How do I choose the OS to boot?

Question

I had windows 7 on my hard drive, then I installed Ubuntu 14.04 to dual boot (I have several partitions and ubuntu is working fine). But I don't know how to switch between the two in boot time. I read a menu for me to choose should appear at boot time, but it justs boots up to ubuntu without asking me...
I know I didn't wipe my hard drive by accident because I can see my windows files from ubuntu.

So how do I switch between the two? Is there a button I should press or a setting I should turn on?

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited Aug 02 '14 at 20:46

3

You could try this to see if it helps. It could be that the GRUB timeout is 0 seconds so you don't see it at all.

Open up a terminal or type in the dash:

sudo -H gedit /etc/default/grub

You will be prompted to type your password and after that a text file will open inside the terminal.

Try changing:

GRUB_TIMEOUT=0

to

GRUB_TIMEOUT=X (however many seconds you want)

then save the file and exit. Now the GRUB menu should appear when you boot it up.

If that's not the problem, you could try Boot Repair

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/bootmenu

edited Aug 02 '14 at 20:46

Eliah Kagan

117,780

answered Jul 31 '14 at 17:12

Kristóf

529

gksu is deprecated and not installed in 14.04. You might want to change that to sudo nano... – chaskes Jul 31 '14 at 17:47
@chaskes You are absolutely right. I forgot. I changed it to sudo gedit since it is easier to use. – Kristóf Jul 31 '14 at 18:02
Last comment since I just got a warning :), but it's not a great idea to open gui programs with sudo (which was the purpose of gksu). You may still want to use nano. – chaskes Jul 31 '14 at 18:05
@chaskes Well, okay, I am not an expert, I will change it. Thanks. – Kristóf Jul 31 '14 at 18:06
1

I've edited this and changed the command to sudo -H gedit which is safe and does what was intended. – Eliah Kagan Aug 02 '14 at 20:48

How do I choose the OS to boot?

1 Answers1