Weird dual boot issue

[Don B. Cilly]

About the multiple EFI partitions...
One is on a loop/veracrypt volume, so not on an actual disk.
sdb really looks like a removable USB stick.
So that leaves nvme0n1p1 on /boot/efi, that's just one EFI partition.

About why secure boot was disabled...
If "upon reboot it says verification failed (0x1A security violation) and it will not boot"
it really looks like secure boot is complaining.

About Legacy being enabled... I can't find where or when it was... it's using EFI anyway.

What might have happened is:
- The grub/EFI setup was somehow messed up.
- rEFInd was installed, and it seems to have fixed it (it often does).
So it did boot, but secure boot complained.
- rEFind was discarded, the "fixed" grub was used, and it worked.

[CanyonRoss]

I have yet to uninstall rEFInd, I assume if I do it won't ruin grub? One thing I have noticed since doing the grub repair was that upon pressing F12 I have LOADS of boot options now! Is there a way to remove some of them?

[Don B. Cilly]

As I said,

You can remove it or just ignore it. Tell your BIOS to use "Windows Boot Manager" or "ubuntu" as default.
Either in the BIOS itself or with
sudo efibootmgr -o 0,3,1,2,4
(Windows, ubuntu, etc., rEFInd last.

You might even try and tell the BIOS to use it and see if secure boot keeps complaining

About the loads of options...
Usually you get them if you have lots of kernels... which is unlikely in you case.
End even then they are grouped under "Advanced option" so you don't really see them.
What are they? Have most of them to do with Windows?

[CanyonRoss]

As I said,

You might even try and tell the BIOS to use it and see if secure boot keeps complaining

About the loads of options...
Usually you get them if you have lots of kernels... which is unlikely in you case.
End even then they are grouped under "Advanced option" so you don't really see them.
What are they? Have most of them to do with Windows?

No, there are now 2 options for rEFInd, 2 for ubuntu and 1 for WIndows I think plus something else, can't think off of the top of my head. I remember trying rEFInd and nothing happened, just a black screen. I tried the top ubuntu one and it booted me to grub, which then allowed me to choose ubuntu/windows etc. So I think what I would like to do is to delete the rEFInd ones plus the extra ubuntu one.

Thanks!

[Don B. Cilly]

Hmm. Could you post the output of
sudo update-grub
?

[CanyonRoss]

[FONT=monospace][COLOR=#54FF54][B]ross@ross-Alienware-15-R2[/B][/COLOR]:[COLOR=#5454FF][B]~[/B][/COLOR]$ sudo update-grub
[sudo] password for ross:  
Sourcing file `/etc/default/grub'
Sourcing file `/etc/default/grub.d/init-select.cfg'
Generating grub configuration file ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-5.0.0-25-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-5.0.0-25-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-5.0.0-13-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-5.0.0-13-generic
Found Windows Boot Manager on /dev/nvme0n1p1@/efi/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
Adding boot menu entry for EFI firmware configuration
done
[/FONT]

and also (to see the 2 extra entries)

[FONT=monospace][COLOR=#54FF54][B]ross@ross-Alienware-15-R2[/B][/COLOR]:[COLOR=#5454FF][B]~[/B][/COLOR]$ efibootmgr
BootCurrent: 0003
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0003,0000,0009,0005,0001,0002,0004
Boot0000* Windows Boot Manager
Boot0001* Onboard NIC (IPV4)
Boot0002* Onboard NIC (IPV6)
Boot0003* ubuntu
Boot0004* rEFInd Boot Manager
Boot0005* ubuntu
Boot0009* rEFInd Boot Manager
[/FONT]

Thoughts? I think boot options 4, 5 and 9 are redundant. Would uninstalling rEFInd get rid of those boot options?

Cheers!

[Don B. Cilly]

It would get rid of the rEFInd ones. In the BIOS.
Why you should have two... I have no idea. I don't.

BootCurrent: 0001
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0001,0002,0000
Boot0000* neon
Boot0001* rEFInd Boot Manager
Boot0002* ubuntu

You can eliminate the rEFInd entries in the BIOS with
sudo efibootmgr -b 4 -B
and if it doesn't get rid of the "9",
sudo efibootmgr -b 9 -B
Then re-check with efibootmgr
Actually, double-check before issuing those commands that they are the correct entries. Me, I decline any responsibility

The Onboard NICs are Windows things. Probably not safe to eliminate.
The second ubuntu one... which one is the "good" one? Hmmm.

[CanyonRoss]

It would get rid of the rEFInd ones. In the BIOS.
Why you should have two... I have no idea. I don't.

BootCurrent: 0001
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0001,0002,0000
Boot0000* neon
Boot0001* rEFInd Boot Manager
Boot0002* ubuntu

You can eliminate the rEFInd entries in the BIOS with
sudo efibootmgr -b 4 -B
and if it doesn't get rid of the "9",
sudo efibootmgr -b 9 -B
Then re-check with efibootmgr
Actually, double-check before issuing those commands that they are the correct entries. Me, I decline any responsibility

The Onboard NICs are Windows things. Probably not safe to eliminate.
The second ubuntu one... which one is the "good" one? Hmmm.

That has sorted it. The fact it said BootCurrent 0003 suggested that the "extra" ubuntu was 5, so I have deleted that, plus the rEFInd options and hey presto, if I press F12 I am just given 4 options...Windows, ipv4, ipv6 and ubuntu

Thank you for all of your help!

[claydoh]

Now, if you set Ubuntu as your primary boot OS in your bios, you should be able to skip the F12 key if you like.

[CanyonRoss]

Now, if you set Ubuntu as your primary boot OS in your bios, you should be able to skip the F12 key if you like.

Yep, I managed to do this a while ago. Now the rest is all sorted if I boot it up, it boots straight to grub and I can choose Ubuntu or Windows. Brilliant! I'm really pleased it's finally all OK!

Only "issue" I have is that when grub wouldn't load I put in super grub2 disk and when I asked it to detect OSs it found LOADS of random files! I'd hazard a guess at around 20! I ended up aborting that and still managed to get it sorted. Bizarre. Either way, it boots up perfectly well now.

Appreciate the help!

[jlittle]

Wrt the extra EFI boot entries, they can be generated by the UEFI firmware itself. You're at the mercy of the motherboard's maker's implementation, which may be buggy or using obscure fail over logic. With my gigabyte motherboard duplicate or weird boot entries appear sometimes.