VirtualBox boots only in UEFI Interactive shell

Question

I installed Ubuntu 14.10 in VirtualBox with UEFI. But now I have rebooted this OS and now it boots into a UEFI Interactive Shell v2.0. How can I boot normally into Grub again?

score 58 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:24

I encountered the same problem and found that if I issue following command in the interactive shell, the virtual machine would boot into Ubuntu:

fs0:\efi\ubuntu\grubx64.efi

(Use backslash, forward slash does not work. Commands in UEFI interactive shell are case insensitive.)

My VirtualBox version is 4.3.20 r96997, Ubuntu version is 14.10 AMD64. I do not know why this happens and how to solve it. Just found this not elegant and still a little bit troublesome workaround.

Update 1:

I read this, tracked down to a bug report and found a better workaround.

Update 2:

Workaround in Update 1 failed. I turned off the virtual machine, launched it. And it booted into UEFI Interactive shell again. According to this, the problem was probably cause by a VirtualBox bug. I am still looking for further solution to this.

Update 3:

Finally found an solution. According to this, you need to create a startup.nsh script manually. Except for the method in mentioned post, you can also do this:

$ sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
$ cd /mnt
$ sudo sh -c "echo '\EFI\ubuntu\grubx64.efi' > startup.nsh"

VRR · Answer 2 · 2015-08-19T13:20:27.860

I had the same problem (with the EFI enabled because I couldn't get it to run otherwise). Strange; although installation of Ubuntu 14.04.2 got no error, installing Kubuntu 15.04 failed to finalize. It froze at the very end when asked to remove DVD. After reset, it booted fine but after power down it brought up shell.

So, to avoid shell type:

fs0:
edit startup.nsh

and on the opened window add these 2 lines:

FS0:
\EFI\ubuntu\grubx64.efi

press Ctrl + s and Enter to save and Ctrl + q to quit. Then restart VM.

Alternatively, you can always use these 2 lines to exit shell and boot OS. But second time you restart you will be in a shell again and to avoid it edit startup.nsh.

score 13 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 05 '15 at 19:56

Another option is to un-check the Extended Features option called 'Enable EFI' under 'Motherboard' for your VM.

Had this issue come up for Gnome Ubuntu 12.04.2 amd64bit installation.

Discovered this after having to change settings for hardware acceleration. I was left with having VT-x/AMD-V, Nested Paging enabled. My VM has 2 CPUs, 8GB RAM for reference.

After un-checking the issue is completely by-passed Gnome Ubuntu boots up no issues. Running Virtual Box 4.3.18 r96516 on Windows 7 64-bit Host.

score 4 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 06 '15 at 12:01

4

Copy grubx64.efi to /EFI/boot/bootx64.EFI
VirtualBox use that bootx64.efi to boot.
Ref.: Archlinux Virtualbox wiki

answered Dec 06 '15 at 12:01

cylgalad

161
1
4

score 4 · Answer 5 · answered Jan 17 '16 at 12:31

4

I recently encountered this problem. Please check your virtual OS settings. Right click on virtual os-> system->Extended features-> Enable EFI(uncheck this).

answered Jan 17 '16 at 12:31

Sudip7

157

score 2 · Answer 6 · edited Mar 08 '17 at 08:33

Another work around:

In the uefi shell, boot temporarily in to ubuntu using:

fs0:
cd EFI
cd ubuntu
grubx64

Then, inside ubuntu, edit startup.nsh file like below:

Open terminal Ctrl+Alt+T.

Type:

sudo nano /boot/efi/startup.nsh

Enter your password.

Now delete all that is in there using del or backspace key.

Then type this exactly: (FS0- that is the numeral 0, not the alphabet O)

FS0:
\EFI\ubuntu\grubx64.efi

Now press Ctrl+O (That is alphabet O).

Then, Alt+D (To change text to msdos format).

Then press Enter.

Then Ctrl+X.

Now reboot.

sudo reboot

Everything should be fine now.

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Jul 21 '18 at 11:31

Using Ubuntu 16.04.4 with EFI enabled and while starting the virtual machine I found that it won't boot and just stay in the EFI interactive shell.

This is how I fixed the boot:

First, I found that the grubx64.efi is located in BLK2, so for a one time boot I just typed the following in the interactive shell:

BLK2:/EFI/ubuntu/grubx64.efi

And viola, Ubuntu is up and running.

I order to permanently fix this issue, once the system was up I echoed the following line into /boot/efi/startup.nsh.

sudo echo 'BLK2:/EFI/ubuntu/grubx64.efi' > /boot/efi/startup.nsh

That's it, the system will boot correctly.

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Apr 18 '21 at 12:49

For ArchLinux on Virtualbox, following did the trick for me. On EFI Shell enter the following

Shell> bcfg boot add 0 FS0:\EFI\GRUB\grubx64.efi "GRUB"

Here we are setting the EFI boot order. I assume this works for any other Linux guests as well having EFI boot. Note: Your directory structure might differ. You can do ls on EFI prompt to check your directory structure to reach grubx64.efi after entering FS0: and hit enter.

Hope this helps!

score 1 · Answer 9 · answered Apr 11 '15 at 07:42

I could solve this issue by changing the cdrom device within virtualbox from IDE to SATA. I removed the standard mapping of the virtual cdrom drive within the device configuration.

Simply add a cdrom device to the existing SATA Controller which is to be used for your installation media.

Et voila, no further problems with EFI.

score 1 · Answer 10 · answered Sep 08 '16 at 02:38

1

for this you need to write it like the following:

fs0:
cd EFI
cd ubuntu
grubx64

this is how i got it to work if you write it any other way it wont work.

answered Sep 08 '16 at 02:38

Dan Duncker

11

score 0 · Answer 11 · edited Apr 16 '19 at 11:00

0

For defining or change of efi boot directory need to first run this command. This solved my problem.

sudo grub-install /dev/sda --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi/

NOTE: /dev/sda is the system hard disk.

edited Apr 16 '19 at 11:00

vidarlo

23,497

answered Apr 16 '19 at 09:54

user945376

11

George Bungarzescu · Answer 12 · 2021-02-17T21:23:32.230

0

On some linux guests , install process does not update the efi boot order. It depends on the distro version and virtualbox/efi version. This issue had affected, for example, Debian in early 2020 . The solutions are:

1.manualy run efibootmgr https://linux.die.net/man/8/efibootmgr

fix efi boot order. For that, type first "exit" in efi shell, after vm start

edited Feb 17 '21 at 21:23

answered Apr 12 '20 at 11:35

George Bungarzescu

121

score 0 · Answer 13 · answered Feb 17 '25 at 12:27

0

You probably have an incompatible ISO. I was mistakenly using amd64 iso for ubuntu 22 on Apple Silicon. Using arm64 iso solved the issue for me.

answered Feb 17 '25 at 12:27

ANU279

1

score 0 · Answer 14 · answered Mar 12 '16 at 00:44

After installing Kubuntu15.10 in VirtualBox5 with UEFI, the reboot of the VM fails.

Adding the line

FS0:\EFI\ubuntu\grubx64.efi

in the UEFI-Shell doesn't help.

And the solution with creating a new startup.nsh file in Kubuntu15.10 in the chroot environment with

sudo echo '\EFI\ubuntu\grubx64.efi' > startup.nsh

gives also no improvement.

I found the solution:

The problem was, that the directory /boot/efi/EFI/ubuntu with the file grubx64.efi doesn't exist.

After booting a Live-CD and changing to the chroot environment, I installed the missing packets and create the needed NVRAM entry with:

sudo apt-get install grub-efi-amd64-signed shim-signed
sudo update-grub

VirtualBox boots only in UEFI Interactive shell

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