I recently decided to take the plunge with Linux, by installing what I understand is the most user friendly of the distributions, Ubuntu. I had a spare HDD going, after switching to an SSD for my Windows 7 installation. So, I felt it would be relatively safe to experiment with Linux on the empty drive.

I installed Ubuntu using the recommended settings (after fumbling about with partitions and swap space and, I think, managing to install Ubuntu without a boot loader, and everything seemed to be fine, and I was pleased to discover a menu that offered multiple boot options, including the newly installed Ubuntu and Windows 7 on the other disk.

When I select Ubuntu, it loads and operates perfectly. When I select Win 7, it gives me the invalid EFI error. When I change the boot order to use the SSD first, Win 7 loads as it had always done. No problem with my installs, I'm guessing the problem is with the boot manager.

After looking at similar questions and threads about the EFI issue, I install and run boot-repair, choosing the recommended/default option. It mentioned an issue to do with GPT (which I can't quite remember at the minute) and suggested enabling the separate EFI partition option, which I did and re-ran it to no avail. I have not yet tried the other advice in the error message, which was to create the partition with something like GParted.

I tried to install rEFInd from the debian package, but it errored and did not complete.

Any advice on how to either fix my issue, or correctly install rEFInd (if that would help) would be appreciated.

I'd prefer not to have to change the boot order every time I want to change OS, especially since I'm using a wireless keyboard that isn't detected during start-up.

It's a 64-bit machine.

http://paste.ubuntu.com/5758960/ - My boot-repair output.

EDIT: Tried reinstalling rEFInd, apparently it worked this time, though the Windows 7 option only sent me into what I think is GRUB, where it's Windows 7 option still gave the invalid EFI error.

I read in this thread, Invalid EFI file path, how the windows loader may have been renamed. Renaming the file as per the instructions only yielded an error when launched from rEFInd. Is the grubx64.efi file relevant?

EDIT 2: There is a bootmgfw.efi in the Windows folder on the SSD, is it worth trying to point the grub.cfg chainloader parameter at that?