Questions about installing Zorin 18

Installing Zorin OS
1

I purchased Zorin 18 Pro and attempted to install the system alongside Windows 11.
Windows 11 is on a 2TB NVMe SSD and Zorin 18 is to be installed on a conventional 1TB SSD.

The first problem was creating a boot stick. It didn't work with Rufus. When booting from the stick, the BIOS suddenly showed me two UEFI boot options for the USB stick. Booting ended each time with the following message on the monitor:

#################################################

GNU GRUB version 2.12

Minimal BASH-like line editing ist supported, For the first word, TAB

lists possible command completitions. Anywhere else TAB lists possible

device or file completitions. To enable less(1)-like paging, „set

pager=1“.

grub>_

#################################################

I ultimately decided to use BalenaEtcher. Only one boot option for the stick was displayed in the BIOS, so I was able to successfully start the installation with this boot stick. For the installation, I selected the “Erase hard drive” option and then chose the 1 TB SSD. The restart worked, and I was able to log into Linux and make the first adjustments.

However, I then encountered problems with Windows 11.

In the BIOS, I set the SSD with Zorin as the first boot option and the boot menu was displayed. From there, I was also able to start Windows 11. Suddenly, it was no longer possible to log in, and the Hello PIN was no longer available. This was annoying, but it could be fixed with a reasonable amount of effort.

During the course of the day, the above message from Grub (see above) suddenly appeared repeatedly when booting from the SSD with Linux. I checked the BIOS and selected the SSD as the first boot option again. Zorin 18 started up again. However, Windows login with the PIN was no longer working at some point.

I even booted again with the boot stick (installation) and ran “Boot Repair.”

In the meantime, I have removed Zorin from the SSD for now and eliminated all GRUB remnants. I checked all drives for Ubuntu entries. In the BIOS, only the Windows boot manager is now listed for booting.

How can I get a working dual system with Windows 11 and Zorin 18 Pro?

2

That can happen. There should be 2 Entries and the first one should be the right one. But I can understand that it is confusing. But okay, when Etcher did it right for You, it is totally fine. With etcher can come Problem. User repoted in the Past about Problems with USB sticks. But when it works for You, it works.

Now to the Dual-Boot. First: Disable secure Boot and Fast Boot in BIOS and Fast Start-Up in Windows. This can cause Issues. Is the BIOs run in UEFI or Legacy Mode?

For setting up the 2 Drives, I would suggest to do the Following:

During Installation choose the Option ''Something else''. Then You come to the Manual Partition. There you can try 2 Things:

  1. Take the Drive You want install Zorin and set it up with the Mount Point / and format it to ext4. Choose under the Option ''Device for boot loader installation'' the Option ''Windows Boot Manager''. Then the neccessary Boot Stuff will go to the existing Windows EFI Partition with the Windows Boot Stuff.

  2. You take the Drive and set up an EFI Partition with ... let's say 300mb and format it to FAT32. And for the Rest of the Drive, You choose the Mount Point / and format it to ext4.

1 Like
3

Thanks for your reply.
Secure Boot is enabled because I didn't want to forego this security measure, at least for Windows 11. The ‘Fast Shutdown’ option is already disabled.
The BIOS is in UEFI mode. That was the default setting when I bought the computer in the summer.
I would choose ‘something else’ as an option, but I don't really understand how to partition the drive. A step-by-step guide would be most helpful.
1st partition: size, mount point, ext4 or efi
2nd partition ...
I have found many guides on this, but I have only encountered problems: partitions too small, etc.

Would it be possible to install Zorin completely separately on an SSD? I also have no problem changing the boot order in the BIOS before booting and then starting Zorin or Windows. I managed to do this with Deepin 25. I just don't want Zorin to write anything to the SSD with the Windows installation.

4

Yes, you can do that by having only the desired drive plugged in.
When you have more than one connected drive, the EFI partition is shared, both Operating Systems will store their boot files in it.

I do not know - but I speculate that your EFI partition did not have enough free space for both bootloaders - and so one got corrupted.
What size is your EFI partition?

5

So this is probably the issue I'm having in this thread then?!

disk-management
disk-management955×404 12.3 KB

*hopefully this is of use to the OP as well as we seem to be wanting the same setup

6

Hmm, Disk 0 has a good sized EFI partition.
1,2 however, only have 100 megs, which is too small. Which of these three is the one actually holding your bootloaders?

7

The top one is the zorin disk, second one the windows 10 install (the m2 "c drive"). Next one is just data (not sure why theres an EFI on there tbh - its just art files and music), last one is a backup external drive.

Edit: sorry! had some cat problems there.
Not sure which one but I assume the win 10 drive.

8

I am not sure these days about Windows, but on Zorin OS, you can see where your bootloader is with

findmnt /boot/efi

9

I take it that will work with the live boot USB?
if so I'll give it a shot.

10

Just a quick question/observation, having seen a lot of threads about difficulties getting win and zorin to boot correctly on separate SSDs. Would it be simpler to have both the dual boot programs on one SSD and use the other SSD for data? Are there downsides?

11

Last time I did that windows broke the grub boot and bricked itself and zorin in the process.

Edit: had to go in with a live usb, recover what files I could and wipe the whole thing. Thankfully it was an old laptop and not a computer I was using for work stuff.

12

If you don't mind selecting the operating system when booting with the BIOS,
I would just connect the hard drive on which Zorin is to be installed, remove or disable the other ones during install, and then use the automatic installation. This is the simplest method, and it causes the least damage/problems during dual booting with Windows.
If it bothers you at some point, you can later set it so that Windows is also displayed as an option in the grub menu when you boot Zorin.
Personally, I would never again put the Windows and Linux bootloader in a shared partition if it can be avoided.

2 Likes
13

Three of the drives in my PC are NVMe SSDs, which cannot simply be connected or disabled in the BIOS. The only option is to remove them.
Data carriers for the Windows installation:
100 MB EFI, 752 MB recovery partition, remainder for Windows 11

Could I unmount the drives except for the 1 TB drive before installation so that Linux cannot access them during the installation process? Is this possible from the boot stick?
How does this work?

14

Yes, you can.

In the LiveUSB Try Zorin trial, launch terminal and check your devices:

lsblk

You can unmount with the umount command, for example

sudo umount /dev/nvme0n1p* /dev/nvme1n1p* 2>/dev/null

You need to specify the actual drive partitions above with what you determined using lsblk

You can also unbind the drives from the kernel (Only for this LiveUSB Session) using:

echo 1 | sudo tee /sys/block/nvme0n1/device/delete

echo 1 | sudo tee /sys/block/nvme1n1/device/delete

When you run lsblk, now, you should see only the drive you want to install to.

1 Like
15

Thanks for the help, I'll give it a try.

16

2 posts were split to a new topic: Boot missing after install