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GovernorDynamic avatar Ubuntu

Unable to Boot into SSD

ru flag
GovernorDynamic

For the longest time, I was running a dual-boot on a PC I bought several years ago. It came with a 1tb HDD w/ Windows 10 on it. I installed a M.2 SSD on it and ran Ubuntu on it for the longest time.

Long story short, I was trying to swap the HDD for a new SSD and I managed to fry the motherboard of the PC. I made a very foolish mistake and I'm not really happy with myself for it.

Anyways, I ordered an enclosure for the M.2 drive and attempted today to boot into it on another PC. From the BIOs of the PC, I am able to recognize the drive as a storage device, but I am unable to boot into it. I can select the drive as a bootable device but I am just looped back into BIOs seconds afterwards. I think that it may have something to do with the fact that there does not appear to be a GRUB bootloader on the M.2 SSD.

I am trying to not make any definitive statements because I have definitely wandered into unfamiliar territory. I can't seem to boot into the drive for whatever reason. I know that it is possible for me to just back up the files on the SSD and then re-install Ubuntu on it, but I want to make sure there aren't any other easier options. I also want to understand this problem better.

In order to try to figure out this problem, I have attached a photo of what the drive looks like when I review it using the Ubuntu Disks utility on a live CD. I'm not sure why it says that it's a SanDisk Cruzer, but it's not. I was able to confirm this by mounting it a taking a second look.

enter image description here

Any and all feedback is appreciated. I made a really dumb mistake and it costed me a $1,000 laptop. I'm just trying to better understand this problem and then correct it. Please let me know your thoughts. Thank you!

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oldfred avatar
cn flag
oldfred
Since gpt, you would have to have an ESP - efi system partition to be bootable on its own or a bios_grub if booting in old BIOS mode. Your other drive probably has the boot files as Ubuntu's Ubiquity installer normally installs grub2's boot files to first drive what ever UEFI defines as first drive. If that is a bootable partiiton, you may be able to boot from current install if in same boot mode, both UEFI? You may be able to shrink partition, add ESP at end of drive and totally reinstall grub. ESP is normally first, but your drive is small enough ESP can be anywhere.
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Nmath avatar
ng flag
Nmath
Why do you need it to be bootable? If you are just trying to recover files, it doesn't need to be bootable it just needs to be mountable. If you want the easiest option, that's it. I can't imagine how booting the old installation would make it any easier. Ubuntu can sometimes boot a hard drive from another device but it's not best practice. The operating system installed on that hard drive is configured for an entirely different computer with different hardware. Reinstall is best practice when making significant hardware changes and an entirely different device qualifies.
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Score:1
karel avatar Ubuntu
sa flag
karel

The Disks application in Ubuntu incorrectly identified your M.2 SSD as a SanDisk Cruzer. A SanDisk Cruzer is not an SSD; it's a USB flash drive. The SanDisk USB flash drive may have been the USB drive that you used to install Ubuntu on your old PC. It seems like there isn't a boot partition on the M.2 SSD which suggests that the Ubuntu installer installed the grub bootloader on the HDD that also had Windows 10 installed on it instead. If there was a boot partition on the M.2 SSD, the Disks application would have identified it as a ~500MB FAT32 EFI System Partition, instead of as 49MB free space which is too small to be an Ubuntu boot partition.

I recommend installing the Boot-Repair application on the bootable Ubuntu live USB that you used to install Ubuntu alongside Windows 10 on the old PC. Boot the Ubuntu live USB and select the Recommended repair option of the Boot-Repair application when running an Ubuntu live session. After Boot-Repair has finished, shutdown the computer, remove the Ubuntu live USB flash drive, boot the computer, enter the UEFI settings and try to select the M.2 SSD as a bootable device. If you can select the M.2 SSD as a bootable device, save the changes in your UEFI settings, exit from the UEFI setup utility, and try to boot Ubuntu.

If the UEFI settings recognizes the M.2 SSD as a bootable device but you still can't boot into Ubuntu, this may indicate that the grub bootloader that Boot-Repair installed on the M.2 SSD is not compatible with Ubuntu, but at least the UEFI setup utility recognized the new EFI System Partition that Boot-Repair created on the M.2 SSD. If you try to reinstall Ubuntu on the M.2 SSD, the Ubuntu installer will overwrite the bootloader that Boot-Repair installed with its own grub bootloader, and you will be able to run Ubuntu from the M.2 SSD.

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lifezbeautiful avatar
kz flag
lifezbeautiful
This is the most under-rated answer on fixing the grub/MBR issues in new computers where a mix of components from third party manufacturers implies that the standard solutions don't work. Particularly, the last paragraph is really unique trick for the second installation to use the MBR from the first installation! I think some other answers should link to this one, it could have saved me a lot of time. If I find them again, I will put a link to this one. Great job!
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