Can't access UEFI after installing linux dual boot

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Answers

  • jici79
    jici79 Member Posts: 34 Die Hard WiFi Icon
    Answer ✓
    @JordanB

    Update! Yeah !

    Sorry for the delay but i was able to succesfully install Mint 18.3

    What i did

    1- Flash BIOS to version 1,07 ( not sure if it is necessary but it is prt of what i did )

    I then followed the steps suggested by JordanB

    1. Make sure secure boot is enabled.
    2. Set a supervisor password
    3. Insert your linux USB
    4. Add Grub to trusted secure boot settings.....see link below.  example Ubuntu......   \EFI\ubuntu\grubx64.efi
    5. Install linux

    On linux install when asked to set a password to disable secure boot in order to install proprietary driver i did it as asked

    When asked to choose how to install i chose the first option ( something like install beside windows )

    When i restarted the computer GRUB menu appeared on boot giving me the choice between linux and windows

    Both OS are working

    I can still access BIOS

    95% satisfied since it's  Mint and not Debian ( missing GNOME 3 ) but i'll wait 6 month or a year and get back to Debian

    VICTORY!!!!!!
  • moioliJ
    moioliJ Member Posts: 1 New User
    jici79 said:
    @JordanB

    Update! Yeah !

    Sorry for the delay but i was able to succesfully install Mint 18.3

    What i did

    1- Flash BIOS to version 1,07 ( not sure if it is necessary but it is prt of what i did )

    I then followed the steps suggested by JordanB

    1. Make sure secure boot is enabled.
    2. Set a supervisor password
    3. Insert your linux USB
    4. Add Grub to trusted secure boot settings.....see link below.  example Ubuntu......   \EFI\ubuntu\grubx64.efi
    5. Install linux

    On linux install when asked to set a password to disable secure boot in order to install proprietary driver i did it as asked

    When asked to choose how to install i chose the first option ( something like install beside windows )

    When i restarted the computer GRUB menu appeared on boot giving me the choice between linux and windows

    Both OS are working

    I can still access BIOS

    95% satisfied since it's  Mint and not Debian ( missing GNOME 3 ) but i'll wait 6 month or a year and get back to Debian

    VICTORY!!!!!!
    I love You hahaha... anyway thank you very very much... you have save me....
  • taiwei
    taiwei Member Posts: 11

    Tinkerer

    edited April 2020
    Sorry for necroing a dead thread, but I thought I'd leave my 2 cents here.

    I would like to thank everyone who answered here for helping me too, to fix my problem

    I recently triple booted Kali, Ubuntu, and Windows on my Acer Spin 5, the grub bootloader showed fine, but black screen when accessing UEFI settings, just like you.


    Note: In my case the problem was that I had disabled Secure Boot. If you don't remember disabling Secure Boot then this might not work for you, however if you followed an online guide, there are many online guides that instruct you to disable secure boot.

    I disabled Secure boot as I was not able to boot into my Bootable USB for the installation of Ubuntu.
    I suspected that Secure boot was the problem as from Googling I've read many articles regarding "Don't turn Secure Boot off", and of course from this thread, and the other thread:

    "1. Make sure secure boot is enabled."

    (I didn't see this before, but it may be helpful)
    And also from the other thread:

    "I found a way to re-enable the access to BIOS/UEFI in an italian forum (unfortunately I lost the link - sorry):
    => Access the EFI-Drive, in that Grub installs the GrubLoader and remove the directories NEON and UBUNTU.


    After removing the mentioned directories i was access BIOS/UEFI as always via F2..."

    I did not want to flash a BIOS version as previously I had flashed an incompatible BIOS onto another laptop, rendering it useless (personal experience, completely me at fault)

    After reading this thread, and this thread:
    https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/541950/acer-spin-5-booting-into-uefi-menu-is-broken/p2

    I decided to follow a hybrid of two steps by the above people and thread.

    1. Boot into Windows 10
    2. Right click on the start menu icon > Powershell / Command Prompt (Adminstrator)
    3. Type "mountvol b: /s" without quotes
    4. The drive is mounted, but you still need something with administrator permissions to view the mounted partition, you can use Windows Explorer permitted you restart it with admin perms, however I just prefer Explorer++
    5. Right click on the Explorer++ executable > Run as Administrator
    6. Go into the ESP (B:) drive
    7. Go into EFI
    8. I had two folders, and one named ubuntu, (and one named kali, since I also had kali linux installed) for you it may be different depending on the linux distros you use
    9. Copy the Ubuntu/where the grub bootloader is located to another folder, ie Desktop
    10. I restarted at this point (It might be not needed but /shrug)
    11. (Grub menu should be gone) After restarting into Windows 10: 1) I searched "Advanced Start" and selected "Advanced start-up options", then Restart Now or 2) Settings > Update & Security > Recovery > Advanced start-up (Restart now)
    12. Find and boot into UEFI Firmware Settings
    13. You should be now in! I turned off secure boot from here
    14. Exit saving changes, reboot into Windows 10
    15. Type "mountvol b: /s" without quotes
    16. Right click on the Explorer++ executable > Run as Administrator
    17. Go into the ESP (B:) drive
    18. Go into EFI
    19. Copy the ubuntu (and kali for me since I also had kali linux installed) folders back into the EFI folder on the ESB partition
    20. Restarting now worked for me, and showed the grub bootloader


    TL;DR:
    Temporarily copy the Ubuntu (and kali as I had kali linux also installed) out of the ESB/EFI folder, and somewhere safe
    You should be able to access UEFI firmware settings now, turn off secure boot
    Reboot, the grub bootloader was back (for me)




    jici79's answer:
    Add Grub to trusted secure boot settings....see link below.  example Ubuntu......   \EFI\ubuntu\grubx64.efi




    The other thread: https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/541950/acer-spin-5-booting-into-uefi-menu-is-broken/p2
    This thread: https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/538305/cant-access-uefi-after-installing-linux-dual-boot/p4

    Bold texts are quotes, copied directly from other answers from the threads above

    Since there are links in the other thread pointing to this thread, I thought I'd put this here


    Again, even though I'm not OP, thank you everyone, you have solved more people's problems than just the OP's







  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 45,067 Trailblazer
    .Thanks for report. Jack E/NJ

    Jack E/NJ

  • JordanB
    JordanB ACE Posts: 3,729 Pathfinder
    edited April 2020
    If you’re reading this thread, you must disable secure boot in order to install Linux.  But after you install Linux, and Linux tells you to reboot, you should reboot and immediately go in to BIOS settings (F2) and enable secure boot and add grub to the trusted secure boot settings.  

    The instructions that I wrote in this thread were based on a 2013/2014 Acer UEFI implementation (uh, because that’s the only Acer laptop that I had).  But they don’t work on newer laptops.  My instructions say don’t disable secure boot.  But you must disable secure boot on newer Acer laptops in order to install Linux.

    Although older posts can be very beneficial, they can also be outdated. 

     
    I'm not an Acer employee.
  • StevenGen
    StevenGen ACE Posts: 12,451 Trailblazer
    edited April 2020
    You should never ever presume anything, always consult the Acer Service Centre and get expert advise, you should have asked their expertise on installing your Linux Mint 18.3 and/or and if the SF314-52-52V8 works on a dual boot. You must have done something wrong, as and even when you have Win-10 you cant get into BIOS, you have caused a BIOS problem and the BIOS should be reflashed, simple, don't ridicule anything as there are certain procedures that you have to follow, otherwise, you can ruin your laptop and or brick it.
    "Before you reflash BIOS be aware that upgrading your system BIOS incorrectly could harm your Acer product. Please proceed with caution"
    What BIOS version are you running? Is it the the one that it came with OEM e.g. version 1.05? As the latest version is the 1.09 dated 2018/10/08? As that is what you should have, try that and see if that fixes your problem. As you have said, that you have Win-10 installed and you can use the Acer BIOS flash .exe v1.09 file to flash to a new BIOS version. Btw, don't blame and/or ridicule an OP system like Win-10 that is one of the most widely used OP's on this planet! Cheers and good luck.
  • PlanetMercury
    PlanetMercury Member Posts: 19 Troubleshooter
    edited August 2020
    Hi everyone, sorry for resurrecting an "old" topic but this is coming up in Google for people with the same problem.

    I want to share how I fixed this and what I learned about the issue.

    To summarise, The Acer firmware has a fault where the existence of certain entries in the UEFI boot list prevent the UEFI setup from loading, and it crashes on F2.  It doesn't interfere with actual booting, so if you have no reason to get back into the UEFI setup, well maybe you don't mind.  It also doesn't interfere with the F12 boot menu if that was enabled before this happened.

    First, what you DON'T need to do:

    - You don't need to reflash firmware.  Doing that carries inherent risk, and in this case isn't the cause of the issue.
    - You don't need to disable secure boot.  In fact, the secure boot setting appears not to have any effect on my system, but perhaps that's because the UEFI already trusts the boot executables.  I'd like to think it's that, and not that Secure Boot simply doesn't work.  In any case, some of the below steps require secure boot to be ON, so I'd recommend leaving it on, unless you need to turn it off temporarily to boot your installation media.
    - You may find instructions online for configuring your distro to place a boot entry into the *fallback* directory in your EFI partition.  This is designed to work around some buggy UEFI implementations, but is not a solution to this and isn't recommended here.

    For me, it was Debian GNU/Linux that I was installing but this should be relevant for most Linux distros, indeed it appears that it's the boot entry that Grub-EFI inserts into the firmware that it has a problem with.  For other distros, where I refer to "debian" it will simply say something else instead.

    After installation, you should notice that booting into the new system is successful, but loading UEFI setup on F2 fails (crashes with a cursor in the top left).

    Steps to fix:
    1. You need to get the UEFI boot entry out of the firmware.  You can do this in either of two ways. One is to temporarily remove vendor files in your EFI partition from a Live USB.  But, probably a better one is to use the *efibootmgr* tool in Linux to remove the boot entry, if only because it may prevent the need to boot to a Live USB:
    2. Boot into your Linux install.  From a root prompt in the terminal window, run *efibootmgr -v* to list the install boot entries.
    3. Note the number of the boot entry you want to delete.  It'll be the big long one that ends in something like *File(\EFI\debian\shimx64.efi)* where "debian" is the vendor of your Linux (eg it might be "Ubuntu", etc).
    4. Delete that entry with *efibootmgr -b 0001 -B*  (where 0001 is the number of the boot entry from the previous step).
    5. You may need to do the same if you have other Linux or grub related entries in there, but any generic looking entries are probably OK to leave, and entries that refer to Windows can also be left if Windows is still installed as well (you may have additional difficulties dual booting, but that's not relevant to this issue).
    6. Reboot the system into the UEFI setup using F2.  It should work.  Now though your firmware won't know how to boot into Linux, but you can do the following:
    7. Make sure secure boot is on, and go into the setting where you add a trusted executable to secure boot.  This will guide you through browsing your EFI partition, where you should navigate to HDD0 -> EFI -> debian -> shimx64.efi (or equivalent).  Note that on distros that use a shim bootloader (shimx64.efi) you may see multiple entries including a "grubx64.efi" as well, but in this case "shimx64.efi" is what you want.  If only grubx64.efi is listed, that's probably what you want, though I haven't tested on such a distro.
    8. When prompted if you want to add a boot entry for this, select Yes.
    9. Save settings and boot.  It should work.
    If you're unable to get everything booting again after step 4, you can get back to where you were at the start using a Live USB, mounting everything in a chroot and running a grub reinstall (there are instructions for this online) but that just gets you back to where you were at the start and UEFI setup probably won't work again.

    Due to messing around I ended up with some extra entries in the boot order, but that's ok because the one that works is there and is used first.  You can use efibootmgr to further clean up boot entries if you know what you're doing.

    Note that the problem may re-appear if you ever need to do a "grub reinstall" in the future, though normal updates just to grub configuration or patches to grub *should* not affect it.

    To be clear, there is nothing wrong with the boot entry that Debian or Grub added - the issue was that the Acer device's firmware doesn't seem to like it, not because they don't want you to use alternative OSes but they probably just didn't test it extensively with operating systems other than Windows.
  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 45,067 Trailblazer
    Thanks for the report. Jack E/NJ

    Jack E/NJ

  • laserboy417
    laserboy417 Member Posts: 11

    Tinkerer

    Thanks PlanetMercury.  I've had a similar problem after installing Fedora32 alongside Windows and openSUSE Tumbleweed. Being introduced to efibootmgr was the key to solving my problem. See https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/913757#Comment_913757

  • Simo998
    Simo998 Member Posts: 35 Enthusiast WiFi Icon
    thanks @PlanetMercury for the steps. I have dual boot Ubuntu windows on my old laptop and am about to install same on my new Nitro5 . 

    Quick question, just so I am clear, we set "trusted executable to secure boot" to the shimx64.efi file "right after installation" before first boot right? Because the earlier posts mentioned to do that 'before' installation but I am thinking that would just point to the Ubuntu linux live USB and not the actual installed Ubuntu (which hasn't been installed yet)? am I right? 

    Also I would still have to do this if my linux was on a second drive right? I just wanna get as much info before installing as I know others have spent alot time on it already. tia
     Acer Nitro 5 AN5-15-55, 16Gb RAM, i7 10750H, GTX1650Ti , 2x nvme drives + 1tb SATA SDD, dual boot 2xdrives Ubuntu 20.10 and Windows 10
  • jici79
    jici79 Member Posts: 34 Die Hard WiFi Icon
    I did this many years ago but from what i remember you have to set trusted executable secure boot BEFORE installation. You plug your live usb, boot on bios, do the changes and then install. For the second drive i don't know. I would say yes because it is how the BIOS works. Or else he will not want to boot on linux and go directly on windows. You want to make sure GRUB takes over so you can choose on which system to boot... but still i never did that kind of installation ( 2 separate drives)

    Windows even overuled Grub once after a windows update but i was able to set it again using a MInt live and an application to fix Grub...
  • Simo998
    Simo998 Member Posts: 35 Enthusiast WiFi Icon
    edited November 2020
    jici79 said:
    I did this many years ago but from what i remember you have to set trusted executable secure boot BEFORE installation. You plug your live usb, boot on bios, do the changes and then install. For the second drive i don't know. I would say yes because it is how the BIOS works. Or else he will not want to boot on linux and go directly on windows. You want to make sure GRUB takes over so you can choose on which system to boot... but still i never did that kind of installation ( 2 separate drives)

    Windows even overuled Grub once after a windows update but i was able to set it again using a MInt live and an application to fix Grub...
    Hi @jici79 that was my understanding from reading previous posts also to "set trusted executable secure boot before installation" but

    I have just been informed another member has been able to dual boot Ubuntu & windows without setting secure boot back on, nor needing to set trusted executable file (to the shimx64.efg or grubx64.cfg file) is  mentioned  (he dual boots into two drives which I am also planning to do)  here https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/952504#Comment_952504  

    He happens to have has similar set up as me , he has two nvme drives running dual boot successfully, one ubuntu nvme and the other drive windows nvme drive (which is my plan also) with a third 1tb sata ssd drive as storage . 

     (side note: My previous Asus laptop I been running dual boot Ubuntu and windows on two drives also last few years, and that installation was easy eg just take out the windows drive, install ubuntu into new drive, replace windows drive back in to Laptop, then boot into ubuntu and update grub, done, was so easy then, but it seems Acer it's a bit 'different'? He also in the link above confirmed to me didn't even need to take out any drives also.
     ...thats why I just wanna be sure before installation dual boot Ubuntu windows (  in two drives)?




     Acer Nitro 5 AN5-15-55, 16Gb RAM, i7 10750H, GTX1650Ti , 2x nvme drives + 1tb SATA SDD, dual boot 2xdrives Ubuntu 20.10 and Windows 10
  • jici79
    jici79 Member Posts: 34 Die Hard WiFi Icon
    When i first installed linux on my swift 3 i first tried how i did many many times before when installing linux. It always worked without doing anything in the bios than changing the boot order to start from the usb. But with this one i had to do it or it wasn't working. The only thing that i don't think you must do is flashing thee BIOS. But since i was stuck i tried it....Maybe you have a more recent laptop than mine and they changed the BIOS...... I was only able to do it with linux mint in the begining but was able to go back to Debian when they released the last version! ( I use Debian or Mint when i can't install Debian)
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