Hello everyone,
I have a very weird situation right now. I installed ZorinOS 16 Core on my HP Pavilion Gaming Laptop 17-cd1xxx (UEFI) and it went completely fine without any errors. But after rebooting and wanting to select the GRUB EFI file i found only the folder which seemed to be empty. I expected that something went wrong and so i did the installation again just for the same issue to happen. Later on i mounted the EFI partition and checked it just to see that the "ubuntu" folder which holds the boot files for ZorinOS actually had the files inside properly. So for whatever reason my laptop is hiding those files inside the boot menu. Secure Boot is of course disabled.

Welcome to LQ!!!

Maybe (IDK but I'm trying to learn)
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1343...at32-boot-part
https://superuser.com/questions/1117...ng-ubuntu-grub

https://www.rodsbooks.com/efi-bootloaders/
https://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/installing.html
https://www.rodsbooks.com/efi-bootlo...ecureboot.html

Hopefully others will answer with better advice

If efibootmgr shows an entry for Zorin, Press f10 to go into firmware/bios settings, find the boot menu, select os-manager, move Zorin to the top with f5 f6 keys, press f10 to save.

Is the FAT file system for the EFI marked as ESP BOOT - I've come across this problem before, if it isn't, then it won't boot the system.

Are you using the boot from EFI file option on the HP?
Is Zorin the only OS installed? If not, what other OS do you have installed?
Many of the Ubuntu derivatives have an ubuntu folder in the EFI partition which contains the EFI files but the menuentry for Grub should show Zorin. Do you actually see the Grub boot menu?
Did you boot and install Zorin EFI mode?

Could it be that you have more then one efi partition? On different disks?

Hey'ya everyone
sorry for the late reply i got pretty busy with work ^^"

weirdly enough Zorin does not have an entry which confuses me even more now.

it is indeed. I always tell the installer to use the drive as bootloader and it then usually automatically sees that an ESP partition is there. Even tho i sometimes also have to specifically tell it that.

yes because i think Linux usually never makes itself an entry, you always have to first select the EFI file but when i go into the "ubuntu" folder it shows nothing like the folder is empty.

Windows 10 is installed since i wanted to do a dual-boot between Windows and Linux.

No and i also only have one disk.

Also a little update on the situation, even more weird stuff is happening. When trying to access the EFI files on Windows the "ubuntu" folder is just missing entirely. I also tried to install a different distro e.g. Fedora and my drive didn't appear at all.
In case someone is wondering, its an Intel Optane. Default installment of the laptop.

It sounds like you haven't got the relevant partition mounted. Can you post the output of 'lsblk'?

depends on where because i can't access the installed system. So my only option is to run it inside a LiveOS.

Do you mean the installer for Fedora did not see the single hard drive and partitions you have? Do you have windows hibernated?

Run lsblk from the LiveOS and post the output.

Also, the output of efibootmgr may be helpful. You can use this from a Live distro without having to mount anything.

Nope, i always disable fast boot because it honestly annoys me a little that the computer just hibernates instead of truly shut down.

so yeah even after installing, Zorin is not appearing inside efibootmgr. Probably not a good sign ^^".

Since the efibootmgr output does not show any Zorin or Ubuntu entry you will need to reinstall Grub in EFI mode. You can do an online search as there are countless sites with instructions such as the one at the link below. (If you use the link below, skip the part about creating an EFI partition as you already have one).

https://www.techzim.co.zw/2021/01/ho...-ubuntu-20-04/

Your first partition on the SSD appears to be the EFI partition. I'm curious as to what the 4th partition (537M) is? You can get that info with the command: sudo parted -l

I find it odd that a modern distro, especially Zorin would have gotten it wrong. Did the installer ask how to install grub?

Check your UEFI settings utility. You said Secure Boot is disabled, also make sure you don't have anything like "Legacy" or "CSM" enabled. In "Boot" if you have such a setting, make sure it says "UEFI Only."

I do remember I may have had an instance or two where just having Legacy enabled was enough to confuse an installer, but that was years ago.

I would also like to know the output of