Error 1962: no operating system found after installing 12.04 (Lenovo ThinkCentre)

Question

I just installed a fresh copy of Ubuntu 12.04 on a new Lenovo ThinkCenter from a USB drive. When I restarted after installation, the boot sequence didn't find the OS. Instead I got the no operating system found error. When I started Ubuntu from the USB, I could see the HDD and that it had all the installed files. I just couldn't boot into it. It appeared that GRUB was not at the right place or that there was something wrong with the UEFI and GRUB. What is the simplest way to fix these errors?

Solution 1

Ok...this took a lot longer than it should. But here it goes:

Installing 12.04 on a 64 bit system that supports UEFI booting like the thinkcentere will create three partitions on the system: a FAT partition for EFI, the ext4 partition for ubuntu and some swap. However, restarting the machine, I was not able to boot at all. Initially, the Intel Boot agent would kick in and try to boot from the network. Even if you turn that off, as indicated later, it still doesn't boot. It says no operating system found.

Now here are the things I tried that didn't work for me:

1. Change the SATA controller type to IDE Using a boot repair disk (it doesn't know how to handle EFI with GPT partitioning)
2. Changing the order of the boot sequence to put HDD first
3. Changing the boot mode from UEFI, to Legacy or to Auto
4. Recompiling GRUB2 and putting it in the UEFI paritition, as indicated here:https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFIBooting

The first good direction I got was from this thread:http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1896052 People were having problems with earlier versions of Ubuntu. One of the suggested solutions is to install 10.04 first, and update from there.

What this really does is forget UEFI altogether, and create just two partions..the ext4 for ubuntu 10.04 and swap. You could then upgrade to ubuntu, which keeps the same partitioning. A couple things to note...mind your architectures, since this particular machines support 64 bit or 32 bit, so the 10.04 you install first should have the architecture you intend to keep. Also, your network card will likely not work on the 10.04 kernel, so you will have to upgrade from the cd by installing the alternate iso. Follow these instructions: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PreciseUpgrades#Upgrading_Using_the_Alternate_CD.2BAC8-DVD .

What I did instead was, First installed 10.04, then install ubuntu 12.04 again, but go to 'do something else' on the partitioning page...and i simply chose to reformat the main ubuntu parition and leave the swap as is (mind you, after 10.04 you probably have only those two partions on the HDD you installed the ubuntu on). [in retrospect, I could just have created those partions without installing 10.04, it seems]

Once installation is done, I restarted, but was greeted with an error "invalid arch independent ELF magic". Looking this up indicated that grub was probably from a previous version of ubuntu,and needs to be installed again. I had to boot from the liveCD/USB again, and reinstall grub2 (you can follow these steps:https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2/Installing#Reinstall_from_the_LiveCD)

Alright, now restart again. It should boot, but I got some errors at the begining which said "no suitable mode found" and "no graphics mode found". Apparently, this is something simple that has to do with fonts. Found this bug report https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/699802 and then used the workaround on comment #24 and viola. Now the system boots into 12.04 with no errors...it is using legacy booting...but it working for now at least.

I believe this can be fixed in the installation process of 12.04, but things are this way for now.

Solution 2

I had the same problem installing Linux Mint 17.1 (Ubuntu 14.04 base) on a Lenovo H430. I'm not sure why I didn't have any issues installing Linux Mint 15 on the same box a year-and-a-half ago, but I probably spent 10 hours trying to get Mint 17.1 to work. I tried ARR's own fix above, I followed steps outlined on several other web pages, I tried Boot-Repair. In the end, the ease of the fix was inversely proportional to the time I spent banging my head.

All I needed to do was to enable the Lenovo H430 CSM option (Compatibility Support Module) in the BIOS/UEFI (F1 on power up to enter UEFI). The other settings fell into place automatically. Then I rebooted and was actually a bit angry that it worked given the time I had invested on more complicated attempts at solving the problem. In the Startup tab of the UEFI my settings were

• CSM [Enabled]
• Boot Mode [Auto]
• Boot Priority [Legacy first]
• Quick Boot [Disabled or Enabled, either will work]
• Rapid Boot [Disabled]
• Boot Up Num-Lock Status [On] (shouldn't matter but included for completeness)
• Keyboardless Operation [Enabled] (shouldn't matter but included for completeness)

I had made changes to Boot Mode and Boot Priority and Quick Boot several times in my attempts to get the new Linux install to boot. But without enabling CSM, nothing worked. If you have a Lenovo H430 and are having trouble installing Ubuntu or any other Linux, I would definitely recommend trying this setting. If you have a different computer but have a CSM option, this might work for you as well.

Solution 3

You need a boot loader in the MBR in order to boot from the hard disk. The MBR is not in a partition of the disk, it's at the beginning in a special place. So when the installer asked you where to put GRUB, if you told it the same partition as Ubuntu, it won't be found.

Probably the easiest way to fix it is to use the GRUB Boot Repair Disk. My experience is that this will usually fix the problem automatically. I'd give it a try before trying anything complicated, unless you really want to learn a lot, and have a lot of patience or troubleshooting abilities.

Solution 4

I had the same issue and the following worked for me:

1. Run ubuntu from installation disk

2. install and run boot-repair (you need internet access)

   sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair && sudo apt-get update
   sudo apt-get install -y boot-repair && (boot-repair &)
   

3. just choose the "Recommended Repair"

4. boot from harddisk installation
5. repeat steps 1-3
6. restart.

it should work now.

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Comments

[chandan_kr_jha]

Just remove the bootable pen drive at the right time when after successful installation when the ubuntu prompts to restart. Also select the device while booting and then install.

[cutrightjm]

@iamd1 This doesn't work for most Lenovo BIOSes

[apkg]

I had the same problem on a Lenovo ThinkCentre M92p (Tiny). Make sure you set the bootable USB up by first formatting, then partitioning, then dd'ing the img file. I didn't partition, just formatted. It installed, but notably didn't mention where to install. Then it had this 1962 no operating system found problem. By starting again and partitioning the usb properly first, it worked. I found out by installing an earlier version to see if I got the same error (so an earlier Ubuntu version may also be an approach).

[ARR]

This is a 91p(4518-XF2)...I changed the SATA options to IDE, and still the same problem. I have put the HDD to be the first boot device in the 'primary' and 'automatic' boot sequence. Does changing it to IDE fix it for you all the time, or do you do something else as well?

[ARR]

unfortunately, this did not help. The problem likely has to do with ufei, which I think the new lenevo machines have...

[einnocent]

Switching to CSM in the UEFI settings as described above (but F12 for my computer) worked on my Lenovo Ideacentre Q190 with Ubuntu 16.04.3 server.