GRUB menu not showing - countdown is taken into account

being my first post, I would like to thank you for the time you will spend helping me.

I recently installed Ubuntu Studio 20.04 on the same SSD as Windows 8, on a Lenovo Z50-75 Laptop.

On LENOVO, you can access the BIOS only by pressing a special button on the left using the tip of a pen.

I chose to create my own partitions (swap and "/") and installed GRUB on /dev/sda. I have an EFI partition on /dev/sda2.

The funny thing is: when I turn my PC on, it loads the Boot Loader, then it shows the BIOS splash screen.

This means that a black screen is shown for the value of GRUB_TIMEOUT parameter (by "black" I mean that the screen is on, but all pixels are black: looks almost dark grey), then the BIOS splash screen is shown, then the default GRUB_DEFAULT OS is started.

I can show the GRUB menu ONLY if I enter the BIOS settings, and exit without saving. (At this time, the menu has the Ubuntu Studio icons).

If in the BIOS I choose the "Windows Boot Manager", the GRUB timeout is not called and Windows loads instantly.

Also: no menu was ever shown even when I had (last week) Ubuntu Studio 20.04 on external HDD, with Boot Loader installed on /dev/sdb. - At that time I did not choose the flag to install the Additional Drivers.

Please help: I would like to see the menu so I can choose to boot what I want, instead of entering the BIOS every time I want to boot into Linux...

The BIOS Shows UEFI mode "Enabled".

My /etc/default/grub file looks like this:

# If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update
# /boot/grub/grub.cfg.
# For full documentation of the options in this file, see:
# info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration'
#GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=menu
GRUB_TIMEOUT=5
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""
# Uncomment to enable BadRAM filtering, modify to suit your needs
# This works with Linux (no patch required) and with any kernel that obtains
# the memory map information from GRUB (GNU Mach, kernel of FreeBSD ...)
#GRUB_BADRAM="0x01234567,0xfefefefe,0x89abcdef,0xefefefef"
# Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only)
#GRUB_TERMINAL=console
# The resolution used on graphical terminal
# note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE
# you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo'
GRUB_GFXMODE=1920x1080
# Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux
#GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true
# Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entries
#GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY="true"
# Uncomment to get a beep at grub start
#GRUB_INIT_TUNE="480 440 1"

As you can see, there are no lines relating to "HIDDEN".

EDIT 2020-10-24I think I made a series of mistakes when installing Linux.

When installing, I chose to manage partitions on my own. As described in this website for Linux Mint , I might have gotten the wrong partition: that's why GRUB starts BEFORE the Lenovo Logo.

Also: I think I messed up with Secure Boot, so now I'm not able to enter UEFI setup anymore... (And it makes me very sad).

I still don't understand why even when pressing F8 or hold Shift, the GRUB menu is not showing and I still get a black screen (This makes me even sadder)...

1 Answer

You can try enabling GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=menu:

• First, open /etc/default/grub with nano:

  sudo nano /etc/default/grub

• Next, delete the hash mark (#) at the beginning of #GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=menu (the # is a kind of "HIDDEN" in and of itself). In other words, change it from:

  #GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=menu

  to:

  GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=menu

• Press Ctrl+O and Enter to save the file, and Ctrl+X to exit nano and return to the terminal.

• Update grub with:

  sudo update-grub

• Restart and check.