Struggling to install ubuntu.

[Night_]

@Windows7ge

That would be possible only if the boot sequence allows booting from an external medium. But even then such an attack is kind of a moot point anyway.

If an attacker has full physcial access to the PC it's safe to assume they can own it, therefore already gaining minimal access to the network regardless if they choose to boot from an external medium or into the existing OS.

 

[Windows7ge]

@Night_

Makes sense. I guess it all depends on the attackers knowledge and personal preference as to how they go about doing it. It does answer my prior question though that GRUB can be isolated and put on an alternative media which could be used to hijack a computer in some manor or other if some BIOS security has been implemented and they can't open the machine (due to witnesses in a public establishment)

[Night_]

@Windows7ge

Anything bootable can be used for such a purpose, even a copy of Windows installed on an external drive. Grub is just one of many ways to do something like that on whats otherwise a system with an insecrue BIOS/uEFI configuration.

[Windows7ge]

@Night_

Something like that could probably be exploited at the college I attend. Security is definitely not their top priority. Or at least they're bad at showing it because they have so many holes in their systems.

 

Well thank you for the lesson. I found it informative.

[Watermace]

On 4/20/2017 at 10:16 PM, 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. 

do you have the drive your installing on set to master in the bios?

 

[spiralfuzion]

On 4/21/2017 at 5:30 PM, Night_ said:

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.

sort of struggling to understand some parts of it. I've tried to boot through EasyBCD and got this message. 

[spiralfuzion]

so I have been using Ubuntu for a few days and only booted into it when I start the computer. i finally booted into windows from grub and cannot get the grub menu back. I disabled secure boot already and the only way I can get into the uefi menu is within windows. i cannot find my booting button for uefi or bios even when looking online because I have a some random hp mother board. @Night_

[spiralfuzion]

I do believe I've been booting in via UEFI so far. Should I change it to legacy boot?

[spiralfuzion]

This seems to be my only option at this point. 

[Night_]

@spiralfuzion

Something like EasyBCD probably won't help you here.

If Ubuntu was installed successfuly after Secure Boot was disabled (it could cause problems), the EFI should be able to detect the Grub executable and allow you to select it from the boot menu or as part of your boot sequence. Are you able to access your BIOS menu and change the boot options form there? See if you can find Grub or any bootloader other than Windows' listed in the "OS boot manager" or any similarly named menus (also see if this could help).

[spiralfuzion]

4 hours ago, Night_ said:

@spiralfuzion

Something like EasyBCD probably won't help you here.

If Ubuntu was installed successfuly after Secure Boot was disabled (it can be the one causing problems), the EFI should be able to detect the Grub executable and allow you to select it from the boot menu or as part of your boot sequence. Are you able to access your BIOS menu and change the boot options form there? See if you can find Grub or any bootloader other than Windows' in the "OS boot manager" menu or anything similar to it (also see if this could help).

i can access the bios. i decided to go into legacy boot and change the boot order to the drive ubuntu was installed on and it just gave me a black screen with a underline mark. It seems that I may have to format my drive and reinstall windows in something that isn't efi? I tried putting the drive over the windows drive and it didn't load. Maybe grub corrupted or ubuntu corrupted in the process? My question is. Is it even possible to dual boot on a drive in efi mode? ubntu forums and websites say no and says it's eufi only. it's funny because when I enter my system info it says uefi but when I use easybcd it says I'm in efi so I'm assuming I'm sol. Do you think I should install ubuntu first then reinstall windows or vice versa if that's the case. also ubuntu is installed on a seprate drive that is on a separate disk in the windows partition menu.as can see from the first post. 

[Night_]

@spiralfuzion  If your system is already configured to boot via uEFI it should also be possible to boot into Ubuntu via the same method. If you switch to Legacy mode after either OS was already configured to boot via uEFI it might cause stuff not to work, as one of the bootloaders may have not been installed in a legacy configuration before hand (which might explain why you couldn't boot Ubuntu in Legacy mode). Again though, if when you installed Ubuntu the installer didn't prompt for anything that had to do with the bootloader then Grub should already be installed and detectible by your system. So do double check to see if you can recongnize it as an option somewhere in the BIOS boot menu. If there's nothing there, it may be possible that something went wrong and Grub didn't get installed properly, but first you need to figure out if that's really the source of the problem.

 

Reinstalling either OS shouldn't be necessary and can be avoided, even if you eventually decide to ditch uEFI altogether. Also as i mentioned before, usualy it doesn't matter where either OS is installed, be it a seperate partition or seperate physical drive.

[spiralfuzion]

4 hours ago, Night_ said:

@spiralfuzion  If your system is already configured to boot via uEFI it should also be possible to boot into Ubuntu via the same method. If you switch to Legacy mode after either OS was already configured to boot via uEFI it might cause stuff not to work, as one of the bootloaders may have not been installed in a legacy configuration before hand (which might explain why you couldn't boot Ubuntu in Legacy mode). Again though, if when you installed Ubuntu the installer didn't prompt for anything that had to do with the bootloader then Grub should already be installed and detectible by your system. So do double check to see if you can recongnize it as an option somewhere in the BIOS boot menu. If there's nothing there, it may be possible that something went wrong and Grub didn't get installed properly, but first you need to figure out if that's really the source of the problem.

 

Reinstalling either OS shouldn't be neccecry and can be avoided, even if you eventually decide to ditch uEFI altogether. Also as i mentioned before, usualy it doesn't matter where either OS is installed, be it a seperate partition or seperate physcial drive.

well instead of going through the headache and figuring it out I should format the drive again and try to install. I also disabled secure boot and around the second time i installed it I had no message telling me about booting issues. Should i reinstall ubuntu again and see how it goes from there? what happens is I can boot into ubuntu again and again if I choose ubuntu but I have a strong feeling If i choose the windows boot manager option I'll not be able to get the grub screen again. 

[Night_]

@spiralfuzion

Wait so Grub does start up when you cold boot your system?

[spiralfuzion]

4 hours ago, Night_ said:

@spiralfuzion

Wait so Grub does start up when you cold boot your system?

yes. When I start up my system grub does work. It continues to work everytime I boot into ubuntu by selecting ubuntu. But when i select the windows boot manager option i can never go back into ubuntu/grub. Wait..... do I not select that and just leave the grub menu to boot into windows?

[spiralfuzion]

should i take a picture of what items are on my grub menu? @Night_

[Night_]

@spiralfuzion

If Grub shows up when you cold boot, it means that it got installed correctly and the uEFI is properly detecting it. The weird thing here is that it gets overriden after you boot into Windows once.

If your case is the same as mentioned in this post, the reason for that might be HP's uEFI firmware, which for some reason might be defaulting to the Windows bootloader.

 

You can try checking the uEFI boot enteries in the BIOS menu to see how Grub appears in it. Then disabling Fast Boot and attempting to boot into Windows through Grub in order to check whether the entery remains later after a reboot. If the entry is still there you can try switching to it manually and check whether Grub starts up again.

[spiralfuzion]

16 hours ago, Night_ said:

@spiralfuzion

If Grub shows up when you cold boot, it means that it got installed correctly and the uEFI is properly detecting it. The weird thing here is that it gets overriden after you boot into Windows once.

If your case is the same as mentioned in this post, the reason for that might be HP's uEFI firmware, which for some reason might be defaulting to the Windows bootloader.

 

You can try checking the uEFI boot enteries in the BIOS menu to see how Grub appears in it. Then disabling Fast Boot and attempting to boot into Windows through Grub in order to check whether the entery remains later after a reboot. If the entry is still there you can try switching to it manually and check whether Grub starts up again.

any pictures or links as to how i should do that? Should i check the boot order and see what comes up? or is there a way to check the entries? 

[Night_]

@spiralfuzion

Both options should be accessible from somewhere in the BIOS menu. However if you're unable to locate them for some reason, you could access the ESP partition directly from Ubuntu (usually located at "/boot/efi") to make sure Grub's bootloader directory is still in place. 

While at it, you can also use the "efibootmgr" utility (runs from a Terminal) to view existing boot entries and modify any EFI related settings you may wish.

[spiralfuzion]

6 hours ago, Night_ said:

@spiralfuzion

Both options should be accessible from somewhere in the BIOS menu. However if you're unable to locate them for some reason, you could access the ESP partition directly from Ubuntu (usually located at "/boot/efi") to make sure Grub's bootloader directory is still in place. 

While at it, you can also use the "efibootmgr" utility (runs from a Terminal) to view existing boot entries and modify any EFI related settings you may wish.

This is my bpot order but I don't seem to get anywhere when changing it. I'll try what you suggested and post results.

[spiralfuzion]

@Night_. Thanks for your help. I did some research and a lot of these issues are due to hps uEFI. Things would be easier if it wasn't for hp and them being douches. I'm going to give up on Linux for a while but hell I've learned a shit ton about bios, boot order, and overall how using different os works. I read that something something hp hardcoded  (or something to that extent) to prevent people from using another os. And the only way to fix it is to go into the efi and use grub as the bootloader. Tricking it into thinking it's the windows boot manager. I might just buy a new motherboard and format the drive so I don't have so many issues. I'm thinking if I get a new mobo that I won't be stuck with garbage. But on that note I'm looking for a lga1150 for my i7 4770. Something that has 4 memory slots so if you have any recommendations let me know! Once again thanks a lot.

[Night_]

@spiralfuzion

From what i understood in that post i linked from AskUbuntu, cleaning the ESP and reinstalling Grub first seemed to do the trick - however that's kind of a last resort type of action

Is it the same case when using legacy mode (uEFI disabled)? If HP's quircks are exclusivly effecting the EFI, having the bootloader work from an independant drive could theoretically work if the BIOS controlls the boot sequence only "by-drive" and not by some specific bootloader selection.

 

As your Ubuntu installation is probably still accesible, you could still try reinstalling Grub manually using the more traditional method while disabling uEFI functionality altogether (just make sure before hand that Windows still boots and doesn't cuase trouble on its own).