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I hope I'm not posting this in the wrong place (and if I am, please direct me to where you think would be a better place to post it) as this doesn't relate entirely to Linux and is really more to do with Boot.

For background info, the machine is an Asus F-551-M which came with Windows 8 pre-installed (I then added Ubuntu later, which worked reasonably happily for a short time before problems started - it didn't bother me too much at the time though because I never used Windows).

I've had problems with Windows 8 dual-booting with Ubuntu for a while so I tried starting again from scratch. I removed (using OS-Uninstaller) my Windows partition and completely reinstalled. Everything was OK and I was able to access Windows, but not Ubuntu (even by the long route you should be able to when Windows hogs the boot). I then used the Boot Repair tool within Ubuntu Live to fix this, which returned Grub and I was momentarily pretty happy.

However, I now have similar problems to those I had previously and am hoping there's something fairly simple I can do to sort it out.

Now when I get to the Grub menu, I have the following boot options (numbered for easy reference):

  1. Ubuntu
  2. Advanced Options for Ubuntu
  3. Windows UEFI bootmgfw.efi
  4. Windows Boot UEFI loader
  5. EFI/Ubuntu/MokManager.efi
  6. Windows Boot Manager (on dev/sda2)
  7. System Setup

The Ubuntu boot works without a problem. I haven't tried 2 as it's presumably irrelevant to determining the problem.

  • 3 goes into "preparing automatic repair" then "Automatic Repair couldn't repair your PC"
  • 4 leaves me with a black background and the blue window silhouette under which dots eternally circle
  • 5 leads to "SHIM KEY MANAGEMENT" "Press any key to continue", after which I get three options "Continue Boot", "Enroll key from disk" and "Enroll hash from disk".
  • 6 continues to "preparing automatic repair" then "Diagnosing your PC" then "checking disk for errors - this might take over an hour" then "AUTOMATIC REPAIR" then leaves me a message "Logfile: C:\Windows\System32\Logfiles\Srt\SrtTrail.txt" before giving me the options "Shut Down" or "Advanced Options" (which include all the standard options "Continue" (which goes back to grub), "Use a device", "Troubleshoot" and "Turn off").
  • 7 Leads to my BIOS

I went in with GParted (within Ubuntu Live USB) again to check the partitions and they are as follows:

  • SDA1 Fat32 boot
  • SDA2 ext4
  • unallocated
  • SDA4 unknown msftres
  • SDA5 ntfs msftdata
  • SDA6 linux-swap
  • unallocated
  • SDB1 fat43 /cdrom boot/lba (the Ubuntu live USB presumably)

In addition, I noted the Boot Repair log when I made the adjustments just before the Windows boot problem:

paste.ubuntu.com/12400329

Any help you could give would be much appreciated as I will need Windows for work soon. Thanks in advance.

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  • Welcome to U&L. What do you get before the grub menu (in the UEFI menu)?
    – Fabby
    Sep 22, 2015 at 22:49
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    Hi Fabby, thanks. I'm not sure exactly when you mean - when I first boot up I get nothing (except a brief black screen) before the Grub menu.
    – Rob
    Sep 23, 2015 at 22:11
  • That's where your problems come from: your machine is running in UEFI mode AFAI can see, but you're not using UEFI to boot, just grub. If that's what you want, you should get rid of UEFI and boot in BIOS mode (or keep UEFI and boot in UEFI mode)
    – Fabby
    Sep 24, 2015 at 10:31

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