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On trying to install Ubuntu 12.10 Desktop amd64 to a desktop pc using a ga a75 ud4h motherboard (which is using an AMD 3870k APU with a new 1TB HDD) following the advice in the motherboard manual and https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI have now got to grub option screen for EFI install.

Booting live dvd in EFI mode gives "Secure Boot is not enabled" just before grub kernel option list shows. EFI install

If the option to "Install Ubuntu" or "Try Ubuntu without installing" is selected gives "can not read cd/0" and "the kernel must be loaded first" errors.

Using DVD or USB installation media gives same results and there has never been at any point an UEFI entry in bios/firmware settings or boot device list/s.

It might be helpful to say that have had an alternative non-linux OS installing EFI mode on this hardware giving a GPT installation automagically using USB installation media when the hdd space was completely unallocated space. The USB device was listed under hard drives in bios/firmware one time boot list and did not have an UEFI entry. i.e. it installed EFI although no EFI or UEFI entry was assigned to the device like what is shown in many tutorials regarding UEFI installs.

Am trying to get to live session using EFI mode.
How to edit kernel or load kernel for EFI mode "Try Ubuntu without installing?.

fernando garcía's answer and comments to this Ask Ubuntu question hints at the answer but does not share how. Looking at the manual/website for Grub2 gives the information on how to boot an OS but when running .iso after booting Ubuntu EFI mode from DVD then dropping to command and entering search -f /vmlinuz or search -f /sbin/init no usable kernels are listed due to errors. (No error codes given just confirms bad EFI files.)

The output of ls -l at grub prompt
gruboutput

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geezanansa
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1 Answers1

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This is a bit of a long shot, but Gigabyte motherboards with the hybrid EFI have a problem with case sensitivity: Certain comparisons are done in a case-sensitive way when in fact they should be done in a case-insensitive way. My suspicion is that you're running into this problem. You might try to mount the USB flash drive version of the installer with various options for the shortname mount option, move (don't copy) the kernel file (casper/vmlinuz.efi on the disk) off the disk, and then copy it back. This may adjust the case of the filename and make the file visible to GRUB. This type of change is possible, but much harder to do, using CD-R media.

Another option is to upgrade the firmware. Gigabyte lists several updates for this board, and it's possible that one of them will fix the problem. The latest is marked as a "Beta BIOS," and it's possible it's not the buggy Hybrid EFI with which the computer shipped. (Gigabyte offers updates away from the Hybrid EFI on some boards, but I'm not sure if yours is one of them.)

If these suggestions both fail, my only other suggestion is to abandon use of EFI on this computer. If it has a Hybrid EFI, that is a VERY buggy EFI implementation, and it's almost never worth using. If you must, it's likely to be easier to install Linux in BIOS mode and then fix the EFI-mode booting once the basic installation is complete.

Rod Smith
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