Solved Unable to boot Linux (Kali) after install on Acer

[hotfuzz]

I have an old Acer Aspire E5 575, used to have Windows 10 on it. I wanted to convert it into Kali. So I downloaded the standard Kali installer into a USB. Before I started installing, I also configured its BIOS to boot from USB, UEFI as the top boot order. The the internal harddrive as the 2nd boot order (this is where my Kali root would be). Note that, in BIOS, this Acer does have the UEFI boot feature (unlike other old Acer models which do not have).

For troubleshooting, I also have a 2nd USB stick with a live Kali boot. Summary:

• Acer laptop E5 575
• One live boot Kali USB (USB Live)
• One installer Kali USB (USB Installer)

Actions:
1 - Plug USB Installer into the laptop
2 - Install as usual (partition, etc), all goes well all the way until the last step where the installation tells me to unplug the USB before rebooting.
3 - Unplug USB Installer before restarting
4 - On restart, go into BIOS to make sure bumping up the boot order of the root harddisk.
5 - Boot up show "No bootable Device".
6 - Power off manually (hold the Power button).
7 - Replace the Installer USB with Live USB.
8 - Boot up again.
9 - Now I am able to see Kali GRUB option with Live mode.
10 - Log into Live mode.
11 - See that my earlier installed Kali sit in a media drive /dev/sda2 while my Live Kali USB is on /dev/sdb2
12 - In this Live Kali, running "sudo fdisk -l" shows (for the local harddrive):

Device          Start        End    Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sda1        2048    1050623    1048576   512M EFI System
/dev/sda2     1050624 1951522815 1950472192 930.1G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda3  1951522816 1953523711    2000896   977M Linux swap

13 - I hypothesize that there is something wrong with the Installer GRUB, so I followed this thread to try to fix it:
14 - Before doing stuff in step 13, I also go into GRUB while booting with Live to see the root and prefix:

root='hd0'
prefix=(hd0)/boot/grub

set root=(hd0)
set prefix=(hd0)/boot/grub

15 - Then I do these steps

sudo mount /dev/sda* /mnt
sudo mkdir mnt/dev
sudo mkdir mnt/proc
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/sys/firmware/efi/efivars
sudo mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev
sudo mount --bind /proc /mnt/proc
sudo mount --bind /sys /mnt/sys
sudo mount --bind /sys/firmware/efi/efivars /mnt/sys/firmware/efi/efivars
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/boot/efi
sudo mount /dev/sda+ /mnt/boot/efi
sudo mount -o remount,rw /dev/sda+ /mnt/boot/efi
sudo mkdir /mnt/hostrun
sudo mount --bind /run /mnt/hostrun
sudo chroot /mnt
sudo mkdir /run/lvm
mount --bind /hostrun/lvm /run/lvm
sudo grub-install /dev/sda
sudo update-grub
exit
sudo umount /mnt/dev
sudo umount /mnt/proc
sudo umount /mnt/sys/firmware/efi/efivars
sudo umount /mnt/sys
sudo umount /mnt/boot/efi
sudo umount /mnt/hostrun
sudo umount /mnt/run/lvm
sudo umount /mnt
REBOOT

16 - Upon reboot and unplugging the Live USB, i still see the "No bootable device" error.
17 - I hypothesize that there is something about Kali I am too noob to understand, so I try installing Ubuntu with a Ubuntu USB instead. This Ubuntu stick has been verified to run and install smoothly on a different Acer model.
18 - Yet, on this Acer, the error "No bootable device" is still showing, blocking the installation of Ubuntu.
19 - So now, the only way to boot this laptop is with a Live Kali USB.


Could someone advise what is going on? Is it an issue with the Acer laptop? Or am I too noob to install Kali? It seems to have issue with Ubuntu as well, though.

 

[KGIII]

Moved to the Kali sub-forum.

 

[Brickwizard]

Could someone advise what is going on?

Welcome to the forums
You do not appear to have enough experience of Linux to even be attempting to install Kali, did you read all the Kali docks [link on Kali download page]

once you have done that, if you still want to install kali, search for why Linux fails to install

 

[APTI]

dump Kali and use Fedora, Mint, Ubuntu please. No offense meant but you are not good enough at this to use Kali. It is meant for security penetration testing NOT FOR NORMAL USE. You saw security linux and thought this is it. You are WRONG. Please take the advice of experienced people. Forget Kali unless you want to spend the rest of your life figuring it out. Use
FEDORA
MINT
UBUNTU

any of those and you will not have problems.

 

[hotfuzz]

Thanks all for the honest advice and info sources (will read them all). Appreciate very much. I am trying to learn all these stuff myself from the internet (I know my learning process is not quite systematic like going to classes). Got to start somewhere.

Anyway, after digging around, I found this post which contains the one of the error messages I am seeing, and the solution. After running those commands in grub, somehow it works. I can boot into Kali now, though I don't understand the reason. Laptop saved.