Unable to get Grub dual boot working on New Lenovo thinkpad X13 Gen 6

Installing Zorin OS
1

Just purchased Lenovo Thinkpad X13 Gen6 with 1 TB SSD and windows 11. Also downloaded Zorin 18 pro. Trying to set up so it will dual boot but the grub boot loader is not showing up. Actually the windows boot manager comes up instead with the option of windows 11 or a windows memory diagnostics option.
I have turned the secure boot off and also disabled all bitlocker encryption on all partitions.
Note: I have been using Zorin since OS16 was released and had to complete grub boot repair with OS 17 and it always worked.
After attempting the grub boot repair tool a number of times (after making bios changes and a number of windows 11 changes) the following file was uploaded to Ubuntu Pastebin
The previous boot repair file is Ubuntu Pastebin
Also I get a curious notice of a hidden flag removed /dev/nvme0b1p1
Also after the boot repair was completed it showed a note:
Locked - NVram detected Please do not forget to make your UEFI firmware boot on the Zorin OS 18 (18) entry (nvme0n1p1/efi/ubuntu/grub64.efi file)

Thank you if any of you have any ideas or insights.
Jimbo

2

Locked NVRAM (Non Volatile RAM) means that the BIOS will not allow writing or changes to boot - which explains the lack of Grub.

Normally, we might walk through the average steps but:

Lenovo.
I have zero good things to say about this company. In addition, they have moved toward a goal of disallowing Linux on Lenovo machines. There is no public statement addressing this or why.
But later Lenovo firmware (In addition to their inclusion of spyware) ignores non-Microsoft writes. It will accept the Linux EFI entry, then on next boot, remove it.

I am not being harsh, just honest and you should be informed...

If you can boot the LiveUSB you used to install Zorin OS, then open a terminal, you probably can manually move the file to a safe location (EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI) before the Lenovo Firmware can tag it.
Mount:

sudo mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt

Create fallback

sudo mkdir -p /mnt/EFI/BOOT

Move GRUB:

sudo cp /mnt/EFI/ubuntu/grubx64.efi /mnt/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI

Unmount and reboot

sudo umount /mnt

reboot and test on your bare metal install...
If all is working, once you reach the desktop, open a terminal and run:

sudo update-grub

3

Welcome to the Forum!

  • Is Your BIOS is UEFI or Legacy Mode?
  • What Tool did You use to create the Bootstick?
  • Dou You have in BIOS an ''ubuntu'' Boot Entry?
4

Thank you for the replay,
Bios is in UEFI
used Rufus
No there is no "ubuntu" in the bios boot entry.

5

Thank you for the great explaination on lenovo and the Bios, it actually explains something i left out. When I first installed the dual boot, it looked good for about 1 or 2 seconds the grub menu was visible and then disappeared and then windows booted up. since then nothing that i have done works.
So now I will try your fix and let you know how it works
Jimbo

6

Aravisian, what do you mean after the reboot, "test on your bare metal install"?

7

"Bare metal install" is the fully installed Zorin OS on your computer, not the LiveUSB Demo instance.

8

thanks, did the reboot and it still comes back to the windows boot manager and not the grub.

9

Well, let's repeat booting the LiveUSB again.

sudo mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt

Since GRUB can manage Windows bootloader, let's see if we can knowck the priority for Windows off its pedestal:

sudo mv /mnt/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
/mnt/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi.bak

Ensure GRUB bootloader is present:

ls /mnt/EFI/ubuntu

It it is not, repeat these steps:

sudo mkdir -p /mnt/EFI/BOOT

sudo cp /mnt/EFI/ubuntu/grubx64.efi /mnt/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI

Once it is present:

sudo umount /mnt

Reboot and test

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10

Thank you so much for the update, I am going to try your steps however, at this point I have no use for Windows. Would this lenovo still work if i deleted windows and just tryied to load Zorin?

11

Probably. That is kind of what the previous post does is remove the Windows bootloader, to allow GRUB to manage the Windows Boot.
But if you would like Windows OS gone, that would solve that issue, too.
Still - Remove the Bootloader, either way. If Windows is overwritten but the bootloader isn't, it may try to boot Windows only to fail.

12

sudo mv /mnt/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
/mnt/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi.bak
tells me that there is no such directory or file. Are we just trying to rename it?
I ended up just renaming "bootmgfw.efi ti bootmgfw.bak". it booted up to the grub dual boot menu. Zorin is working great. but Windows is not loading at all. I am thinking of dumping windows 11 all together.
thank you so much for your help

13

I must have gotten the path incorrect, but glad you got it sorted out.

1 Like