ubuntu 13.10 does not boot

[Miguel Rozsas]

Looks like Ubuntu 13.10 installer has at least 2 problems with the installation process.
problem 1: It is unable to detect my windows 7 64 bits installation
problem 2: it does not install the correct grub configuration file and it was unable to boot.

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. It seems that your bug report is not filed about a specific source package though, rather it is just filed against Ubuntu in general. It is important that bug reports be filed about source packages so that people interested in the package can find the bugs about it. You can find some hints about determining what package your bug might be about at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage. You might also ask for help in the #ubuntu-bugs irc channel on Freenode.

To change the source package that this bug is filed about visit https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1247653/+editstatus and add the package name in the text box next to the word Package.

[This is an automated message. I apologize if it reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[Miguel Rozsas (marozsas)]

(1TB in a machine with a EFI BIOS capable, but disabled, working in the normal mode or legacy mode - I am not sure about the correct term to describe a EFI BIOS that can boot unsigned OS)

problem 1: It is unable to detect my windows 7 64 bits installation. As result, it deleted my previous windows installation and erased completely the partition table.
Even if you choose manual partitioning it will ignore the allocation for the several mount points (/boot, / and swap) and it will erase the previous partition table and create a new one.

This disk used to have a Windows 7 64 bits installed in the primary partition 1 and 2 and Ubuntu 13.04 using the primary partition 3 as /boot, and partition 5 for / and partition 6 for swap.
I was unable to upgrade from 13.04 to 13.10 using the update-manager tool, due to broken packages. I was upgrading from one version to the next since 12.04 and I thought that instead fixing the broken packages, it was better to make a clean install using a ubuntu 13.10 live cd running in a usb-flash.
The installer didn't recongnized the Windows and I didn't notice this during the installation setup.

After the first boot I realized the windows was gone and Ubuntu installted itself in the whole disk which is now,GPT type.
Next time I re-installed the Windows, used gparted to re-size the windows partition, creating manually partions for /boot, / and swap and during the install I associated manually the mount points to the correspondent entries in partition table. Note that again, Ubuntu didn't detect the Windows and didn't give an option to install Ubundu side-by-side.
Again, Ubuntu installed itseld in the whole disk, erasing the assigned partition table.

problem 2:
Next I used the program gdisk (expert mode/zap ) to remove the GPT signature and using fdisk , create a empty msdos table.
Again, I re-install Windows 7 first, re-size the disk to leave space to Ubuntu and this time Ubuntu installer recognized the Windows and gave an option to install Ubuntuu side-by-side.

At the end of installation grub menu was there and both Windows and Linux are avaiable to boot. Choosing Windows was ok, but choosing Ubuntu, I got the message, after a long while:

ALERT! /dev/disk/by-uuid/xxx.....xxxx does not exist.

Dropping to a shell!
BusyBox v1.18.5 (Ubuntu 1:1.18.5-1ubuntu4) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.
(initramfs)

Finally, I install Ubuntu 12.04 from an old image I had (which worked right way) then I upgrade it to 13.04 and then to 13.10 ! A lot of work, isn't ?
Currently I am running Ubuntu 13.10 side-by-side with Windows 7, but it was not easy !

[Miguel Rozsas (marozsas)]

I'm not sure what package is related to this bug. I think ubiquity is the most appropriate in this case.

[Andrei Karpenko (andy-karpenko)]

Affected me as well. Destroyed my Windows 7 partition without even alerting me. Several months of work. I didn't wait for THIS from Ubuntu.

I just cannot express how I feel in human words.

Allright, I resized partition so I could try to intall Windows 7 on the free space. Windows installer doesn't want to continue because it "cannot install in the GPT style".

[Andrei Karpenko (andy-karpenko)]

upd: at the start I had Windows 10 + Ubuntu 12.10 partitions. I tried to upgrade 12.10 to 13.10 with running clean install. Installer asked me if I want to install alongside with Ubuntu 12.10 or replace Ubuntu 12.10

I chose "replace", as there was no mentioning of Windows partition - I though it wouldn't even touch it. Apparently it did, in a very bad way.

[Simon Quigley (tsimonq2)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. We are sorry that we do not always have the capacity to look at all reported bugs in a timely manner. There have been many changes in Ubuntu since that time you reported the bug and your problem may have been fixed with some of the updates. It would help us a lot if you could test it on a currently supported Ubuntu version. If you test it and it is still an issue, kindly upload the updated logs by running only once:
apport-collect https://api.launchpad.net/1.0/bugs/1247653

and any other logs that are relevant for this particular issue.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for ubiquity (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]