[GRUB] Weird Linux Mint install error

[Beerislife]

The boss was running Linux Mint 19.X on a Lenovo B50-30 laptop with a 500Gb spinning disk. I originally installed it with four partitions:

EFI
/
Swap
/home

I recently swapped out her drive and replaced it with a Crucial MX500 500Gb SSD and tried a fresh install with the same partition layout. On reboot I got a Grub error at a command prompt: Bootloader missing or some such.

For kicks I did a fresh install deleting the EFI partition and combining it with /

The install finished and I rebooted into a nice clean install! I find it strange that the EFI partition was required on the hard drive but not on the SSD!

[claydoh]

If there is no proper EFI partition on any drive the installer will create one automatically. Unless for some reason the computer was booted in Legacy mode (mbr and all that).

I will venture to guess that you have one now.

Sent from my LM-V600 using Tapatalk

[Beerislife]

The Live USB stick gave me the choice of booting in EFI and Legacy modes. First I tried EFI and it failed after install even though there was a 200Mb EFI partition, but Legacy worked.

I always do manual partitioning because I have separate /home partitions.

I haven't touched the BIOS of that machine since I first installed Mint 19.0 and totally removed Windows 10 (The boss hated it with a vengeance!)

Anyway, it works. The boss is quiet. I need a beer!

Cheers!

[claydoh]

The missing bootloader issue can happen if the needed grub EFI package fails to install for whatever reason.

This is a known bug on previous releases. But it normally spouts an error message at that point

Sent from my LM-V600 using Tapatalk

[GreyGeek]

... The boss is quiet. ...

IF the boss isn't happy nobody is happy. Great lesson to use in staying married for 58 years!