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I have Windows installed on an NVME drive and Ubuntu on a SATA drive which is connected to a hard drive power switch.

I want Windows to boot when the Ubuntu drive is turned off and when it is on I want to boot to Ubuntu. I will then hide the GRUB menu so I do not have to manually select. The Windows drive is always on.

I am not sure how to I can achieve this. I have tried selecting GRUB as the bootloader but when the Ubuntu drive is off a GRUB console screen appears and I have to type "exit" to get into Windows. When Windows is the bootloader and the Ubuntu drive is on, Windows starts up.

Does anyone have any pointers to get this working? Thanks

Edit:

Drive info: https://paste.ubuntu.com/p/WcPrSyq66Q/

Garry Gaz
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    Ubuntu's Ubiquity installer normally installs grub boot loader to first drive or your NVMe drive. UEFI or BIOS install? If UEFI system, you need to have an ESP on each drive. But you can do same thing, just by pressing f12 or similar key to get into UEFI boot menu to choose which system to boot. Lets see details, use ppa version with your live installer (2nd option) or any working install, not Boot-Repair ISO: Please copy & paste the pastebin link to the Boot-info summary report ( do not post report), do not run the auto fix till reviewed. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair – oldfred Sep 20 '21 at 19:29
  • Its UEFI, not sure how I would do the ESP thing. Do you mean do not post the paste bin link? – Garry Gaz Sep 20 '21 at 23:57
  • No, do not post report as some try to do, its too large. Just post the link to the Summary Report in your question above. You can add the ESP to your second drive, probably anywhere on drive unless very large drive. Then edit fstab with new UUID of new ESP. And then reinstall grub. You can use Boot-Repair, but only its advanced mode where you choose install & choose drive, but must have new ESP first. – oldfred Sep 21 '21 at 03:35
  • I put the report in the original post. I am a beginner so do not really understand how I would add the ESP to the second drive. Would I have to do a fresh install of ubuntu? I have tried looking for a tutorial but do not really know what to look for do you have any recommendations. Thanks. – Garry Gaz Oct 07 '21 at 15:19
  • You mixed gpt partitioning on sdb (and sdc) with UEFI install. Microsoft has required gpt with UEFI installs since 2012. Ubuntu does let you use MBR with UEFI but should not. You may be able to convert sdb to gpt, and reinstall grub in UEFI mode, but better to do new install, if you have good backups or is new install. http://askubuntu.com/questions/743095/how-to-prepare-a-disk-on-an-efi-based-pc-for-ubuntu Then use Something Else install option. https://askubuntu.com/questions/16988/how-do-i-install-ubuntu-to-a-usb-key-without-using-startup-disk-creator or disconnect Windows drive. – oldfred Oct 07 '21 at 16:53

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