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So I had a perfectly functioning triple boot system (Windows 10, Ubuntu 14.04, Kali Linux 2.0). Tonight I come home boot up my system and don't get GRUB. I tried to trouble shoot from Boot-Repair-Disk but when running boot repair I get a message "Please close all your package managers (software center, update manager, synaptic, ...). Then try again." ..... I don't have anything of the sort open.

My boot info summary is here. Looks like GRUB somehow got deleted from the fact that there is no boot manager installed.

So my main question is obviously how to resolve this since for some reason Boot-Repair-Disk isn't working

My other major question would be what caused this? I haven't done any major updates to windows. The only thing I can think of that might have caused this was flashing my BIOS the other day? Just want to know what to avoid for futures sake!

ImagineerCam
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2 Answers2

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You do have boot loaders installed. I suspect you're reading the following:

=> No boot loader is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda.

That, however, refers to BIOS-mode boot loaders. Your system, however, is clearly booting in EFI mode, and there are EFI-mode boot loaders on your EFI System Partition (ESP; /dev/sda2 in your case).

EFI boot loaders are registered with the firmware, and the Linux efibootmgr tool can display information on them. Your Boot Repair output includes this information on lines 1081-1108:

Boot0003* UEFI: Built-in EFI Shell  Vendor(5023b95c-db26-429b-a648-bd47664c8012,)..BO
Boot0004* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot0007* Hard Drive    BIOS(2,0,00)..GO..NO........o.S.a.m.s.u.n.g. .S.S.D. .8.5.0. .E.V.O. .2.5.0.G.B....................A...........................>..Gd-.;.A..MQ..L.2.S.N.1.X.N.G.A.0.C.8.1.2.3. .H. . . . ........BO..NO........o.W.D.C. .W.D.1.0.E.Z.E.X.-.0.0.B.N.5.A.0....................A...........................>..Gd-.;.A..MQ..L. . . . .W. .-.D.C.W.3.C.0.F.L.N.T.V.D.Y........BO
Boot0008* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot0009* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot000A* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot000B* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot000C* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot000D* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot000E* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot000F* Unknown Device    BIOS(b,0,00)..GO..NO........i.P.N.Y. .U.S.B. .2...0. .F.D. .1.1.0.0....................A.......................<..Gd-.;.A..MQ..L.P.N.Y. .U.S.B. .2...0. .F.D. .1.1.0.0........BO
Boot0011* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot0012* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot0013* UEFI: PNY USB 2.0 FD 1100 ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(12,2)USB(1,0)HD(1,70,1d19f90,c3072e18)..BO
Boot0014* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot0015* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot0016* UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot0017  UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot0018  UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot0019  UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot001A  UEFI: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(11,0)03120a000000ffff0000HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)..BO
Boot001B* Windows Boot Manager  HD(2,e1800,32000,a58a1cd6-0de6-44ef-ba6e-a358cdc2952b)File(EFIMICROSOFTBOOTBOOTMGFW.EFI)..BO

Two things jump out at me about this output:

  • There is no ubuntu entry, as there should be.
  • There are multiple duplicate entries for Samsung SSD.

You should be able to fix the first problem with the following command, typed from the emergency disk you used to run Boot Repair:

sudo efibootmgr -c -d /dev/sda -p 2 -l //EFI//ubuntu//shimx64.efi -L "ubuntu"

(If the system complains that there is no efibootmgr command, type sudo apt-get install efibootmgr to install it.)

That command should create an ubuntu entry and make it the default. That said, it's possible that the ubuntu entry does not exist because whatever has caused the redundant Samsung SSD entries to appear has messed up the NVRAM data and pushed the ubuntu entry out. This type of problem could also prevent the new entry from "taking." If so, there are at least a couple of possible workarounds:

  • You can use efibootmgr to delete the redundant entries. Typing sudo efibootmgr -b 0004 -B will delete the Boot0004 entry. Repeat the command, but changing 0004 to each of the Samsung SSD entries in turn, to delete them all (or perhaps just all but one of them). Do not delete the various entries other than the Samsung SSD -- those all seem to be valid, and I've seen EFIs flake out if you delete certain necessary entries.
  • You can use the firmware's setup tool to reset all the firmware options to the default. This may eliminate all the NVRAM entries, whereupon you'll need to use efibootmgr to re-create the ubuntu entry, as just described.

If you continue to have problems after trying this, I recommend you read the following pages for more background information before trying anything else:

With any luck, the information on those pages will help you understand EFI-mode booting, which should help you debug EFI boot problems and, if you can't figure it out yourself, ask the right questions.

Rod Smith
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I encountered this error message from Boot Repair when trying to use it to install GRUB for an installation with a separate /var partition. Deselecting the option "Purge GRUB before reinstalling" got rid of the error and Boot Repair successfully installed GRUB.

(In my case, GRUB was not previously installed. The Ubiquity installer for Linux Mint 18.1 failed - and crashed - to install it to a disk on a Promise fakeRAID controller, meaning I had to use the --no-bootloader option for Ubiquity to get the installation - into LVM partitions - to complete.)

user646296
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