My PC is a Sony VAIO.
The model number on the chassis is SVP112A1CL.
The model number provided by the VAIO Care Rescue Mode app is: SVP11214CXB.
It’s an 11" screen Ultrabook with an Intel i5, 4GB RAM, and a 128GB SSD.
It runs Linux fine from a USB key. But I’ve been trying to install and use Linux on it for months. I’ve been distro hopping, trying to find something that works - started with Chromixium (now Cub Linux), then went to PCLinuxOS, now this (meaning 16.04 LTS).
This time I decided to wipe the internal drive completely during installation, figuring Windows was the culprit for my inability to boot Linux, or (in the case of PCLinuxOS, to get Wifi to work after booting from the internal drive even though Wifi worked fine when booting from the USB key). So I took the option of erasing the entire drive during the Ubuntu MATE install (didn’t have any important files or irreplaceable files on there anyway).
But no dice. Ubuntu MATE simply will not boot from the SSD. I booted into SystemRescueCD and this time I eliminated all partitions, making the entire drive just one drive. Shut down, put in the Ubuntu MATE key, booted from that, installed again using all the default options (except I enabled auto login to remove any problems at first boot). Still nothing. No Grub, no nothing, just the VAIO logo a few times, then getting kicked to Sony’s VAIO Care Rescue Mode app. I can go from there to the BIOS Settings (UEFI enabled, so-called “Secure Boot” disabled). When I boot from the SystemRescueCD key again, I can see the contents of the SSD - Ubuntu MATE has definitely been installed. And this time I can’t blame Windows or any Windows recovery partition interfering with Linux.
What can I do?
During install, did you use the “Erase disk and install” or set up your partitions with “Something else…”?
I ran into boot problems (my first time installing in UEFI mode) as I did not specify a small, dedicated “EFI Boot Partition” (/boot/efi). I had no warnings about it. Eventually I just used “Erase disk and install” and it worked. Of course, I didn’t want swap on my SSD so that was a matter of manually removing afterwards (/etc/fstab and the partition itself).
1 Like
Thanks for responding.
I used “Erase disk and Install”, and accepted the partition plan presented to me by default by the installer.
Does that include an EFI Boot Partition? Or do I need to try again with “Something Else” and manually include such a partition?
If the latter, I’ll also need to do some homework to figure out what other partitions to create (sizes, names, etc).
Providing the installer is booted in (U)EFI mode, then yes, Ubiquity should have created the partitions it requires. Also, double check your drive partition table is GPT, not MBR by mistake.
You could check in the live session using GParted (under System → Administration) for 3 partitions and if the entire disk is GPT:
- EFI Boot Partition
- Root File System
- Swap
This guide is helpful when diagnosing UEFI problems:
I’m getting a “Libparted Warning (As Superuser)” alert window.
Contents:
Error fsyncing/closing /dev/sda1:input/output error
Didn’t use to get that. I had to do a hard reboot when I came upon my PC frozen and nearly out of power.
I’m not sure what you mean by your last sentence – Where does it say this error? Has Ubuntu been installed? Or does the system no longer see the SSD or boot?
If it’s the latter, an I/O error usually indicates a hardware failure (the SSD in this case).