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Samuel Osoba
Asked: 2022-07-01 07:49:06 +0800 CST

Elitebook 6930P - Ubuntu 22.04 Failed to Boot After Installation

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I installed Ubuntu 22 on HP Elitebook 6930p Core2Duo laptop.

See my BIOS Configuration below:

  • Sata Device Mode = AHCI
  • USB Legacy Support = Enabled
  • Virtualization Tech = Disabled
  • TXT Technology = Disabled
  • UEFI Boot Mode = Disabled

After installation using the Erase Disk & automatic partition option through the USB installer, the installation was succesful, I restarted the PC and I was asked to remove the installation disk and press Enter.

After following the Remove Installation Disk & Press Enter instruction

I did not enable UEFI mode because I read that is better to install in non-UEFI mode if the PC is pre-2010 from here - https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI

System restarted and says Non-system disk or disk error

What I have Done

  • I booted with LiveCD (USB-installed)
  • Opened GParted, switched to the Sata Disk to view the partition structure, and here is what I found:
  • /dev/sda1 -- Name: unnamed (File System: grub2core.img - 1.00mb)
  • /dev/sda2 -- Name: EFI System Partition (File System: fat32 - 513.00mb)
  • /dev/sda3 -- Name: unnamed (File System: ext4 - 185.81GB)

**NB: The EFI parition /dev/sda2 line had a red color exclamation mark, when I clicked on it, an error message was displayed.

Error Message on EFI Partition: Unable to read the contents of this file system! Because of this, some operations may be unavailable. The cause might be a missing software package. The following list of software packages is require for fat32 file system support: dosfstools, mtools.**

To know if my system booted in UEFI or Legacy mode I had to run this command below in terminal to check:

[ -d /sys/firmware/efi ] && echo "EFI boot on HDD" || echo "Legacy boot on HDD"

The command the result below, the result showed that my installation and boot into liveUSD after the boot issue is in legacy mode:

Legacy Boot on HDD

Any ideas for proceed from here?

Thanks in anticipation.

boot

2 Answers

  1. Having tried to fix the error displayed on GParted on the Fat32 partition created by the automatic installer.

    /dev/sda2 -- Name: EFI System Partition (File System: fat32 - 513.00mb)

    Talking about this:

    Error Message on EFI Partition: Unable to read the contents of this file system! Because of this, some operations may be unavailable. The cause might be a missing software package. The following list of software packages is require for fat32 file system support: dosfstools, mtools.

    I discovered that error was a bug, here is what I did to troubleshoot and establish.

    I simply downloaded and build a LiveUSB installed for 20.04 and installed using the same procedure I used above which has always worked especially when I do not intend to do a dual boot.

    Straight up, the installation was successful in Legacy mode (without UEFI) considering that PC was a pre-2010 laptop and it successfully booted.

    Perhaps Ubuntu would fix this soon, don't know how to repor this bug, but would have been interested to report it.

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  2. Old HP computers with core2duo or first or second generation i3, i5 or i7 processors [often or always?] have a BIOS that does not want to boot into USB drives via grub unless there is an MSDOS partition table and a boot flag on the partition containing the boot/grub directory.

    There might be similar problems also to boot from the internal drive, so I suggest that, when booted from the USB drive with Ubuntu, you

    • backup everything important from the internal drive (that is not yet backed up),
    • start gparted and create a new partition table, this time an MSDOS partition table. Save/exit from gparted,
    • start the installer again, this time let the installer use the whole internal drive.
    • If still problems, boot into the USB drive again start gparted and put a boot flag onto the main partition on the internal drive.

    Edit: After some checking and discussion, I found that Ubuntu 22.04 LTS converts to GPT when using the whole drive. So in order to get an MSDOS partition table it is necessary to do the whole partitioning manually: to use gparted to create a partition where to install Ubuntu, and then in the installer select manual installation alias 'something else' and select how to use this partition (as / and use the ext4 file system).

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