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I installed 12.04 LTS on my computer that already had Vista 64 Ultimate. Installation said that reboot was necesarry to use the new installation. Well, it just boots right into vista without giving me a boot option for ubuntu. Any help would be much appreciated.

I've installed and used ubuntu in the past, but I still consider myself a newbie.

user76770
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    Thank you for responding. The installation recommended a drive, and partitioned it. I'm not sure what would be considered "advanced partitioning." Could you give me a little direction on how I "install the bootloader to /dev/sda?" – user76770 Jul 13 '12 at 12:39
  • In the place where you chose the option to install side-by-side, there was an option for "something else". Also, you don't need to reinstall. I will add an answer soon. – nanofarad Jul 13 '12 at 12:41
  • You can refer the Bootloader option in the last image here. – atenz Jul 13 '12 at 13:04
  • These first two answers are very much appreciated, BUT when I boot from cd and select "try Ubuntu" I end up at a colorful ubuntu desktop background with nothing else. No task bar or anything. As if it started the load and stopped. No Ctr+ALT+F1 or Ctr+Alt+F6. :( Any ideas? – user76770 Jul 13 '12 at 19:04
  • Is it possible to open terminal without going in to "Try Ubuntu?" – user76770 Jul 14 '12 at 04:44
  • Yes. Sorry for slow response. Boot as far as it'll take you, and press ++ to get into TTY1. Use ++ to get back into the GUI. – nanofarad Jul 16 '12 at 11:46

2 Answers2

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You can try to repair GRUB.

  1. To do this, boot from any Live CD and open a terminal.

  2. Mount the partition with your installed Ubuntu by entering 

    sudo mount /dev/sda? /mnt

    Important: replace the '?' with the partition where you installed Ubuntu! If you don't know which partition this is, open gparted and look for it.

  3. Include the directory with important device information

    sudo mount -o bind /dev /mnt/dev

    and /sys

    sudo mount -o bind /sys /mnt/sys

    and the interface data

    sudo mount -t proc /proc /mnt/proc

  4. Now change into the mounted system:

    sudo chroot /mnt /bin/bash

  5. Then you can install GRUB by typing

    grub-install /dev/sda

    and

    update-grub

    If you get Errors with the last step, just mention it in a comment.

  6. Exit the terminal with exit.

Hope this is helpful for you.

slashcrack
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  • on sudo mount -o bind /dev /mnt/dev and sudo mount -o bind /sys /mnt/sys I get a message that says the following: mount: mount point /mnt/dev does not exist. Same with /mnt/sys – user76770 Jul 14 '12 at 06:59
  • Sorry, I forgot to say that you have to replace the '?' in the command sudo mount /dev/sda? /mnt with the partition you want to repair / install GRUB on. I improved it in my answer. – slashcrack Jul 14 '12 at 09:51
  • Thank you for your help (and the correction) it worked!!! I'm so happy to have ubuntu up and running. – user76770 Jul 20 '12 at 21:13
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Please boot your installation CD and select to "try Ubuntu". Then, open a terminal by searching for "Terminal" in the launcher. Then, run the following command, one-by-one.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair && sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install -y boot-repair && boot-repair

Then, run boot-repair from the terminal.
Use the "Recommended repair", and it will do a repair and give you a URL(If it prompts you to install pastebinit, then do so. Please post the URL here.

Also, if you get worried about Windows doing a chkdsk, read the following quote:

It should be noted for those new to Linux though that when you start Windows after using this tool it will run chkdisk on the windows partition, so don't panic.

nanofarad
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  • Thank you for your response. This did not work for me. I had error messages after the second process. Unfortunately I did not write them down to share. I remember to do that next time. – user76770 Jul 20 '12 at 21:15
  • The error messages about Glib and pixmaps and stuff are useless and you can safely continue(it takes a while). If you have other errors, do tell. – nanofarad Jul 20 '12 at 21:16