Hi

Hi there! Are you able to create a Ubuntu live USB and boot your system off of it?

I found the USB I used to boot my Ubuntu in

I am still not too sure how to create it

That's fine, as long as you have one to boot!

Yeah I have one to boot

Cool

What’s the next step

Boot it up, and select 'Try Ubuntu' to get to the desktop

ok next

Can you give me the output of blkid?

You can run this in the Terminal

ok give me a moment

No problem

/dev/sda1: UUID=“2D9A-AA17” TYPE=“vfat”

Ah, are you typing this on a phone?

Don't worry about typing it all if you are on a phone

On my ipad

Can you see if there is a UUID there that matches the UUID you posted in the screenshot of the original post?

thats all for the output

Just one line?

let me check

one line only

Maybe let me reboot

Hmmm, okay. Now this is bizarre. Can you open up GParted?

It's available from the Applications menu.

ok

done

Now, you should see your own live USB, but in the top right corner, there is a drop down (which says /dev/sdX (XYZ GiB)), can you switch it to your hard disk?

It should be the much larger of the two disks.

No I can’t

Maybe I have chosen the wrong one to boot

Do you dual boot with Windows?

i.e. do you also have Windows installed on the same computer?

Nioe

nope

i use Ubuntu only

Okay

but I was trying to create a virtualbox to use window

Ubuntu isn't able to see the disk at all. This doesn't seem right. Do you know if your system uses an NVMe SSD?

Sorry give me 5 minute, I am trying to reboot it again

Can you reboot your system in to the system firmware (BIOS) setup menu?

I can open my bios

What is your laptop model?

So I can find the right setting

acer swift 5

Ah, I've just seen the original question

One sec

N19h3

Are you on the 'main' tab of the firmware setup menu?

Press Ctrl+S

Nope, now I am trying to reboot Ubuntu again

5 minute, let me try it one more time

Can you tell me what your SATA Mode is in the system firmware setup menu?

It’s Oprah’s without RAID

Optane without raid

After Carl S?

After Ctrl S?

Can you change it to 'AHCI', and then reboot your system like normal, without the live USB installed?

If it's already there, you don't need to press Ctrl+S, it used to be a hidden option.

Ok let me try

Oh my god thanks a lot

i have regained control of my laptop

Very good, and you should be able to use VirtualBox too!

You ‘r a live saver

It's a known issue on systems with Optane disks

let me try virtualbox

So now I want to boot window

Yep

seems like no problem

if there is any problem, how should I contact you

Also, did you know, there is an alternative to VirtualBox which does not require kernel modules? It's called GNOME Boxes.

wow

You can install it from the Software Center.

i would like to know more about that

ok I will use gnome box

Also, have you made sure VT-x/Virtualisation is enabled in your system firmware setup menu too? Otherwise, you may get poor performance in your VMs.

Yes, if it is not enabled, I can toggle on in bios right

Yes. This allows it to use a feature of the CPU, rather than translating each instruction in userspace.

By the way, I appreciate for your help

No problem! Glad it worked. I don't know why the problem suddenly appeared. Maybe enrolling the MOK causes the firmware to reset its settings, or assume the system is Windows, or enable some extra Secure Boot features?

Also, you can disable Secure Boot if you prefer. That way, you do not ever need to enroll a MOK again, but your system firmware won't verify the integrity of the operating system when it boots.

I will keep it default

thanks for your information

Additionally, if you plan on using Windows on a continual basis, you can resize your Ubuntu partition and install Windows in a dual boot configuration, rather than running it inside a VM.

How can I do it. Using virtualbox?

Do you wish to install Windows alongside Ubuntu, so you can choose which operating system to boot when your computer starts, or do you wish to only keep Windows inside a VM?

A VM is easier to resize, move and delete, but it's usually slower, and may give you trouble if you need a Windows program to connect to a specific USB device.

Then I think the first option is suitable for me

You can attach a link here so that I can follow

First option, install Windows alongside Ubuntu?

You will first need to downsize your Ubuntu partition so Windows has space to fit on your SSD.

You can do this from GParted on the live USB.

You'll then need to create a Windows installer USB drive from your ISO file to boot in to the Windows installer.

So I need to reboot again?

Yes, several times I'm afraid! You can't resize a filesystem whilst the operating system is running within it, so you need another system to boot in to.

ok I am booting it in right now.

The live USB is functioned as a medium to interact with the hardware?

The live USB is used as a temporary operating system so that we can change things which we can't do from the operating system installed from the disk. We could run GParted from your installed Ubuntu system, but it won't let you resize the partition it is installed from, because the operating system would crash!

I am not sure which one is the partition that I should downsize

There is 2 here

You will have one large filesystem formatted as ext4. This is the root filesystem. All your data and the operating system is installed here.

You need to resize this by a fair amount so that Windows can fit in the empty space.

The FAT EFI System Partition stores the bootloader and will be tiny (100-200MiB). This contains the program which loads the operating system. Don't touch this partition.

Is 100gb enough?

It's up to you. Once you've installed Windows, it's hard to change, so choose a size which fits you best. I've got Windows on an 128GB SSD, but with Visual Studio, I've only got 20GB left.

Windows is quite a lot bigger than a Linux distribution.

Expect Windows to use at least 40GB from the get-go.

Once you've done the resize you should see that you have your empty space, displayed with a grey square.

Yeah it is unallocated

Cool, and you are happy with the size which is unallocated (all of this will go to Windows)?

Then I just boot my window in? Yes this will go to windiw

You need to apply your changes in GParted. There is a green tick in the top toolbar of the GParted window.

This will confirm what it's going to do, then run the resize.

Ok

Please check to make sure the only operation is a resize of your ext4 partition.

so I will have to install window from their page?

and boot it in my usb

You will have to create a Windows USB stick from the ISO you download from Microsoft.

ok it is exactly same as installing Ubuntu

This is accomplished by a program called woeusb from Ubuntu, or if you have a friend who has Windows, you can use the Windows Media Creation tool, or use Rufus.

This is the guide for using WoeUSB: askubuntu.com/a/928874/287379

Bear in mind your USB drive will be wiped by this procedure.

You will also need to do this from your installed Ubuntu, you can't do this from the live USB as you will run out of RAM. So you need to reboot again.

Also, ironically, because it will install an unsigned UEFI NTFS driver to the disk, you will need to temporarily disable Secure Boot to boot the installer. Once you've run the installer, you can re-enable Secure Boot.

This only applies if you are creating the disk using woeusb, or with Rufus on Windows.

sdX needs to be replaced with the correct drive letter for your USB drive.

Ok let me try , I will let you know if I have any question

I am going to be afk for a while now, but when you boot to the Windows installer, you need to select the large empty space. You do not need to create a new partition; all you do is select it and press next. If it asks you for a product key, tell it you don't have one, because it should be included with your laptop. When it reboots, if you don't want to use a Microsoft (Hotmail/Outlook) account to sign in, when it asks you to select your Wi-Fi network, tell it you don't have Internet.

You can then select a Wi-Fi network once you get to the desktop. When it first loads the desktop, and connects to the Internet, it will be really slow as Windows installs the drivers it needs. You'll get a notification about this. To check the status of the driver installation, search for 'Check For Updates' in the Windows search button ('Type here to search').

If you need any help installing Windows, you should ask your question on SuperUser, as it's no longer relevant to AskUbuntu.

alright, thanks a lot for your help