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Recently I think I deleted some important Ubuntu files because of using the wrong flag for sudo rm commands which may have caused it to delete some key files rendering it unable to boot.

So, I created a live USB of Ubuntu 20.04 LTS which was the OS on my system in an attempt to repair the damage by "reinstalling Ubuntu while keeping maximum files and software"

However whenever I try to get it to install itself, it gets me this error:-

The partition table format in use on your disk requires you to create a separate partition for boot loader code..... partition should be marked as a "Reserved BIOS boot area" and should be atleast 1Mb.

Ans then gives me the warning not to continue lest I want my system to fail. So I am confused why it is asking me to do such thing as all it has to do is to overwrite whatever partitions were there before. This is how it looks like:-

Device                   Size        Mount Point    System
------                   -----      ------------    ------
/dev/sda      
free space    1Mb        
/dev/sda1 (type=fat32)     536Mb      /boot/efi     
/dev/sda2 (type=ext4)      999665Mb   /             Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 
free space                 0Mb

I do not understand how the guides online have shown to do this. I am afraid of further crashing my system or not having it boot at all. Can anyone advise/show me how to create the partition the error requested?

Also, why doesn't it simply overwrite the existing partitions as they already exist? Note that I do not want to Dual boot, only to repair my damaged OS. UPDATE:- I tried booting the live USB in UEFI mode as suggested below, but there another error crops up advising me this:

No EFI System Partition found. This system will likely not be able to boot successfully, and the installation process may fail. Please go back and add an EFI system Partition, or continue at your own risk.
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  • I think you may be trying to do this in legacy mode when you should be in UEFI mode. Does this help: askubuntu.com/questions/928951/…
    – PonJar
    Commented May 18, 2020 at 10:02
  • @PonJar When I boot the live disc in UEFI medium then I get the error saying that I need to create an EFI partition as it is not present there. which I do not know how to create.... I will also update the question with the exact error...
    – neel g
    Commented May 18, 2020 at 10:51
  • Do you have boot/esp flags on the FAT32 partition. And if you do you may need to run repairs. See: askubuntu.com/questions/862724/grub2-failed-to-install/…
    – oldfred
    Commented May 18, 2020 at 15:24

1 Answer 1

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You probably need gparted on the live-system to partition your medium on the computer properly... First I think that you should format the 1MB free space as fat and give it the MBR-partition flag... in gparted... But why do you need a MBR boot partition??? The GPT partition is newer and more robust... Anyhow this is what I think you could do but BE CAREFULL!!! You should always read the instructions carefully before doing anything to the primary startup medium. There are stil a manyfold of mistakes you can make by manually partioning a disk. Partitioning a disk manually is prone to very severe wrongdoings so read the manuals(man 7 -k partition for a list of posibilities to educate oneselve) and read other askubuntus->partioning to reassure yourself

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