Hmm, I experimented with this a bit more, and found something interesting. What 
about the following set of symptoms on the exact same machine with a _slightly_ 
tweaked BIOS configuration: 
- In BIOS, I set the Internal HDD as 1st in the boot priority
- The status-quo is the same: whenever I reboot either from Win8 or Ubuntu I 
end up booting Win8 by default (with no GRUB menu involved)

- Now I shutdown the laptop, plug an Xubuntu LiveUSB, hit the Assist button to 
enter in Maintenance mode, select F11 to boot from external USB device
- I get the GRUB menu of the LiveUSB, and then I 'reboot' from the GRUB console 
(and I remove the LiveUSB)
- Immediately afterwards I get the laptop's (/dev/sda) GRUB menu
- In GRUB I can select Ubuntu or Win8, and both load fine

Now this is the interesting part: 
- If I load Ubuntu from GRUB, then it loads Ubuntu
- On `reboot` from within Ubuntu, it still loads the GRUB menu where I can 
select Ubuntu (no more boot to Win8 by default)
- This is persistent as long as I keep rebooting to Ubuntu (!)
- `efibootmgr` reports the following: 
BootCurrent: 0001
Timeout: 5 seconds
BootOrder: 0001,0000,2001
Boot0000* Windows Boot Manager
Boot0001* Ubuntu
Boot2001* EFI USB Device

- However, if I choose just one single time Win8 from the GRUB menu, then on 
restart I once again keep booting by default to Win8 with no GRUB menu involved 
(the initial status-quo). 
- After booting Win8 and then rebooting to Ubuntu via the 'shift + restart' 
trick (see 1st post), then `efibootmgr` reports the following: 
BootCurrent: 0001
Timeout: 5 seconds
BootOrder: 0002,0001,2001
Boot0001* Ubuntu
Boot0002* Windows Boot Manager
Boot2001* EFI USB Device


The symptoms that I describe here are very similar to those reported in this 
SuperUser question: 
http://superuser.com/questions/587854/every-windows-8-boot-breaks-grub 
(concerning an Asus machine, though). 

Is this more evidence of trouble with the Sony Vaio firmware? Is it
possible that the firmware is writing to the EFI partition?

-- 
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu
Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1314759

Title:
  Issues with dual-booting Windows 8 and Ubuntu 14.04 on a Sony Vaio
  laptop

To manage notifications about this bug go to:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/efibootmgr/+bug/1314759/+subscriptions

-- 
ubuntu-bugs mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs

Reply via email to