I'm dual-booting Windows 11 and Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS on an HP laptop with a UEFI/GPT 1 TB NVMe drive. Windows is on nvme0n1p3, the 210 MB FAT32 EFI System Partition is nvme0n1p1, and Ubuntu is on nvme0n1p5. The installation completed and the Ubuntu files are present under S:EFIubuntu, including shimx64.efi and grubx64.efi. Windows still boots normally, but Ubuntu does not appear in the HP F9 boot menu or in the UEFI boot order. The firmware only lists Windows Boot Manager and a generic "Boot From EFI File" option. I also created a Windows BCD entry pointing to \EFI\ubuntu\shimx64.efi, but bcdedit /enum firmware still shows no Ubuntu firmware entry. Secure Boot was disabled during installation and is currently enabled again, with the HP "Enable MS UEFI CA key" option enabled. What is the safest way to create or restore the Ubuntu UEFI boot entry, preferably without replacing or modifying the Windows bootloader?
2 Answers
Before changing anything, verify that nvme0n1p1 is really the EFI System Partition and that it contains the Ubuntu directory. The 210 MB size is generally sufficient for shim and GRUB. From the live session, you can inspect it with `lsblk -f` and `sudo mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt`. If the firmware refuses to retain a normal Ubuntu NVRAM entry, HP systems often boot the removable-media fallback path instead. Copy the signed Ubuntu shim to `EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi` on that same ESP, while keeping the Windows files untouched. Secure Boot can remain enabled because shim is the signed Ubuntu entry point; if it fails, temporarily disable Secure Boot only as a diagnostic. Also check that the live USB and installed system are both UEFI, not one UEFI and one legacy mode.
The BCD entry and the firmware boot entries are separate things. Adding Ubuntu to Windows BCD does not necessarily create an NVRAM entry that the HP firmware can display. Boot an Ubuntu installer USB in UEFI mode, choose the live session, and confirm that the system was actually booted as UEFI. Then mount the installed system’s EFI partition and create the entry with efibootmgr. For example, after identifying the correct partitions: `sudo mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt`, then run `sudo efibootmgr -c -d /dev/nvme0n1 -p 1 -L Ubuntu -l '\EFI\ubuntu\shimx64.efi'`. Check the result with `sudo efibootmgr -v`. This adds a firmware entry and does not replace Windows Boot Manager. Make sure the live USB itself was started through its UEFI entry; efibootmgr will not work correctly when booted in legacy/CSM mode.
So the Windows BCD command only created a Windows-side loader entry, not the HP UEFI record? I’ll check the live USB’s boot mode and use efibootmgr against the existing EFI partition rather than reinstalling.
The fallback copy changes the EFI partition, but it does not overwrite Windows Boot Manager. I’d try efibootmgr first and use the fallback path only if the HP firmware keeps deleting or ignoring the NVRAM entry.