Public bug reported:
This started with me thinking I had created a surplus partition years
ago already when trying to set dual boot up Ubuntu + Windows 10. I got
it working, but I had my eye on this 530mb partition that I thought
wasn't supposed to be there.
But it stayed.
Now only recently, I ran out of room on my Windows 10. But I had a huge
amount of unused space on Ubuntu allocated storage. So... This was
already a hassle. It was annoying AF, but... for a very brief... minute
or so, it seemed like I had pulled it off. The threat I was dealing with
was having to move space in front of the Ubuntu directory. In order to
put it next to the Windows partition, for Windows to be able to add that
space to it's total storage.
I did one dumb move though (yeah bear with me I'm going to explain the
whole thing because that's how fed up I am with this, maybe 2 minutes
more reading time for you but a freakin days worth of work for me).
After I had gotten away somehow with moving Ubuntu a place (it could
still find it when selecting it in grub at startup and booted fine), I
decided... after a little... search.. that this 530mb partition could
go. So I deleted it.
Then. Windows couldn't boot anymore. But Ubuntu still could. Now... I
approached this in the most simple way I could IMO, which was... recover
the lost partition fully.. so hopefully it could do it's mystery job of
booting up Windows 10. Using "testdisk". And then... I found the
partition. Made a call to "write". And then everything got wiped, and
the whole situation got mirrored (funnily enough). Now the 530mb
partition was the only one I had left. And everything on there... the
working Ubuntu partition, the still fully available Windows 10 partition
that just couldn't boot anymore. All gone.
Now, I could try and recover that data again. But I took my loss. And
the problem I think right now??? When I succeeded to install the dual
boot Windows Ubuntu years ago, if something was wrong, I could delete
the partition of Ubuntu and I could just reinstall it. While apparently
right now, that can cause (huge, IMO) problems. Because I started with
using an Ubuntu live-usb. And deleted that remaining now completely
useless 530mb partition I had as well. Then I tried doing it in a
different order, installing Ubuntu and thén Windows 10. But (don't
remember exactly anymore) I soon found out that was the wrong way to go.
I eventually got windows running. Thén I tried installing Ubuntu next to
it. And it was failing again! Because all the screens were... loading...
from top to bottom or bottom to top (as if a scanner line moves up or
down the screen to go to the next screens to display), and it was really
laggy etc. And I think, this is where it went wrong... because I had
still been used to being able to just remove partitions and install them
back again... I wanted to with this failed install of Ubuntu again. But
apparently... there was another... 500mb partition, between the Windows
and Ubuntu partition AND one of around 530 at the end after the Ubuntu
partition. So.. I wanted to remove the Ubuntu partition. But I wanted to
include it with Windows 10 again (somehow... because it had worked
previously to then select the partition size in the Ubuntu installation
"next-to-Windows" again). So I decided to remove that 500mb partition
between Ubuntu and Windows as well. And anyway... I ended up with
problems booting up just Windows already basically. Without even being
able to retry Ubuntu install successfully again. I couldn't even get
into Windows again. (we're almost there) In the end figured out the only
thing that grub rescue responded to was ctrl-alt-delete, which would
reboot it again giving me back the brief option of selecting a boot
device again without having to use a forced shutdown (yet) from grub
rescue. Made a Windows image usb stick. Selected that as boot. And
finally found that I could pick "repair windows", and then go for the
option of command line. And then type "Bootrec.exe /FixMbr". And then I
got rid of this grub rescue trap, and was able to boot into my already
installed Windows again. I took a break! But in the end I thought..
okay... maybe I still got a shot at this. Tried again, and now..?? It
didn't recognize the Windows OS clearly on my 1TB SSD. It took up all
the space, so it should have been able to detect it. Tried repairing C
disk when I was able again, because it can happen if Windows had trouble
shutting down or something. Did a tip with "chkdsk C: /F" to fix any
problems booting Windows. And then it "should have been able to detect
Windows", and it was still not able to. Then, I thought I was very
close, and thought okay well I just need to make a partition for Ubuntu
on my own and select that one to install Ubuntu to manually. And
then..?? I couldn't as easily. I still got trouble. Apparently need to
specify all kinds of shit for that to be able to work again (but still
not getting there... obviously, from my trouble reporting this bug).
Maybe(?) because I was supposed to select "Windows boot Manager" as a
device for the boat loader installation, as a last parameter before
being able to attempt(!) installing Ubuntu (it's a literal quote from
the walkthrough I'm following this time, "it's the windows boot manager
as a device for the boot loader installation"). Don't know yet, and this
bug is what happened when attempting to install Ubuntu the last time. A
fatal error occurred in installing grub I thought it was.
So that's it.
Be glad, you know? You now have the full context that you would ever be
able to get from me, that you would ever need to solve this problem. Or
at least retrace what led to what. Maybe you can even... solve multiple
problems with this? It's obviously a "use-case" like no other. So, think
of it as free information.
Thanks to you as well for taking the time to perhaps solve this
completely, especially if you've read through the whole thing. I am
still convinced such a thorough explanation will only save time in the
long run.
Thanks again!
ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.04
Package: ubiquity 20.04.15.17
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.11.0-27.29~20.04.1-generic 5.11.22
Uname: Linux 5.11.0-27-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: zfs zunicode zavl icp zcommon znvpair
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu27.18
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: pass
CasperVersion: 1.445.1
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Sun Sep 12 22:06:03 2021
InstallCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed
maybe-ubiquity quiet splash ---
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS "Focal Fossa" - Release amd64 (20210819)
ProcEnviron:
LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8
PATH=(custom, no user)
XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LC_NUMERIC=C.UTF-8
SourcePackage: grub-installer
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
** Affects: grub-installer (Ubuntu)
Importance: Undecided
Status: New
** Tags: amd64 apport-bug focal ubiquity-20.04.15.17 ubuntu
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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1943381
Title:
what a nightmare (dual boot install Ubuntu) grub is messing up
everything
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