[MULTI BOOT] Help resolving a boot-installation problem?

[RLynwood]

Before the holidays I was having trouble getting a fair number of the programs in 22.04 to come up after upgrading my 20.04. I'd gotten a lot of wonderful help with that. Over the holidays, however, with the help of a fellow Linuxer from our LUG who "helped" me--actually, he really did. We got the Home folders of Kubuntu 20.04 and Mint 22.04 backed up on my new 4Tb data hdd, Mint 22.04 moved to a new partition (& it works), and the Kubuntu partition expanded. The problem exploded when we tried to install Kubuntu 22.04 into my SSD's newly expanded partition for it. We tried to do it using btrfs in the GPTed partition. I still would like to do that. After we tried, it did not install and I no longer could access ANY OS (all old variations of Ubuntu located on old laptop hdds). I've run the Boot Repair Disk utility about four times. It says it succeeded but that I had to access only the Mint 17.3 on a specific drive (the other one is a copy on an identical drive); I believe that's because that's where it put GRUB 2. But when I try to do that UEFI gives me a terminal/console display saying:
Error: file '/boot/grub/i86-pc/normal.mod. not found.'
Entering rescue mode ...
grub rescue>_
And when I try to access a flash drive for its stored data, UEFI gives me essentially the same error msg except it says, also in a terminal display, "No such device" and gives a [?] prompt. I've thought that somehow UEFI has gotten messed up and contacted ASUS for help (out of warranty). They sent me a form to fill out and return. I haven't done that. Instead I've returned to thinking the problem might be with the GRUB installation and in any case trying to learn where & how Kubuntu puts GRUB 2 and so have been trying to learn how correctly to put GRUB 2 in the right GUID-GPT partition on the SSD. Now I've decided to stop and ask for help/direction here. Which route should I pursue, and what advice can you give? Thanks. (I've left a detail out, but I can't remember what it is.)

[jlittle]

I can't follow your history, sorry.

the GPTed partition.

I do not understand that at all.

I suggest booting from a live USB, such as the one you used to install 22.04, and looking at the partitions that are present, and giving us a listing of the partitions, their types, and what you think is on them.

The standard solution to your problem is to chroot (a few weird commands) into a working install and run grub-install, but I am reluctant to advise this.

[Schwarzer Kater]

[…]
The standard solution to your problem is to chroot (a few weird commands) into a working install and run grub-install, but I am reluctant to advise this.

Usually you would use the CLI like jlittle (not ) suggested, but if you are not sure what to do exactly and what chroot is:
the Debian installer DVDs provide a "rescue mode" from where you can do the same (among other things) partially in a kind of GUI iIrc - (re-)install GRUB from the system of a "source" partition to the desired EFI partitiion or MBR.

There is also good documentation e.g. on both Debian and Ubuntu websites.

Ask the guy who helped you before for further advise, perhaps.

[RLynwood]

JLittle,

I can't follow your history, sorry.

GPTed meant G[lobally] U]nique] ID Partition Table, i.e., I had set the partition as a GPT rather than as an MBR.

I do not understand that at all.

Did my explanation above answer this?

I suggest booting from a live USB, such as the one you used to install 22.04, and looking at the partitions that are present, and giving us a listing of the partitions, their types, and what you think is on them.

I did that and described it in my description of my problem. One thing I forgot to mention, however, is that the ASUS support rep. told me to use the F8 key to force my choice of the device to boot into. By that means I have been able to boot into the Live usb of Kubuntu.

The standard solution to your problem is to chroot (a few weird commands) into a working install and run grub-install, but I am reluctant to advise this.

This I do not understand. You'd have to guide me thorugh it.

Schwarzer Kater,
I know that the Kubuntu Live usb has a boot rescue utility. I have not tried to use it yet (I think I'll try that next), but I have a commonly used Boot Rescue utility that I've used successfully in the past and--seemingly--this time (see description above), but I still can't log into the Linux it tells me to (Mint 17.3 on the specific hdd it directs me to). This is part of why I've thought that somehow ASUS's UEFI got messed up. As I said to JLittle, I'd need you to guide me through an cli work. Have you read carefully through my entire problem description and understand it? If not, let me know what you don't understand. Thanks.

P.s. I'm sorry for such a slow response. I was busy all day yesterday and had little energy. I'm better now.

[jlittle]

GPTed meant G[lobally] U]nique] ID Partition Table, i.e., I had set the partition as a GPT rather than as an MBR.

Did my explanation above answer this?

You use the term "partition" confusingly. Devices, such as /dev/sda, may have partition tables, typically either GPT or MBR, and partition tables are a list of the partitions on the device. Partitions are part of the device. You can't "set the partition as a GPT", that makes no sense. I suspect you mean you converted the device to GPT. I wouldn't recommend doing that, I always write a new, empty partition table, wiping everything on the device.

I'll now read black cat's, or rather Schwarzer Kater's response.

[jlittle]

I suggested giving us a listing of the partitions...

I did that and described it in my description of my problem.

I meant a list, with each partition on it's own line, such as would be produced by the command

lsblk -o +fstype,label

chroot...

This I do not understand. You'd have to guide me thorugh it.

Unless you've booted the boot repair utility in BIOS/MBR mode, it should do the same as the chroot approach would do.

[RLynwood]

Thank you for both responses. I'm busy now but will attend to all of this a bit later today and respond.

[dejjanku]

Maybe you expanded/ changed boot/efi partition, if no OS boots?

[RLynwood]

Yes, that's one possibility and what I'm trying to figure out.

[RLynwood]

Ok. I'm late in responding again, but believe me I need to solve my problem(s) and really appreciate all of your help.

I suggested giving us a listing of the partitions...

I meant a list, with each partition on it's own line, such as would be produced by the command

lsblk -o +fstype,label

chroot...

Here is the output from your suggested command string:

NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS FSTYPE LABEL
loop0
7:0 0 2.3G 1 loop /rofs squash
loop1
7:1 0 91.7M 1 loop /snap/gtk-common-themes/1535 squash
loop2
7:2 0 47M 1 loop /snap/snapd/16292 squash
loop3
7:3 0 4K 1 loop /snap/bare/5 squash
loop4
7:4 0 62M 1 loop /snap/core20/1587 squash
loop5
7:5 0 400.8M 1 loop /snap/gnome-3-38-2004/112 squash
loop6
7:6 0 163.3M 1 loop /snap/firefox/1635 squash
sda 8:0 0 465.8G 0 disk
├─sda1
│ 8:1 0 50G 0 part ext4 Mint 17.3 KDE
├─sda2
│ 8:2 0 1K 0 part
├─sda3
│ 8:3 0 4G 0 part [SWAP] swap
├─sda5
│ 8:5 0 50G 0 part ext4 Ubuntu-UnityMate
├─sda6
│ 8:6 0 50G 0 part ext4 Mint 17.1 Mate
├─sda7
│ 8:7 0 50G 0 part /media/kubuntu/TempFiles3 ext4 TempFiles3
└─sda8
8:8 0 261.8G 0 part /media/kubuntu/Ray'sInformation ext4 Ray'sInformation
sdb 8:16 0 476.9G 0 disk
├─sdb1
│ 8:17 0 1K 0 part
├─sdb3
│ 8:19 0 500M 0 part ext4 Swap
├─sdb4
│ 8:20 0 102.8G 0 part ext4 Mint 20+
├─sdb5
│ 8:21 0 487M 0 part vfat
└─sdb6
8:22 0 373.1G 0 part /media/kubuntu/5c2c494f-1c3e-48aa-9090-e4a8db701db4
btrfs
sdc 8:32 0 3.6T 0 disk
└─sdc1
8:33 0 3.6T 0 part btrfs Btrfs
sdd 8:48 0 465.8G 0 disk
├─sdd1
│ 8:49 0 50G 0 part ext4 Mint 17.3 KDE
├─sdd2
│ 8:50 0 1K 0 part
├─sdd3
│ 8:51 0 4G 0 part [SWAP] swap
├─sdd5
│ 8:53 0 50G 0 part ext4 Ubuntu-UnityMate
├─sdd6
│ 8:54 0 50G 0 part ext4 Mint 17.1 Mate
├─sdd7
│ 8:55 0 261.8G 0 part /media/kubuntu/TempFiles ext4 TempFiles
└─sdd8
8:56 0 50G 0 part ext4 TempFiles2
sdg 8:96 1 3.7G 0 disk iso966 Kubuntu 22.04.1 LTS amd
64
├─sdg1
│ 8:97 1 3.5G 0 part /cdrom iso966 Kubuntu 22.04.1 LTS amd
64
├─sdg2
│ 8:98 1 4.1M 0 part vfat ESP
├─sdg3
│ 8:99 1 300K 0 part
└─sdg4
8:100 1 230M 0 part /var/crash ext4 writable

You use the term "partition" confusingly. Devices, such as /dev/sda, may have partition tables, typically either GPT or MBR, and partition tables are a list of the partitions on the device. Partitions are part of the device. You can't "set the partition as a GPT", that makes no sense. I suspect you mean you converted the device to GPT.

Yes, I did mean I had converted or tried to--why do you say convert? Isn't the partition table assigned as one of the steps during installation? That, converting the SSD to a GPT, is what I meant I did, or thought I did.

I wouldn't recommend doing that, I always write a new, empty partition table, wiping everything on the device.

I didn't want to wipe everything off the SSD because I wanted to keep the right-end partition for Linux Mint, which was installed and working fine. I did wipe the rest of the SSD before that partition and then tried to assign all that space as GPT in which I wanted to install Kubuntu 22.04. I can't swear to this, but I bellieve that--I don't know why--I had put GRUB on the device /dev/sd?/ that contained my first instance of Linux Mint 17.3. I wanted to put GRUB on the SSD and thought I'd tried to do that. But somewhere along the line I messed things up.

Unless you've booted the boot repair utility in BIOS/MBR mode, it should do the same as the chroot approach would do.

I don't understand this.

[RLynwood]

I sure will someone's continuing helping me. I'm checking regularly, fairly often. But it's bed time now; I'll check again in the morning.

[RLynwood]

Please don't abandon me. I need to know any reason for not using the GPT, especially on a flash drive first, then how to use it on my SSD. I need to know how to get GRUB2 installed properly so that my UEFI sees every OS, especially my main one, Kubuntu, and can boot into them all safely. Thanks.

[jlittle]

Apologies, health issues have slowed me down. I've reformatted the lsblk output, and shortened some of the names to make it readable:

NAME   MAJ:MIN RM SIZE   RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS     FSTYPE LABEL
sda    8:0     0  465.8G 0  disk
├─sda1 8:1     0  50G    0  part -               ext4   Mint 17.3 KDE
├─sda2 8:2     0  1K     0  part
├─sda3 8:3     0  4G     0  part [SWAP]          swap  
├─sda5 8:5     0  50G    0  part -               ext4   Ubuntu-UnityMate
├─sda6 8:6     0  50G    0  part -               ext4   Mint 17.1 Mate
├─sda7 8:7     0  50G    0  part /mnt/TempFiles3 ext4   TempFiles3
└─sda8 8:8     0  261.8G 0  part /mnt/Ray'sInfo  ext4   Ray'sInformation
sdb    8:16    0  476.9G 0  disk
├─sdb1 8:17    0  1K     0  part
├─sdb3 8:19    0  500M   0  part -               ext4   Swap
├─sdb4 8:20    0  102.8G 0  part -               ext4   Mint 20+
├─sdb5 8:21    0  487M   0  part -               vfat  
└─sdb6 8:22    0  373.1G 0  part /mnt/RayBackup  btrfs 
sdc    8:32    0  3.6T   0  disk
└─sdc1 8:33    0  3.6T   0  part -               btrfs  Btrfs
sdd    8:48    0  465.8G 0  disk
├─sdd1 8:49    0  50G    0  part -               ext4   Mint 17.3 KDE
├─sdd2 8:50    0  1K     0  part
├─sdd3 8:51    0  4G     0  part [SWAP]          swap  
├─sdd5 8:53    0  50G    0  part -               ext4   Ubuntu-UnityMate
├─sdd6 8:54    0  50G    0  part -               ext4   Mint 17.1 Mate
├─sdd7 8:55    0  261.8G 0  part /mnt/TempFiles  ext4   TempFiles
└─sdd8 8:56    0  50G    0  part -               ext4   TempFiles2
sdg    8:96    1  3.7G   0  disk -               iso966 Kubuntu 22.04.1 LTS amd64
├─sdg1 8:97    1  3.5G   0  part /cdrom          iso966 Kubuntu 22.04.1 LTS amd 64
├─sdg2 8:98    1  4.1M   0  part -               vfat   ESP
├─sdg3 8:99    1  300K   0  part
└─sdg4 8:100   1  230M   0  part /var/crash      ext4   writable

sdb5 looks like it could be an ESP (EFI System Partition).

[RLynwood]

Sure sorry about the health problems. I can identify with that.
That sure looks a lot neater.
I believe that sdg is the flash drive containing the Live usb Kubuntu I'm using. sda looks like the old laptop hdd that had had GRUB2 put on it for some reason. And my Boot Repair disk said after repairing the system that I HAD to boot into the Mint 17.3 on that driive, but I can't do it. The UEFI says, even when I use F8 to force booting on that device, that there's no such (GRUB) path. I gave the exact command-line display it gives in my initial post.
In your display it looks like sdb4 is my Linux Mint 20.04 that's in the right-end partition of my SSD. The first partition is the one that has GPT and where, in its initial partition, I've thought I want GRUB2 to go with Kubuntu in the following long partition.
And sdd originally was a backup of sda, but I've since added other data to it. Sdc is my new (to me) 4Tb hdd containing backups of my personal data and where I want to put the backup info for both of the old laptop hdds, then clean them for 2nd backups.

sdb5 looks like it could be an ESP (EFI System Partition).

Yes, but I don't know what to make of that.

[RLynwood]

Before we solve my booting problem, I'd like to know if I can put a Live OS & repair utilities in different partitions of a usb stick and data in others and be able to boot into any of those non-data partitions. This question derives from the very high capacity modern flash drives. Thanks.

This is an edit/revision of my original question.