I have done some research as to how to go about this dual-boot, and I am close, but I need some guidance with booting into Windows 8 (Ubuntu is installed).

I have a Lenovo Ideapad y510p.

I will go over what I have done to dual-boot this laptop, with windows 8 pre-installed, with Ubuntu 12.04:

1. I followed every instruction to the letter for the 97-vote response here, and everything worked fine up until after the repair boot section: Installing on a Pre-Installed Windows 8 System (UEFI Supported)

2. I ran into the following error upon restarting after the repair boot section: error: invalid arch independent elf magic. This error (a grub issue) disabled me from booting into Ubuntu :(

3. After a little googling, I followed the instructions in the reactivating grub 2 section to resolve the error: http://kb.acronis.com/content/1686

4. I found a possible solution to fixing the Windows 8 boot issue, and tried it: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:i9JMyXzzRpYJ:askubuntu.com/questions/279275/dual-boot-problem-windows-8-ubuntu-12-04+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=ubuntu

5. I thought the above solution worked, but when I attempt to boot into Windows 8, I get the following missing file error:

File: \Boot\BCD

Status: 0xc000000e

Info: The Boot Configuration Data for your PC is missing or contains errors.

Here is some other information that may be useful:

• I have 3 partitions devoted to Ubuntu.

• The first, sda8, has a flag bios_grub (1049 kb).

• The second, sda9, is where everything else is (96.6 GB).

• The last, sda10, is for swap (8299 MB).

My question is: How do I fix the boot configuration for Windows 8? Any help would be greatly appreciated :)

Update 1: When I attempt to boot into UEFI mode, I get the following error: invalid arch independent elf magic (the same error I saw in step 2).

Update 2: A useful link here I found: Dual booting Ubuntu 12.04: UEFI and Legacy

So, this is my 4th time installing Ubuntu on the laptop, and it looks like I need to install it in UEFI mode. Should I scrap it all again, and reinstall? Or is there ANY way of salvaging my installation? At this point, I can't even boot into Windows (although I have an installation cd to fix the windows boot issue, that would ultimately screw over ubuntu).

Update 3: After doing a little more browsing around, I found a cool way around this messy grub stuff, using rEFInd. Rod Smith's post here saved me!

Installing ubuntu 12.04.02 in uefi mode

Now, I am able to dual-boot Windows 8 and Ubuntu and boot into both operating systems :)

I have another issue (relating to the boot configuration in the bios) that I will post as a separate question :)