Ubuntu Won't Boot After Installation on Lenovo Laptop - How to Fixeric

Installation of Linux distro has became easy for a very long time, but still sometimes weird thing happens you might not know what goes wrong and get frustrated. I have installed Linux on Dell, HP computers and never had any issue. But when I installed Ubuntu on a Lenovo laptop, a ThinkPad, it wouldn't boot up after the installation. I tried to reinstall it, but it didn't work. I tried to repair the GRUB (sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/boot), but again still no luck. It seemed like the computer couldn't find any bootable records on the drive.

After a quick search on the Internet, it seems I am not alone. The issue might be related to the TPM (Trusted Platform Module) enabled in the BIOS. People were suggesting to disable the TPM in the BIOS, and it should work. I went to the BIOS, disabled the TPM, and voila, it worked (another installation or GRUB fix is needed). The Ubuntu booted up without any issue.

Below are the steps to disable the TPM in the BIOS:

1. To get into BIOS, restart the computer and press the F1 key when the Lenovo logo appears on the screen.

On the screen you may see "if you want to interrupt normal startup, press enter" or "to enter setup, press F1". Press F1 to enter the BIOS.

2. Go to the Security tab.

3. Go to the Security Chip option.

Hit Enter.

4. Change the value to Disabled.

5. Press F10 to save and exit.

In some cases, you probably need to disable secure boot as well.

So, if you have difficulty in getting Ubuntu (or any other distros, Fedora, CentOS, etc.) to boot after the installation, try to disable the TPM in the BIOS. It might work for you too, but with probably another installation.

Further Reading

According to Intel, the TPM is a hardware-based security feature that can help protect your computer by integrating cryptographic keys into devices. If your computer has the 8th Generation or later Intel processor, mostly you will have the security option in the BIOS of your computer. When it is enabled, the bootloader either cannot not be changed by the Ubuntu installer even Ubuntu supports UEFI Secure Boot, or the key provided by the TPM is ignored or not handled by Ubuntu, so it cannot proceed to boot up.

For Windows users, in order to run Windows 11, TPM 2.0 is required. So, if you disable the TPM, you might not be able to run Windows 11. But for Linux users, it should be fine.

Credits:

Photo by Arthur Mazi on Unsplash

Contact

For further information, I can be reach via:

• twitter: Eric Tang
• email: [email protected]