Installing Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS alongside Windows 10 (Dual Boot) causes grub install to fail with fatal error

[Rohan Paul]

1. Installing Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS on HP Spectre x360 Convertible laptop alongside pre-installed Windows 10 (Dual Boot)
2. Windows installed in UEFI mode
3. Ubuntu installation fails towards the end when attempting to install grub2

Expected:
Install to be successful

Actual:
Install failed when trying to install grub

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Package: ubiquity 18.04.14.12
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.0.0-23.24~18.04.1-generic 5.0.15
Uname: Linux 5.0.0-23-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.7
Architecture: amd64
CasperVersion: 1.394
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Mon Aug 12 16:54:19 2019
InstallCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper only-ubiquity quiet splash ---
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS "Bionic Beaver" - Release amd64 (20190805)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 LC_NUMERIC=C.UTF-8
SourcePackage: grub-installer
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Chris Guiver (guiverc)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better.

I note the following messages

Aug 12 23:47:46 ubuntu kernel: [ 356.482177] FAT-fs (nvme0n1p1): error, fat_get_cluster: invalid cluster chain (i_pos 0)
Aug 12 23:47:47 ubuntu grub-installer: grub-install: error: cannot open `/boot/efi/EFI/ubuntu/grubx64.efi': Input/output error.

I would suggest `fsck` (ie. performing a file system check) or `badblocks` of your EFI partition, or ensuring 'fastboot' is disabled in windows 10 to ensure the EFI partition is left in a clean state.

[Rohan Paul (rohanpaul11)]

Thanks for your reply.

I had already disabled Fastboot in Windows.

I ran `chkdsk /f /r` from Windows on the EFI partition and then tried installing Ubuntu. The installation succeeded but I was not able to boot into Ubuntu. I used bcdedit to add grubx64.efi to the boot path but even that did not help. To make matters worse, when I tried reinstalling Ubuntu, I started getting the same error again - "grub-install failed...this is a fatal error". Unfortunately this time, even `chkdsk` from Windows failed to resolve the issue. So I used `Try Ubuntu` option from the live usb stick and ran the commands you suggested for my EFI partition:

sudo fsck /dev/nvme0n1p1
sudo badblocks /dev/nvme0n1p1 -v

There were no errors reported.

I have spent over a day now on this and am really not sure what is wrong here.
I would really appreciate some help/insight.
Let me know if any more info is required.
Thanks.

[Rohan Paul (rohanpaul11)]

I have now managed to get rid of this error. I had to manually delete the directory "/EFI/ubuntu". However, I had to delete the folder both from windows and ubuntu (booted using live usb). I find that weird since both OSs refer to the same EFI partition and hence the ubuntu folder once deleted from windows should not have been visisble from ubuntu.

Unfortunately, I am still unable to boot ubuntu after I restart once the installation completes successfully. I tried running boot-repair, tried mounting the linux partition and the EFI partition in a live usb session and reinstalled grub in a chroot environment, I even booted into windows and set the bootmgr path to /EFI/ubuntu/gubx64.efi. Nothing worked.

Something weird that I noticed is: after I install linux, if I run a terminal and mount the EFI partition, I can see the /EFI/ubuntu folder with all the files (mmx, grubx, shimx). But as soon as I restart and go to the boot options, I don't see any entry for ubuntu. When I select "Boot from EFI file", I am unable to see any ubuntu directory in the EFI dir which is weird since just moments ago I saw its existence from the live USB. Naturally, I am unable to boot into Ubuntu and can only boot into Windows. I tried every possible solution here (https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2147295) and nothing seems to be working.

[Rohan Paul (rohanpaul11)]

I managed to finally solve this by reinstalling Windows and then installing Ubuntu 18.04.3 again. I don't know what the difference was when I installed Windows myself(as opposed to the preinstalled version) but doing this certainly solved the issue. I was able to dual boot after that.

[Alexander Mescheryakov (alexander-s-m)]

I've encountered the same issue while installing Kubuntu 20.04.

In my case it was resolved by checking FS with dosfsck.