Install Mint on Windows 8 UEFI Laptop - HELP!!

[changedsoul]

Im sorry right up front if this has been hammered to death, but my brain hurts from searching the web for answers and finding none, and not knowing enough.

I have a windows 8 laptop, which I whipped out and reinstalled Windows in Legacy BIOS mode, then Mint. It worked good, but windows was having issues from being in Legacy BIOS mode. So I dumped everything again, this time installed in UEFI mode. I set aside some land on my drive for Mint to get installed, but I cannot for the life of me get it to boot into UEFI.

If I boot the CD in Legacy and install this way, it messes up my windows install. If I boot from EFI file, the only file I can find is in EFI/Boot which just dumps me at a grub prompt.

Please, can anyone give me clear step by step instruction on how to install this? I am getting fed up with this and dare I say ("bites knuckle") getting ready to abandon linux all together

[mr_raider]

Just to try, can you boot an Ubuntu 12.10 Live CD in UEFI mode? I think the Mint 14 live CD has issues.

[changedsoul]

I was having issues with Windows 8 not going to sleep, it would just put me back at the login screen. Also was unable to reboot into safe mode, some advanced boot options were not present. I dont know what caused it. It may have been Grub modifying the boot section, could have been a botched install of 8. I dont know.

What I do know is i would like to try and at least get the efi thing going. Ill beat it to death until all options are exhausted.

About the ubuntu, I cant say for sure if it booted in efi mode. Ill check after thos post and see. I had it in Legacy mode when I booted it and not sure if it booted in legacy or efi. My laptop doesnt enable one and disable the other. If Legacy support is enabled, I have options to boot both legacy and efi. Ill disable legacy all together and see if the ubuntu cd boots.

[changedsoul]

Well I just tried to boot ubuntu with Legacy disabled and got no where. So it seems I cant boot anything but windows 8 cd, and a grub file from a usb drive. Ill check out them other links you posted. Thanks..

[srs5694]

I was having issues with Windows 8 not going to sleep, it would just put me back at the login screen. Also was unable to reboot into safe mode, some advanced boot options were not present. I dont know what caused it. It may have been Grub modifying the boot section, could have been a botched install of 8. I dont know.

If by "safe mode" you mean Secure Boot, you should be aware that Mint doesn't yet support Secure Boot. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, Ubuntu 12.10 is the only shipping Linux distribution that yet supports it, although Fedora 18 (to be released within a week) will do so, and others are bound to follow. It's also possible to enable Secure Boot on just about anything, but the process is a bit tedious. See my page on the topic for details.

Overall, your best bet is to disable Secure Boot. If you really want it, you can disable it for the installation and then enable it later. Short of building a custom installer, that's the only way you'll get Mint installed on a Secure Boot computer.

[changedsoul]

No by "Safe Mode" I mean "Safe Mode". "Safe Mode" is windows trouble shooting boot that has minimal drivers loaded. Nothing to do with Secure boot of efi. Secure boot is disabled. It seams my computer is unable to boot even the newest Ubuntu in efi. It could have been a bad burn too, Ill reburn it and try it. Otherwise Ill try the Bootable USB drive next and see how that goes.