probably something with Ubuntu's installer.