So I had a perfectly functioning triple boot system (Windows 10, Ubuntu 14.04, Kali Linux 2.0). Tonight I come home boot up my system and don't get GRUB. I tried to trouble shoot from Boot-Repair-Disk but when running boot repair I get a message "Please close all your package managers (software center, update manager, synaptic, ...). Then try again." ..... I don't have anything of the sort open.
My boot info summary is here. Looks like GRUB somehow got deleted from the fact that there is no boot manager installed.
So my main question is obviously how to resolve this since for some reason Boot-Repair-Disk isn't working
My other major question would be what caused this? I haven't done any major updates to windows. The only thing I can think of that might have caused this was flashing my BIOS the other day? Just want to know what to avoid for futures sake!
52 Answers
You do have boot loaders installed. I suspect you're reading the following:
=> No boot loader is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda.That, however, refers to BIOS-mode boot loaders. Your system, however, is clearly booting in EFI mode, and there are EFI-mode boot loaders on your EFI System Partition (ESP; /dev/sda2 in your case).
EFI boot loaders are registered with the firmware, and the Linux efibootmgr tool can display information on them. Your Boot Repair output includes this information on lines 1081-1108:
Boot0003* UEFI: Built-in EFI Shell Vendor(5023b95c-db26-429b-a648-bd47664c8012,)..BO
Boot0004* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot0007* Hard Drive BIOS(2,0,00)..GO..NO........o.S.a.m.s.u.n.g. .S.S.D. .8.5.0. .E.V.O. .2.5.0.G.B....................A...........................>..Gd-.;.A..MQ..L.2.S.N.1.X.N.G.A.0.C.8.1.2.3. .H. . . . ........BO..NO........o.W.D.C. .W.D.1.0.E.Z.E.X.-.0.0.B.N.5.A.0....................A...........................>..Gd-.;.A..MQ..L. . . . .W. .-.D.C.W.3.C.0.F.L.N.T.V.D.Y........BO
Boot0008* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot0009* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot000A* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot000B* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot000C* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot000D* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot000E* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot000F* Unknown Device BIOS(b,0,00)..GO..NO........i.P.N.Y. .U.S.B. .2...0. .F.D. .1.1.0.0....................A.......................<..Gd-.;.A..MQ..L.P.N.Y. .U.S.B. .2...0. .F.D. .1.1.0.0........BO
Boot0011* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot0012* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot0013* UEFI: PNY USB 2.0 FD 1100 ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(12,2)USB(1,0)HD(1,70,1d19f90,c3072e18)..BO
Boot0014* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot0015* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot0016* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot0017 UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot0018 UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot0019 UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot001A UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot001B* Windows Boot Manager HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)File(EFIMICROSOFTBOOTBOOTMGFW.EFI)..BOTwo things jump out at me about this output:
- There is no
ubuntuentry, as there should be. - There are multiple duplicate entries for
Samsung SSD.
You should be able to fix the first problem with the following command, typed from the emergency disk you used to run Boot Repair:
sudo efibootmgr -c -d /dev/sda -p 2 -l //EFI//ubuntu//shimx64.efi -L "ubuntu"(If the system complains that there is no efibootmgr command, type sudo apt-get install efibootmgr to install it.)
That command should create an ubuntu entry and make it the default. That said, it's possible that the ubuntu entry does not exist because whatever has caused the redundant Samsung SSD entries to appear has messed up the NVRAM data and pushed the ubuntu entry out. This type of problem could also prevent the new entry from "taking." If so, there are at least a couple of possible workarounds:
- You can use
efibootmgrto delete the redundant entries. Typingsudo efibootmgr -b 0004 -Bwill delete theBoot0004entry. Repeat the command, but changing0004to each of theSamsung SSDentries in turn, to delete them all (or perhaps just all but one of them). Do not delete the various entries other than theSamsung SSD-- those all seem to be valid, and I've seen EFIs flake out if you delete certain necessary entries. - You can use the firmware's setup tool to reset all the firmware options to the default. This may eliminate all the NVRAM entries, whereupon you'll need to use
efibootmgrto re-create theubuntuentry, as just described.
If you continue to have problems after trying this, I recommend you read the following pages for more background information before trying anything else:
- Adam Williamson's blog entry on how EFI works -- This page describes the theory behind EFI-mode booting.
- My page on installing Linux on EFI systems -- This page is a more practical introduction to EFI-mode booting than Adam Williamson's blog.
With any luck, the information on those pages will help you understand EFI-mode booting, which should help you debug EFI boot problems and, if you can't figure it out yourself, ask the right questions.
7I encountered this error message from Boot Repair when trying to use it to install GRUB for an installation with a separate /var partition. Deselecting the option "Purge GRUB before reinstalling" got rid of the error and Boot Repair successfully installed GRUB.
(In my case, GRUB was not previously installed. The Ubiquity installer for Linux Mint 18.1 failed - and crashed - to install it to a disk on a Promise fakeRAID controller, meaning I had to use the --no-bootloader option for Ubiquity to get the installation - into LVM partitions - to complete.)
