Can't boot Ubuntu because Windows 10 rewrites entire EFI partition [Solved]
I'm having trouble setting up a dual boot with Windows 10 and Ubuntu 16.04 (Game-pack) on an HP Pavilion Gaming Laptop (15 -cx0049nr).
I realize that many, many questions have been asked on this, but I have read dozens of threads and tried all sorts of solutions with no luck.
So far, I cleared space with the disk management tool, disabled fast boot, hibernation and secure boot and installed Ubuntu with a live USB successfully.
Right after installation, I found that if I hit F9 right away while restarting, I get the boot device list, and can choose Ubuntu. But if I don't hit F9, it goes straight to Windows. At the next reboot, if I hit F9, the Ubuntu folder and all related .EFI files are gone.
Going back into Windows, the disk management utility shows the Ubuntu partition as unallocated space. Diskpart can't find it either. Exploring the EFI partition after mounting it with Diskpart confirms that the Ubuntu folder and all grub files are gone. It's like Windows has rewritten the EFI partition and refuses to acknowledge the Ubuntu partition.
So far, I have tried:
- Loading the liveUSB and running boot repair. This allows me to get in with F9 at start as before, until the first time that Windows boots. (At this point,
fdisk -lindicates that there is a discrepancy between primary and backup GPT partition tables. Gdisk can fix it, but it comes back every time.) - Installing rEFInd, which can't find any Ubuntu EFI files.
- Installing EasyUEFI, which also can't find any Ubuntu EFI files.
- Creating a boot entry for Ubuntu with bcdedit, which persists through multiple boots, but points to nothing (Error code 0xc00000076).
I'm at a loss as to where to go next.
In the live environment, with the Ubuntu install inaccessible, sudo parted -l indicates that the backup GPT table is corrupt, but the primary is OK, and shows:
Model: ATA ST1000LM049-2GH1 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 1000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags:
Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 1049kB 274MB 273MB fat32 EFI system partition boot, esp
2 274MB 290MB 16.8MB Microsoft reserved partition msftres
3 290MB 551GB 550GB ntfs Basic data partition msftdata
6 551GB 969GB 419GB ext4
7 969GB 982GB 12.8GB linux-swap(v1)
4 982GB 983GB 1028MB ntfs Basic data partition hidden, diag
5 983GB 1000GB 16.9GB ntfs Basic data partition hidden, msftdata
efibootmgr
BootCurrent: 0001
Timeout: 0 seconds
BootOrder: 2001,0000,3000,2002,2004
Boot0000* Windows Boot Manager
Boot0001* USB Hard Drive (UEFI) - KingstonDataTraveler 2.0 (KingstonDataTraveler 2.0)
Boot0002* Internal EFI Shell
Boot0004* Internal EFI Shell
Boot0005* Default hard drive Boot
Boot0006* Internal EFI Shell
Boot0007* Windows Boot Manager
Boot0008* Default hard drive Boot
Boot2001* EFI USB Device
Boot3000* Internal Hard Disk or Solid State Disk
Solution 1:
Finally resolved: Disable Optane memory from BIOS menu. This issue (and many others in my system) stemmed from Intel's new Optane technology. Apparently the optane memory is just a 16gb SSD with a special driver that allows it to store an image of the current Windows state that is not visible or modifiable by the user. The driver also renders the drive as invisible to both Windows and Linux. Thanks, Intel. See Intel's FAQ for more info (https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000024018/memory-and-storage/intel-optane-memory.html) I finally got past this issue by disabling the optane memory in my BIOS options, after which point my system started to behave as expected. It seems that the bootloader looked at the Optane first, so nothing I did to my regular SATA drive had any visible effect on the bootloader, or Windows. Wiser users than I can probably figure some way to use this extra SSD to advantage. If you're a basic user like me with a new HP laptop with Optane memory facing similar issues, try disabling the optane drive in BIOS.