Odd partitioning behaviour

Normally when installing on an EFI system one is require to designate a UEFI partition etc. However, I have just installed a NVME drive on my motherboard and was installing to it. But, as hinted earlier for some reason the installer asked for a GRUB partition (8Mb) instead of a EFI partition?? Anyone understand why this would be? Nothing in BIOS has been altered from when I was using SSD.

As far as I know / remember
this is optional

the ever so helpful installer is presenting you with the option
you don’t have to take it up on the offer

It just suggests to you to do it - but it will not insist.

I guess the NVME has a GPT partition table and you boot in BIOS/legacy mode. There you need such a partition.

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Nothing has changed other than SSD swapped out for NVME as the main drive. I found no option in the installer to select EFI. BIOS has not been touched. The SSD has been wiped and will serve as backup data unit. The NVME was unformatted when installed.
Setting an EFI/Boot partition was not offered and did not even appear in the ‘Flag’ options list.

Your system has been booted in BIOS/Legacy mode.

Perhaps not - check your firmware settings - you may have a setting which allows for both - which is often the default.

Unless you have specific reasons - you should ensure only EFI is used.

@eddier
Assuming you have booted from a LIVE-ISO image, make sure you boot the right type via your BIOS-Menu (F8 most likely)
Like others have already pointed out, you need to boot in UEFI mode :wink:

Anyhow providing some hardware info might help clearup misunderstandings.
For example:

sudo bootctl

This command should show you if you are booted in UEFI mode or not, at the top after “Firmware:” :wink:

Really strange, this Topic and all this answer’s.

Because Nvme Drive can only be installed with UEFI boot.

Nvme boot dont work with MBR/Legacy.

You may just choosed the MBR Bootpartition from USB Boot… there is UEFI and Legacy
available on the Liveboot.

Now I,m completely stumped! “sudo bootctl” tells me I am “not booted with EFI”. During installation I was offered “MBR” or “GPT”. I selected “GPT”.

There are two options to boot the live USB you should select the UEFI option. Once the live USB has started booting it can’t be changed.

You can select this from UEFI (aka “BIOS”), but there’s usually a separate UEFI boot menu you can use to temporarily select the boot device.

Never experienced this problem before, installed on an SSD a few weeks ago, and it all went as expected. But since using the NVMe its all gone a bit banana shaped. I’m going to run the install process again, see what comes up.
Thanks for the input peeps.

Well now I feel really dumb! I dont know why but I had set BIOS to “other OS”. RE-install went as normal after resetting. Probably whilst making some changes for NVMe, still baffled though.

AFAIK, that setting only changes the “Secure Boot” setting…
“other OS” acts as disabling Secure Boot in some BIOS’es, mine included.

Maybe you also had a setting for “CSM” which you disabled to make it work…