Ubuntu 16.04 does not start after installation next to Windows 7

Question

Installation ends succesfully, computer restarts and... Windows boots up.
My computer: old laptop HP Compaq 6710b (no UEFI, no secure boot).
Two hard drives:
- 1st is 240 GB SSD and 2nd is some old 200 GB HDD.
- 2nd drive is installed in special adapter which fits in optical drive bay.

SSD is partitioned like this:

HDD has one partition:

Does the GRUB menu (OS selection) show or the Windows just boots immediately? — Michal Polovka, Jun 04 '16 at 13:19

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:23

1

Your problem is probably that, during installation, it / you picked the wrong option in "device for bootloader installation". (See here for a screenshot)

Your laptop presents the hard drive as /dev/sda, and the internal SSD as /dev/sdb (From the screenshot). Thus, the installer installed the bootloader onto /dev/sda by default (Assuming you didn't tell it to do otherwise).

The problem is that the laptop isn't looking on the HDD for the bootloader - it's looking on the SSD, and thus only sees the Windows 7 bootloader (Which is on the SSD, and not the Ubuntu one (grub), which is on the HDD.

See How can I repair grub? (How to get Ubuntu back after installing Windows?) for details on how to fix this, making sure you intall to /dev/sdb, or you can use Boot-Repair for this.

Another, possibly easier, option is to set the boot order in the BIOS set-up, so that it is set to boot from the hard drive.

Let me know if it helps.

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:23

Community

1

answered Jun 04 '16 at 14:35

Jonas Czech

4,017

Also he could set the HDD before the SSD in the boot order. – You'reAGitForNotUsingGit Jun 04 '16 at 14:42
Indeed, that's also an option, if the laptop supports booting from the HDD in the optical drive bay. – Jonas Czech Jun 04 '16 at 14:44
Boot-Repair did the trick. I quess it places grub on SDD drive. – Bartłomiej Łukaszewski Jun 09 '16 at 21:36
Boot sequence setting - on the other hand - was usueles for me, cause there was no option to choose between HDD and SDD. When I invoke boot menu (using F9 on my computer), a see "USB Hard Drive" (when pendrive is connected), "laptop hard drive" (something like this) and "Ethernet" (or LAN something). It doesn't seem to notice that there are two drives installed. – Bartłomiej Łukaszewski Jun 09 '16 at 21:44

Bartłomiej Łukaszewski · Answer 2 · 2017-07-16T22:32:29.957

I finally managed to regain access to my Ubuntu with following set of commands: sudo mount /dev/sdb8 /mnt
sudo mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev/ &&
sudo mount --bind /dev/pts /mnt/dev/pts &&
sudo mount --bind /proc /mnt/proc &&
sudo mount --bind /sys /mnt/sys
sudo chroot /mnt
grub-install /dev/sdb
grub-install --recheck /dev/sdb
update-grub
exit &&
sudo umount /mnt/sys &&
sudo umount /mnt/proc &&
sudo umount /mnt/dev/pts &&
(All commands executed using Ubuntu 16.04 launched from USB drive.)

Ubuntu 16.04 does not start after installation next to Windows 7

2 Answers2