Since recently I own a Framework 16 with 2 1TB expansion cards (drives D and E) and Windows 11 pre installed on the main drive.
I wanted to dual boot and install Ubuntu 24.04 lts on the second expansion card (E).
Just before attempting to install Ubuntu a weird incident with the E card occurred. I got the error message that a usb device was defect and drive E was no longer displayed in the file explorer. I restarted the Laptop and everything was back to normal so I didn’t think much of it.
Back to dualbooting I didn’t delete or create any new partitions and simply selected the option “Erase disk and install Ubuntu” → sdb.
Even though only the main disk had Bitlocker, I still had to go back and disable it before I could choose this option.
At first it seemed like everything has worked as I could boot into both Ubuntu and Windows and to test that I indeed had chosen drive E and not D I started an application that was installed on Drive D and it worked.
However,
Drive E was still visible in the file explorer and shown as being empty. The disk manager didn’t see any new partitions on it either.
Soon after I tried to boot Ubuntu again and it didn’t work anymore. Before seeing Grub I am now getting an error screen that looks like that (image 1).
I still can boot into Windows through BIOS (sometimes Ubuntu is displayed 2 times there), but there now both expansion cards are gone.
In the partition overview disk 1 (Which should be D though, right?) is now unallocated and it asks me to initialize it.
Meanwhile disk 2 is shown with what seems like the Ubuntu partitions, however as mentioned before it doesn’t boot. (image 2)
Before doing anything else, I decided to get some help as I am not sure whether this is an expansion card issue or whether I messed something up when installing ubuntu or chose the wrong drive.
I think the “Verification failed” error might be caused by Secure boot (mandatory for Windows 11). To check that, you can deactivate the option in the BIOS and see if Ubuntu boots (remember to activate it again to boot Windows!).
If that’s the case, you would likely need to enroll some keys (and potentially sign your image), I’ll let somebody with more experience explain in details, I only tried once (but without success and for a different distribution) and ultimately gave up as it was only to boot Windows from an expansion card if I could not use a VM (fun fact, it’s been 6 months and I didn’t need to boot Windows from the expansion card xD).
For the disks error (second screenshot), Ubuntu uses Ext4 file system (by default), which Windows is not able to read so it’s not surprising to have this (not sure how Windows handles the partition table created on the Ubuntu disk)
Still doesn’t boot without secure boot, I see the framework logo and a small error message in the left corner, “reloc offset is out of the segment. Aborted. Press any key to exit.”
As for the disks, so you think that ubuntu was installed on disk 1? What are then the partitions on the disk 2? I can’t be 100% sure anymore, but I am pretty sure they weren’t there before I tried to install ubuntu, even then though it stopped being accessible, so something must have happened to both disks.
Hum, the error you are encountering doesn’t look good for your disk (from what I could gather doing a search with the error). It looks like the expansion card is defective and if that’s the case I think support should be able to help you (as you bought them recently).
First thing, can you try disconnecting and reconnecting the expansion cards?
Second thing, let’s try to understand what is on the disks. To do that, use the Ubuntu live USB stick and start the desktop environment. Once there, open a terminal and type the following command:
lsblk -o NAME,FSTYPE,SIZE,MOUNTPOINT
This will list all the disks and their partitions available on your system. You should have something like the following:
In my case I only have an SSD (nvme0n1) and a live USB stick (sda).
In your case you should have 1 SSD and 3 USBs, i.e. nvme0n1 (Windows drive) and sda, sdb and sdc (the live USB and the 2 expansion cards, not necessarily in this order).
If you could paste here the result of the command that would be great!
(from what I could gather doing a search with the error). It looks like the expansion card is defective and if that’s the case I think support should be able to help you (as you bought them recently).