The Windows 8 and Ubuntu 12.04 Dual Boot NIghtmare
- by Steve
I have done some research as to how to go about this dual-boot, and I am close, but I need some guidance with booting into Windows 8 (Ubuntu is installed).
I have a Lenovo Ideapad y510p.
I will go over what I have done to dual-boot this laptop, with windows 8 pre-installed, with Ubuntu 12.04:
I followed every instruction to the letter for the 97-vote response here, and everything worked fine up until after the repair boot section:
Installing on a Pre-Installed Windows 8 System (UEFI Supported)
I ran into the following error upon restarting after the repair boot section:
error: invalid arch independent elf magic. This error (a grub issue) disabled me from booting into Ubuntu :(
After a little googling, I followed the instructions in the reactivating grub 2 section to resolve the error:
http://kb.acronis.com/content/1686
I found a possible solution to fixing the Windows 8 boot issue, and tried it:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:i9JMyXzzRpYJ:askubuntu.com/questions/279275/dual-boot-problem-windows-8-ubuntu-12-04+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=ubuntu
I thought the above solution worked, but when I attempt to boot into Windows 8, I get the following missing file error:
File: \Boot\BCD
Status: 0xc000000e
Info: The Boot Configuration Data for your PC is missing or contains errors.
Here is some other information that may be useful:
I have 3 partitions devoted to Ubuntu.
The first, sda8, has a flag bios_grub (1049 kb).
The second, sda9, is where everything else is (96.6 GB).
The last, sda10, is for swap (8299 MB).
My question is: How do I fix the boot configuration for Windows 8? Any help would be greatly appreciated :)
Update 1: When I attempt to boot into UEFI mode, I get the following error: invalid arch independent elf magic (the same error I saw in step 2).
Update 2: A useful link here I found:
Dual booting Ubuntu 12.04: UEFI and Legacy
So, this is my 4th time installing Ubuntu on the laptop, and it looks like I need to install it in UEFI mode. Should I scrap it all again, and reinstall? Or is there ANY way of salvaging my installation? At this point, I can't even boot into Windows (although I have an installation cd to fix the windows boot issue, that would ultimately screw over ubuntu).
Update 3: After doing a little more browsing around, I found a cool way around this messy grub stuff, using rEFInd. Rod Smith's post here saved me!
Installing ubuntu 12.04.02 in uefi mode
Now, I am able to dual-boot Windows 8 and Ubuntu and boot into both operating systems :)
I have another issue (relating to the boot configuration in the bios) that I will post as a separate question :)
