Struggling to install ubuntu.

[spiralfuzion]

Ok this is the last post I'm going to make of this if this doesn't work I'm done with linux. If you can help me get this working I'll love you forever. 

 

What I'm using: 

i7 4770

32gb ddr3 ram

1tb hard drive C: drive (windows drive)

300gb E: drive (I want ubuntu installed on here)

Ubuntu 17.04 formatted in Large FAT32 as a bootable iso for ubuntu

 

 

Ok here's the issue. I can install ubuntu and get to the homepage but I can't turn off my pc and boot into grub. It just boots into windows. I disabled secure boot in uefi just in case. I tried the repair tool for it and it didn't work. The one thing that I think did it was when I was installing it there was some check box for third party apps and scripts and stuff. It required me to put in a password to disable secure boot or something. I get it all installed and reboot and get straight into windows. I'll add pictures of my partitions after i restart and let you know. The second drive I formatted as unallocated. Should i switch it to exfat? The Main drive with windows is on disk 0 and the E drive (ubuntu) is on disk 1. Could that be the issue?

 

 

 

PS i am putting ubuntu on usb right now. 

[PeachyUwUSenpai]

2 minutes ago, spiralfuzion said:

Ok this is the last post I'm going to make of this if this doesn't work I'm done with linux. If you can help me get this working I'll love you forever. 

 

What I'm using: 

i7 4770

32gb ddr3 ram

1tb hard drive C: drive (windows drive)

300gb E: drive (I want ubuntu installed on here)

Ubuntu 17.04 formatted in Large FAT32 as a bootable iso for ubuntu

 

 

Ok here's the issue. I can install ubuntu and get to the homepage but I can't turn off my pc and boot into grub. It just boots into windows. I disabled secure boot in uefi just in case. I tried the repair tool for it and it didn't work. The one thing that I think did it was when I was installing it there was some check box for third party apps and scripts and stuff. It required me to put in a password to disable secure boot or something. I get it all installed and reboot and get straight into windows. I'll add pictures of my partitions after i restart and let you know. The second drive I formatted as unallocated. Should i switch it to exfat? The Main drive with windows is on disk 0 and the E drive (ubuntu) is on disk 1. Could that be the issue?

 

 

 

PS i am putting ubuntu on usb right now. 

change your boot order

[spiralfuzion]

7 hours ago, Alaradia said:

change your boot order

thing is I don't know what my key is when I turn on my computer.  I have to get to the options within windows so if i messup I'm screwed. will this allow me to use grub if I change it?

[PeachyUwUSenpai]

its usually f2 or delete

[SCHISCHKA]

1 minute ago, spiralfuzion said:

thing is I don't know what my key is when I turn on my computer.  I have to get to the options within windows so if i messup I'm screwed. will this allow me to use grub if I change it?

for me its F12 but you can pretty much just run your fingers up and down the F keys to get the boot menu

[Windows7ge]

On my laptop instead of using two separate drives I repartitioned my windows installation to open unallocated space on the drive. I then ran my Ubuntu 16.04 installation to the unpartitioned space and marked the new partition as the Primary. Now at system startup it prompts me if I want to boot Ubuntu or windows. If you have 2 separate disks it doesn't matter what you do the bios will be set to load one drive or another unless you have the programming knowledge to write your own custom boot loader which could let you choose what OS to boot.

[PeachyUwUSenpai]

3 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

On my laptop instead of using two separate drives I repartitioned my windows installation to open unallocated space on the drive. I then ran my Ubuntu 16.04 installation to the unpartitioned space and marked the new partition as the Primary. Now at system startup it prompts me if I want to boot Ubuntu or windows. If you have 2 separate disks it doesn't matter what you do the bios will be set to load one drive or another unless you have the programming knowledge to write your own custom boot loader which could let you choose what OS to boot.

no if you set it to the one with grub to boot first grub will notice the other drive and you can pick between the 2

[spiralfuzion]

7 hours ago, Windows7ge said:

On my laptop instead of using two separate drives I repartitioned my windows installation to open unallocated space on the drive. I then ran my Ubuntu 16.04 installation to the unpartitioned space and marked the new partition as the Primary. Now at system startup it prompts me if I want to boot Ubuntu or windows. If you have 2 separate disks it doesn't matter what you do the bios will be set to load one drive or another unless you have the programming knowledge to write your own custom boot loader which could let you choose what OS to boot.

how much space will the new partition make? I need around 50GB can I change the value of how large the partition? 

[spiralfuzion]

7 hours ago, Alaradia said:

no if you set it to the one with grub to boot first grub will notice the other drive and you can pick between the 2

thing is after i install i cant get to grub.

[PeachyUwUSenpai]

Just now, spiralfuzion said:

thing is after i install i cant get to grub.

Did you set the drive that you installed ubuntu to as the first drive in your boot order

[spiralfuzion]

7 hours ago, SCHISCHKA said:

for me its F12 but you can pretty much just run your fingers up and down the F keys to get the boot menu

ill try and find a way to get into it right now. 

[spiralfuzion]

7 hours ago, Alaradia said:

Did you set the drive that you installed ubuntu to as the first drive in your boot order

do i install ubuntu on the unallocated then go back into the bios and set the partition to be the first to boot?

[PeachyUwUSenpai]

Just now, spiralfuzion said:

do i install ubuntu on the unallocated then go back into the bios and set the partition to be the first to boot?

yes

[spiralfuzion]

7 hours ago, Alaradia said:

yes

So when I set that drive to be the first will it load straight into Grub? 

[PeachyUwUSenpai]

Just now, spiralfuzion said:

So when I set that drive to be the first will it load straight into Grub? 

yes

[Windows7ge]

3 minutes ago, Alaradia said:

no if you set it to the one with grub to boot first grub will notice the other drive and you can pick between the 2

Wait Linux can let you do that between separate disks? I assumed you could do it between partitions as that's what worked for me on one drive but not between multiple.

[spiralfuzion]

7 hours ago, Alaradia said:

yes

do I install with windows option or do it myself with the other option? 

[PeachyUwUSenpai]

1 minute ago, spiralfuzion said:

do I install with windows option or do it myself with the other option? 

windows option should work

 

[Night_]

On 21/04/2017 at 8:31 AM, Windows7ge said:

Wait Linux can let you do that between separate disks? I assumed you could do it between partitions as that's what worked for me on one drive but not between multiple.

Yes that's possible, Grub can boot from multiple drives, even ones configured with LVM partitions.

 

@spiralfuzion

When installing Ubuntu you should also be promted to install Grub (the bootloader), if it's not done so automatically. Installing Grub is done depending on what BIOS configuration you desire:

• If you wish to use uEFI, the Grub executable will have to be installed within your ESP boot partition (360MB one on your screenshot, second from the top).
• If you wish to use Legacy mode (disabled uEFI), you will have to determin which partition table is used by the drive you're trying to boot from. If it uses GPT, then it will require a seperate small boot partition for Grub to be installed on. Otherwise if it uses traditional MBR, Grub can be installed directly within the post-MBR space gap.

In any case that's just how technically things work in a nutshell and should be performed automatically by the installer if you did not choose to thinker with the proccess manually. Once installed, booting from the desired hard drive should be done by either launching the Grub executable via the EFI or when using Legacy BIOS, by directly booting from the hard drive that Grub was installed on.

[Windows7ge]

4 hours ago, Night_ said:

Yes that's possible, Grub can boot from multiple drives, even ones configured with LVM partitions.

So if you're running an OS that uses GRUB (I had to google it. Grand Unified Bootloader, responsible for loading the OS. Also had to look up LVM. Logical Volume Manager, not entirely sure about this. I'm not familiar with the differences between volumes and partitions.) If the drive set to boot uses GRUB. Grub will check other partitions and other physical drives for bootloaders then present them to you and ask which one you want to load?

[Night_]

@Windows7ge

More or less.

Grub itself is the bootloader, e.g it's the first program that gets executed by the BIOS/uEFI during cold boot.

Grub specifically, once configured can access several partitions directly, which in themselves may be located or spanned across (such as with LVM) distinct physical hard drives. Usually such a configuration consists of different enteries that can be selected by the user via a menu, where each entery basically represents the boot instructions for whatever it is the users whishes the PC to boot into.

 

For example: in case of a Linux distro, such an entry would usualy consist of the location of the Kernel itself along with it's boot parameters and something called an "initramfs" (acronym for "Initial RAM Filesystem"). While with Windows, such an entery would usually consist of the location for Window's own boot partition, in order to "pass control" (a.k.a "Chainload") to its own bootloader, as that's where all the "proprietary" boot instructions for Windows are located.

[Windows7ge]

@Night_

Makes sense. The menu is more or less just like my Linux Ubuntu one. I do have to say though I think such functionality could be taken advantage of maliciously.

 

Let's say you have a computer with locked BIOS. You can't open the case to reset the BIOS (like if you're at a public school, office, library, or hospital) in order to change the boot order because you want to run Linux or something else. If you know "Boot to USB" is enabled first, or rather "Boot to CD", or even "Boot to Floppy" you could insert that media with GRUB on it. Then direct GRUB to external media instead of the internal drive bypassing the BIOS boot order and the inability to access the BIOS.

 

Is it possible to isolate GRUB from the OS and burn it to CD, a floppy, or USB?

[Night_]

@Windows7ge

Yes you could install Grub on an external storage medium and use that as your boot drive, but doing so is kind of redundant if security is what you're concerned with.

 

Grub has an option for disabling manual editing of the boot entries from within the menu, as well as a feature that allows locking any menu entries with a username and a password on top.

However that will only be effective if whoever's trying to boot from his own external storage doesn't have physical access to the machine.

In an event that they do, it's also possible to fully encrypt the boot partition (be it a seperate one or the entire 'root' partition itself) and have Grub prompt for a decryption password before booting. This way even if whoever's trying to get-in manages to gain access to the BIOS, all he would be able to do is boot from his own drive (using his own bootloader) while your system remains inaccesible.

 

[vorticalbox]

On 21/04/2017 at 6:22 AM, SCHISCHKA said:

for me its F12 but you can pretty much just run your fingers up and down the F keys to get the boot menu

I use my face.

[Windows7ge]

@Night_ It's kind of a security concern. I'm curious to know what people are capable of doing with the right tools and know how. I'm in college working to be a network admin and if someone has ways to be able to access a network without be easily tracked or easily identified I'd like to know ways they can do it.

 

My point is not someone with the objective to hijack the boot drive that's installed in the system (Most likely windows) but rather hijack the rest of the computer. If someone wanted to infiltrate a network but had to login on a windows domain in theory they could run GRUB on a CD or USB. Boot to GRUB (the bootloader) and point it to the OS they want to load on external media. Bypassing the BIOS boot order if they're locked out of the BIOS.

 

It'd be more incognito than carrying around their own computer and trying to plug into the network. Especially since they could use a disposable USB drive, launch an attack and walk away. This is just a theory though I can't say it can be done.