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Dual boot installation of Ubuntu 18.04.5 goes to grub commandline

us flag

I have a somewhat convoluted setup with windows initially being installed on my pc. I put in a new nvme ssd onto which I attempted to install Ubuntu 18.04.5. My PC is set to use UEFI boot. After some issues installing ubuntu a few times, I seemed to get through the installation succesfully. The issue is, grub goes to the command line screen on startup. First I ran boot-repair. There was an error and this is the output log: http://paste.ubuntu.com/p/P2wwhPKsZQ/. I tried doing the ls search, and i have found 3 partitions that have the folders efi in them, but nothing referencing grub (these folders can be seen in the pastebin).

Does anyone know what could be the issue? In the BIOS I also see two instances of the ubuntu boot partition. Could the fact that I ran a few failed installations before be causing this? Maybe I can start from scratch somehow?

oldfred avatar
cn flag
It looks like Boot-Repair reinstalled grub to Windows ESP on sda. Grub can be installed to any ESP. Ubuntu's Ubiquity installer only wants to install grub to first drive's ESP, so probably wanted ESP on NVMe drive. I prefer to configure with an ESP on every drive, even if only want normally used for booting and as first partition. And then swap as last partition. Then those two partitions never are in way of any resize or other partition changes.
jumbodrawn avatar
us flag
@oldfred Where should grub be installed for a "normal" dual boot setup? I thought it should be alongside windows. Does this mean if I properly point to the grub installation on the shared space it should work? How would I do that?
oldfred avatar
cn flag
No one right answer. Ubuntu default is first drive's ESP which for most is ok. If external drive Ubuntu installs incorrectly as for external drives it should be to external drive's ESP. I prefer to have ESP on same drive as install, just in case in future there is a drive issue then other drive may still boot. But that is personal preference. And I have emergency boot flash drives & now an external SSD with full installs.
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