2

I had dual boot, Win7 64bit, and Ubuntu 11.10

I updated to Ubuntu 12.04

Now I am not met with the prompt asking which OS to boot into (setup via EasyBCD in Windows while I had Ubuntu 11.10)

Is there an easy way to get the boot manager to recognize both OS's again, or do I need to reinstall Windows again and go through that headache again? Any programs similar to EasyBCD for Ubuntu?

Thanks

Bradley Peterson
  • 503
  • 2
  • 7
  • 10

5 Answers5

4

How to use boot-repair to provide a "Bootinfo Summary"


If you can boot Ubuntu, you can install and run the Boot-Repair tool and use it to create a BootInfo summary.

First, install the tool using apt-get. The terminal commands to do this are

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y boot-repair
  1. After that completes, enter the command boot-repair to start the tool.
  2. After a slight delay, boot-repair will prompt you to download the newest version. Since you just installed the latest version, answer No.
  3. If boot-repair asks to install the pastebinit package, respond with Yes.
  4. The tool will now scan your system and (eventually) display the window shown in the image below. Click on the Create a Bootinfo summary box/button. This will collect information about your system's boot configuration, but will not make any changes.


    Initial Boot-Repair Window

  5. When the bootinfo summary has been created, boot-repair will display a message containing a URL which should look like this: http://paste.ubuntu.com/123456/.

    Please update/edit your question and add this URL. The information in the pastebin this link points to will help us diagnose the problem.
irrational John
  • 5,207
2

Solved:

I reinstalled Windows (all I had was an install disk, it wouldn't let me "repair" from the menu....something about partitions not showing up how they should have been....)

anyways .... I did a custom/clean install of Windows7, when it was all finished, I again had my option of "Ubuntu or Windows 7" as if nothing had happened at all.

Sure enough, I loaded into Ubuntu 12.04 like nothing had ever happened.

=====================================================

Not sure why that all happened, but I only lost Win7 information (not important cause it's only used for Netflix, LOL

Now hopefully this post helps someone else someday.

Thanks!

Bradley Peterson
  • 503
  • 2
  • 7
  • 10
1

Assuming that your primary disk is sda, try:

sudo grub-install /dev/sda
sudo update-grub2

With this you can enter on Windows, and if you want install EasyBCD after.

mtdb
  • 403
  • Thanks for the reply. I tried the sudo update-grub2 and it said "Command not found" – Bradley Peterson May 02 '12 at 04:03
  • Try sudo update-grub just to cover all possibilites. If either that is also not found or if it does not find and add an entry to your GRUB boot menu to boot Win 7, then please use boot-repair to create a bootinfo summary and edit your question to add the link to the summary so we can look it over. – irrational John May 02 '12 at 05:22
1

Boot into a Windows recovery CD (ask your computer manufacturer for one) and open a command prompt. Then type this:

bootrec /fixmbr

Next you will see the Windows Bootloader instead of GRUB. Now follow the steps here to get GRUB back:

http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/Ubuntu

IGNORE the Restore MBR Step!

Emerson Hsieh
  • 6,900
0

do you have your windows 7 recovery disk? if you do then great! put that in and boot to that. instead of re-installing Windows, there should be an option for a recovery console or something close to that. Here is a detailed explanation on what to do:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/20864-mbr-restore-windows-7-master-boot-record.html

BE CAREFUL THOUGH!! i went through this process on my laptop with vista. once you fix the master boot record as the article shows you, you probably won't be able to see Ubuntu as an option to boot to when you turn on your computer. this is an easy fix though so don't worry. before you fix it you should restart your computer 2 or 3 times so that you can "train" your MBR(master boot record). once you have done that boot up your computer to a Ubuntu CD or USB and then follow this article here to fix your boot and reinstall grub. this worked for me a few days ago.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

good luck!

PS. I'm not really familiar with EasyBCD

Leviathan
  • 11
  • Well something interesting happened when I had unplugged my HDD SATA cable from the mobo and plugged it back in. It was like a Linux boot loader menu (gives the option to load into Linus, or "older versions of Linux" etc...)

    Well now that I think about it, I think there was an option for "Windows 7"

    Do you know how I can get back to that menu? (Other than unplugging the HDD again lol)

     – Bradley Peterson May 02 '12 at 04:05
  • no unfortunately i don't know how to get back to that menu. it sounds a lot like the GRUB menu though. are you not getting any boot manager screen when you turn on your comp? if so, i use a free program called PLoP Boot Manager that you burn on a CD and it gives you a boot manager that will search for a mbr in a hard drive or cd, usb, etc.

    http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/download.html

     – Leviathan May 02 '12 at 04:21