Can not install linux mint, get errors
 

The 'grub-efi-amd64-signed' package failed to install into /target/. Without the GRUB boot loader, the installed system will not boot.

Why??
I created partitions, and mint installer can not do the job?

screen shot image of gparted.
I am installing the os root to sda2, and user to sda3, with grub installed to sda.

Did you install to the MBR?
Try boot repair:-

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=241498

https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2346196

You could also install Grub manually if need be.

Login with Live CD or usb as root
-Find out linux disk with fdisk -l
mount it
mount /dev/sda /mnt (sapce after mount and a space after sda
To Recover
grub-install –root-directory=/mnt /dev/sda

If other solutions fail, consider using a BootRepairDisk live disk to repair Grub:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/boot-repair-cd/

I tried boot-repair installed from liveusb, it did not work.
I have tried lots of stuff, nothing works.
I tried the manual install and update of grub.
I have also sought help on mintforums

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtop...33974#p1333974

NOTHING will make it boot linux.
It does run win10, win7.

I have a situation here where I do boot ubuntu from this board off a different hard drive.
I had installed ubuntu on a different PC, when that PC failed, I put the drive in this PC and it boots up.

BUT this motherboard will not boot new install of either mint or ubuntu,
Board is MSI 760GM-E51

I have no clue as to what is going on anymore with this thing.
I am using ubuntu on it to type this message.

My guess is If I want to install a new version of linux, I will be left with a non booting system. So I am really stuck and will have to buy a new PC to run linux or live with old linux OS. Better hope the hard drive does not crash.

I read other people say about this motherboard, bios supports UEFI and motherboard does not, but these KID compute geek wannabes don't really have a clue and give out worthless info, what ever pops into their heads.

My recommendation, do not buy MSI products. Buy Motherboards where UEFI can be disabled.
Scream at linux programmers to really fix UEFI install errors, no one trying to install linux should get cryptic UEFI errors on an install.
My guess is there are plenty of folk out there who wanted to install linux but could not because of UEFI errors, but they are the silent majority and do not post complaints on message boards.

On a FRESH installer install with a blank drive, the linux installer complains that this computer bios has booted in UEFI mode and the drive has os installed in bios mode and says this may prevent it from booting, if you FORCE a UEFI install to move forward... It does that with a blank hard drive, one that the installer erased.

Perhaps the drive needs to be formatted with NTFS, somehow totally wiped. I just do not know.

Hi,

I seriously think there is a good explanation for your problems and I am also a little confused about your last post (#5).

From the screenshot you uploaded, I can see the disk is MBR.

So, for clearing out all doubts here, can you please explain carefully what happened? I know UEFI systems quite well and I think I can help, even if it is not a UEFI problem :-).

So, you have a PC with MSI 760GM-E51. You successfully boot it up to now. What type of hard disk did you have on it and what OS's did you use to boot on it? A screenshot of this hard disk's config will be nice as well.

Then, please tell us what you did next. Another PC of yours crashed and you brought it's hard disk and plugged it into this one? How did you plug it? Which SATA or anything else?

After that, what did you notice changed at boot of this PC? What did you try? What errors?

I'm sorry if you find me irritating. I think if we get all the information clearly, we can find a solution quite fast.

I think I see why I am having problem, it may not be the bios, or the motherboard, IT SEEMS to be the WD hard drive.
I booted win7 and it shows the truth, these is an EFI partiton on thedrive of 512mb. However win7 diskmanagement will not allow me to delete that EFI partition.

What do you think?

The EFI partiton is now gone from disk 1 using windows7.

Will now try to reinstall ubuntu.

My original goal was to setup the drive with an NTFS partiton at the front and then 2 small os partitions, then 2 EXT4 partitions for users then swap.
So was to be able to boot mint and ubuntu with seperate os partition from users.

Ah, you have 3 disks. Since that one had an EFI partition, it must also have a GPT disk format.

Where do you want to install your Mint? On that disk 1?

I only want it installed on one hard drive, I pulled every drive out of the PC.

I removed the 512 mb efi partition.

I booted ubuntu liveusb
I partioned the drive using gparted

installer is giving me the same warning.
Which means the linux os will not boot.

here is the new gparted partitions.
There is only 1 drive in the pc

So far it has been impossible to create a working install, i am assuming due to uefi.

I have been working on this for several days...

At the beginning the disk was in MBR format. This is causing the error. You have to check with Gparted if the disk is not in GPT format. Then you can proceed.

how to check?

ok, from device info says it is in gpt partition table, is that good or bad?

parted info for disk

So do I give up?

I can try these suggestions I found
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI

Ok, this looks good. You can try to install Mint now.

If it still shows you error. You can try one more thing. Erase all partitions on disk, use Gparted to create a new partition table on the disk and choose "GPT". Then, without making any partitions on the disk, you tell Mint to install taking up whole disk. It will create its own partition and its swap. Later, you can shrink the system partition and add more partitions on the disk.

It still shows the error with that partition, scheme.
I can try erase disk and install ubuntu and see what happens.
I did erase disk before and windows 7 still showed that EFI 512mb partition. So erase disk and start over in the linux installer does NOT erase the disk.

But see, that makes me unhappy as I wanted a separate partition for the OS.

Last time I did erase disk, I got the error. If it happens this time, I will cancel the install, because it will not boot.

well, this time, installer immediately gave the UEFI warning on starting, I forced the install, told it to erase disk. I told it not to download updates or mp3 stuff to save time.

My guess is it will on restart simply give me aflashing white cursor. Too bad the linux programmers did not all have my system to experience when they made their installer, as then it would be working.

I understand, but maybe making a new empty GUID Partition Table (GPT) on the disk will work.

You said you booted Windows 7 on this computer? A gparted screenshot of that disk would have been informative.

Windows disk manager does not give useful information. From several of your screenshots the other hard disks looked like GPT, so we are assuming your system will boot UEFI. So, make sure there is no Legacy Boot activated in BIOS.

so your suggesting that running gparted from terminal as 'sudo gparted' in ubuntu 16.04 LTS can not create workable ext4 partitions that the installer can use? Which is what I have been doing.

Install has finished will now reboot.

No, I'm suggesting, since it is booting in UEFI mode, if you have already filled the disk with lots of partitions, the installer will not be able to install a bootloader on an EFI partition on the disk.

It fails to boot, just a blinking white cursor.
I am posting this from another pc.

my experience after at least 10 attempts to install is I always get the uefi error and it always fails to either install or boot after finishing the install.
Sometimes, earlier, maybe when the EFI 512mb partition was on there, when I had partitioned the drive manually, the installer could not update grub and it would just shut down.

Anyway this PC can run linux installed from another PC by swapping in an installed system,(meaning put in a working drive from another linux pc) but you can not install linux on this pc and have it boot.

I'll be frank with you, this does not sound at all possible. My best guess is that, since you took hard disk from another PC and brought it here, and honestly, I don't understand well what sequence of operation you did, there seemed to be a mix up between MBR and UEFI.

I think you can try what you suggested earlier:
For my part, I would have first verified that there is no legacy boot ON, then keeping only this disk in the PC I would have booted a USB Linux and run:
Then I would have created an empty GPT on the disk, an EFI partition and the rest (ext4, swap, ...).

I assure you it is most possible, I have done so many times and on many machines. Take a working install, stick into another PC and it boots, that is apparently the only way this motherboard can boot linux.

I see that the 512 EFI partion is created by the ubuntu linux installer, since it is back.

I tried ubuntu repair boot and tht fails to make it boot.

I know when I am beat, this is simply never going to work.
It wont do what I wnt, so I will have to install linux out at the boat on the PC out there.
This motherboard system here is crap regarding installing linux, but it does run really nice and fast linux.

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo gdisk /dev/sda
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.1

Partition table scan:
MBR: protective
BSD: not present
APM: not present
GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.

Command (? for help):

Wait a minute. Your screenshot shows a correct GPT. Get out of the gdisk. Try to see what is on /dev/sda1.

??ok, see what exactly?
And how to see this exactly?

If you mounted the /dev/sda1 you could see its content:
First see if it is not mounted:
Then create a mount point and mount it:

I know there are files written on the disk, but whats the point, ubuntu nautilus does not even show a disk, just its own liveusb system

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev 7.8G 0 7.8G 0% /dev
tmpfs 1.6G 9.5M 1.6G 1% /run
/dev/sdb1 3.8G 1.5G 2.3G 41% /cdrom
/dev/loop0 1.4G 1.4G 0 100% /rofs
aufs 7.9G 31M 7.9G 1% /
tmpfs 7.9G 32M 7.9G 1% /dev/shm
tmpfs 5.0M 4.0K 5.0M 1% /run/lock
tmpfs 7.9G 0 7.9G 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs 7.9G 132K 7.9G 1% /tmp
tmpfs 1.6G 84K 1.6G 1% /run/user/999
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo mkdir /mnt/efipartition
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/efipartition
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$

well their is stuff in there...created by the linux installer.

Thanks for the screenshot. The bootloader is installed in the directory "ubuntu". The odd thing is that there is a Microsoft directory. That disk was empty initially and you only booted Ubuntu USB and installed it. So, that's odd.

But anyway, does the ubuntu contain a ".efi" binary file?

I have an appointment here at 9 am, will be gone for several hours, if you have more ideas, please post them and will get back on this.

I did get this MB and this drive to install working copy of Mint WHEN, BUT, etc.. I had the other 2 drives with working ubuntu and windows 7 partitions installed in the machine. This machine has an UEFI error from the installer when their is only one drive in the system. My guess the other drives with functioning ubuntu that was installed on a different pc force installer to bios mode.

Ok. Thinking about your blinking white cursor, and knowing that the EFI partition contains that ubuntu directory, the bootloader does not load. It could be because it was not registered in the UEFI firmware settings.

So, assuming that EFI binary for ubuntu is at EFI/ubuntu/grubx64.efi, in order to register it in the UEFI firmware settings:
Just replace anything which does not tally with your system.

Have you tried to install any other linux OS? I've had Mint give me problems while another OS installs easily.

looks typical, sure tried ubuntu and mint.

It placed GRUB at Boot0003* there and it is first in the boot order. It should have booted correctly, unless the EFI binary is not named grubx64.efi under directory ubuntu. Can you please check this?

screen shot of that
Terminal was still open, I also reran the command and it looks a little different results?

Ok, it's good. It is grubx64.efi. Then, does it boot? Does it give you any error message?

Have you tried checking the BIOS boot priorities to see if GRUB is listed in the EFI bootloaders in BIOS?

Not tried a boot, let me retry it now.
How to check BIOS to see if Grub is listed? Are you talking the PC motherboard bios?

No booting, same white flashing cursor.

I looked in the bios of the PC, it is set to boot from the 1TB hard drive

Why does the linux installer say the machine firmware has started it in UEFI mode? But there is OS on the harddrive in bios mode?
There is a bug somewhere.
Is there a way to force the linux installer to start in bios mode?

Then maybe it is better you seriously look into all the settings in the BIOS to make the PC boot in Legacy Mode (i.e. no UEFI), then use gparted to create an empty partition table of type "msdos" on the hard disk and then install ubuntu. See if this works.

You have a strange PC. :-)

I have the same problem as this guy does.
And there is no solution as the machine firmware will not allow any changes.

https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2286793

I was able to install to this drive and boot to 64 bit Mint when I have the other 2 drives in the PC.
But when I pulled the other 2 drives to update grub by chroot and other methods, grub errored on updating.
And never can get it to boot 64 bit linux with this single drive in the PC.

I run 64 bit ubuntu on this motherboard, but I suppose I can never reinstall it, if it crashes.
I would have to install on another PC, then put the drive back in this PC.

I brought my boat PC home, it has Mint 17.3 64 bit on it.
I will pull the drive and put it in here and see if it boots.

That is right, strange. There is NO, NONE, no setting to make the PC boot in legacy mode, None at all. I have looked at every setting. The MSI folks, in this American Megatrends bios have a 'trusted computing' header, when you select it, it is a blank page.
And in boot settings, there are no options to select legacy mode or UEFI mode.

On the Mint Forum, I had a poster flat out tell me this is NOT a UEFI bios and motherboard, so I show him the warning screen about the machine firmware starting in UEFI mode, and then several more people tell me this is not a UEFI motherboard bios issue, so they dont seem to have a clue even with thousands of posts....
And the final solution they had was just run 32 bit Mint.

I have a better solution, install 64 bit Mint on another pc which is using bios mode, then plug into this PC and run it. The comments I got back was the system would be all messed up switching motherboard chipsets and they would consider it dumb idea, but it worked in the past for me.

We just cant get past this UEFI issue ever I think except if the linux programmers can create a switch to install in bios mde.

I think when I boot my ubuntu 64 bit on this PC, it was installed in legacy bios mode on my other PC which has died.

Then when I install 64 bit Mint to the 3rd hard drive, since machine is running in legacy bios mode, it installs and works, because it booted Ubuntu 64 bit installed in legacy mode from the dead PC which I yanked that drive and put it in this PC..

But when I pull all drives and leave this one, and try to update grub, since the 3rd drive is now having screwed up grub entries and cant boot, the machine firmware starts in UEFI mode and it will never reconcile.

I bet if I yank this non booting drive, stick into my boat PC, chroot into drive or use boot-repair, I can get it to boot.
Then I if I put back into this MSI bios PC, it will boot. Although I dont know if that EFI 512mb partition will interfere.

You know UEFI was created on Microsofts initiative as an attempt to stop Linux from being installed, although they would deny that.
I read plenty of negative things about how it would prevent people from installing Linux and it bit me too with this PC.

AFAIK only windows-tablets locked to secure boot, other mobos, notebooks and netbooks should allow legacy mode. And there is no "Enable legasy mode" setting, you have to disable secure boot, save changes and reboot and re-enter bios and then you should be able to activate old BIOS mode - it may be "CSM boot" or "CMS OS" option.

No it wasn't. EFI was developed by Intel for their Itanium systems to counter BIOS limitations. Secure Boot was created to provide security to the boot process. In the early days, Microsoft implemented the latter without a great deal of consideration for how it would affect other operating systems, but it was never an "attempt to stop Linux from being installed".

If people run around seeing false threats all the time, they won't be able to tell when a real threat emerges.

will look for secure boot setting, but dont recall that, it would have triggered a response in me.