I have 3 drives on my PC. I formatted windows 7 and am trying to install ubuntu on 1 with 1 for a swap file and the other saved files. Ubuntu still thinks I have another operating system and each time I try to install at the end of the installation I get the message "the grub-efi-amd-signed package failed to install into/ target/. Without the grub boot loader the installed system will not boot." So how do I get rid of my windows boot loader and replace it with the grub boot loader? Thanks.

What is the "target" for your GRUB?

Also, if I recall correctly, "secure boot" and EFI came to Windows with Vista, subsequent to Windows 7.

I don't know what the target is for my grub or what an efi is. First time.

efi is a replacement for BIOS.

If your computer has a BIOS, I think you cannot install an efi-based OS on it.

Full disclosure: I have never dealt with efi and have had no direct experience with it. I trust someone with such experience will join this thread.

My current computers are native Linux computers, two from Zareason and and one from ThinkPenguin.

Oh, and welcome to LQ.

I expect it must be possible as a lot of folks move from windows to Linux. Thanks.

Try installing the boot loader to the first drive. If the step fails, boot with the rescue system and install it that way. But you might need to know whether thew system uses UEFI or BIOS. Most systems can use both, but only one at a time. Virtualbox works so well now, it's hardly worth multi-booting.

Thanks but all I have is an ubuntu disk. No boot loader or rescue system.

Your installation disk should have a rescue boot option. See e.g. https://www.tecmint.com/rescue-repai...der-in-ubuntu/.

Thanks but I just checked and with ubuntu 16 I do not have the rescue boot option. Another question at the beginning just after choosing language it says I have another system with a bios and gives the option to proceed saying the other system won't work (neither works) or go back and change installation type. I have 3 drives. What type of file system should the Linux system and swap drive and my storage drive be. ext4,ext3,ext2, swap area, btrfs, jfs, xfs, fat16, fat32, efi ?

Running https://github.com/arvidjaar/bootinfoscript can tell you and us what's going on, allowing someone to figure out what to do next. It sounds to me like you have a UEFI system and have been trying to install in legacy mode without eradicating the existing UEFI/ESP partition.

Run the script as a sudoer? Not sure what that means and I don't have an operating system on the computer to run the script. I expect you are right I need to eradicate something (bios boot loader?) but it is not visible.

Bootinfoscript is just a script. Every installation media I've run across provides a shell cmdline that can run a script, typically via Ctrl-Alt-F2 if not others. The script can be on a floppy, CD, HD partition, USB device, anywhere you can put and get access to it.

If you had windows 7 installed you more than likely still have some ntfs data filesystems on some of your partitions?? Windows 7 was by default a Legacy install with no EFI and the message you are reporting shows that you are trying to install Ubuntu UEFI. I would suggest that you read the link below which is the Ubuntu documentation on dual booting with windows UEFI as it has an explanation of how you can set your computer to boot UEFI or Legacy and what you would expect to see when booting either. You need to decide whether to install UEFI or Legacy/MBR and that depends upon what your end goal is. If you only expect to install Ubuntu, it should not matter much.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI

Also, getting the bootinfoscript and running it from the Ubuntu install meddia or booting the Ubuntu install media and going to the site below and getting boot repair, downloading and running it per the detailed instructions would provide much more helpful information and someone should be able to help.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

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I went through both of your links and tried and a number of things and I don't know exactly how but something worked and I got it installed and saved my files from the windows system. Thanks so much everyone's help.