Grub2 failed to install

[Gerhard Burger]

I had dual boot with 14.04 and Windows 10. Got warning about running the 16.04 installer in UEFI mode while one of the systems wasn't UEFI. Then installer crashed because could not install grub.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
Package: ubiquity 2.21.63
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.4.0-21.37-generic 4.4.6
Uname: Linux 4.4.0-21-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2
Architecture: amd64
CasperVersion: 1.376
Date: Thu May 5 15:06:42 2016
InstallCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/casper/vmlinuz.efi file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu-gnome.seed boot=casper only-ubiquity quiet splash ---
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu-GNOME 16.04 LTS "Xenial Xerus" - Release amd64 (20160421)
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
SourcePackage: grub-installer
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Phillip Susi (psusi)]

Your disk is currently partitioned to boot in bios mode, but you booted the 16.04 installer in EFI mode. A warning message prompted you that this could be a problem and recommended performing a bios mode install instead, but you chose not to. You either need to perform the bios mode install, or partition the disk using GPT and set up an EFI system partition to install in EFI mode. This will be done for you if you choose the "use entire disk" guided install option.

[Gerhard Burger (burger.ga)]

Thanks for having a look at it, in the end I did just that. However the warning message could be a little more informative (pointing to a website where the alternatives are explained?).

[Dave Gawley (dlgawley-8)]

Hmm, I likely should not have chosen this as a similar bug to mine as grub booting (including chaining to windows boot process) was working until I patched the new Windows 10 Education install.

GPT partitioning by gparted was done before I started the Windows 10 Education install. Once the Win10 was installed (no networking available so no patching) and rebootability demonstrated, I installed Ubuntu Mate 16.04.1 which initially went fine (including the Grub2 install). Reached my destination where Internet was available. Patched Windows 10 and windows boot loader took over the boot process. I've now tried reinstalling grub2 from Ubuntu 16.04.1 server key, fresh installs of the Ubuntu 16.04.1 and Ubuntu Mate 16.04.1 from scratch only to get that installation of grub2 failed. Now that I've finished this report, I go double check my bios setting.