18.04 erasing all reinstall on uefi fails to install the boot loader

[Péter Prőhle]

There was already a working 18.04 in UEFI mode. I just reinstalled it using an USB stick with UEFI boot, asking the installer to totally erase the target disk and to make a default system.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Package: ubiquity 18.04.14
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-20.21-generic 4.15.17
Uname: Linux 4.15.0-20-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: wl
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7
Architecture: amd64
CasperVersion: 1.394
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Mon Aug 20 11:50:00 2018
InstallCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper only-ubiquity quiet splash ---
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS "Bionic Beaver" - Release amd64 (20180426)
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)

[Péter Prőhle (prohlep)]

I have the same problem on a Lenovo Thinkpad E125 as well.

Assuming the uefi and root partitions are /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2
respectively, the following helped in the case of Lenovo, but did not help
in case of Asus Eee PC 1215B :

     boot in UEFI the 18.04.1 pen,

     continue in "try" mode and then in a terminal after "sudo -s"

     mount "/dev/sda2 /mnt

     mkdir --parents /mnt/boot/efi

     mount "/dev/sda1 /mnt/boot/efi

     for x in dev dev/pts proc sys ; do
         mount -B /$x /mnt/$x
     done

     modprobe efivars

     apt-get install --reinstall grub-efi-amd64-signed

     grub-install --no-nvram --root-directory=/mnt

     chroot /mnt update-grub

     cd /mnt/boot/efi/EFI

     cp -R ubuntu/* BOOT/

     cd BOOT

     cp grubx64.efi bootx64.efi

In case of Asus 1215B the following did help:

     boot in UEFI the 18.04.1 pen,

     continue in "try" mode and then in a terminal after "sudo -s"

     add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair

     apt-get update

     apt-get install -y boot-repair

     boot-repair

Now the both old (2011 = early UEFI) laptops boot 18.04 in UEFI mode.

It would be nice, if the 18.04 install media would have this fairly
universal, not really laptop-specific knowledge, ... what I learned from
various internet resources.

[Péter Prőhle (prohlep)]

Thanks for the help, I hope it will solve the problem in a future release.