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Hi i'm a linux newbie and i've just installed ubuntu as a dual boot with windows 7 but foolishly installed the bootloader on the same partition as ubuntu. is there an easy way to reinstall it on another partition without reistalling ubuntu again?

i've just tried this method to no avail....

How to manually install boot loader?

thanks

Joel
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  • What happened when you tried the instructions in the link? – wjandrea Sep 12 '17 at 18:43
  • wow that was quick thanks. it says this..... sed: can't read //boot/grub/device.map: No such file or directory grep: //boot/grub/device.map: No such file or directory /dev/sda2 does not have any corresponding BIOS drive. is it a bad idea to install it on the windows 7 partition? – Joel Sep 12 '17 at 18:50
  • Oh, I guess that's the issue. You need to install grub on the disk, i.e. /dev/sda – wjandrea Sep 12 '17 at 18:59
  • i know this is a silly question but how exactly? the terminal and myself don't quite speak the same language yet. i know i installed grub somewhere. i'll try a reboot and see what happens. if i don't return i'll be crying into my hands listening to the broken dvd drive stabbing my impatience with chugs of incompetence – Joel Sep 12 '17 at 19:30
  • i have returned with more tales of woe. when i reboot it booted straight into windows which then surprised me with a 4 hour update. it wasn't me but windows crying into its hands. maybe its upset because it looks like i'm leaving it for a younger model in linux. ah windows... if you can't handle an open source relationship, our time together may be spent. – Joel Sep 13 '17 at 13:42
  • anyway, so i found that /dev/sda2 has the boot option which is the windows parition but when i try to install grub there i get this message....

    grub-install: error: failed to get canonical path of 'aufs'.

    i tried to install it to /dev/sda too because i don't know what i'm doing and i learn by mistakes. i get the same error anyway.

    i installed grub somewhere by not specifing a location, it worked but as it doesn't boot it appears to be installed in the ether.

    can i chop this block from another angle or should i just format and reinstall ubuntu?

     – Joel Sep 13 '17 at 13:42
  • Please follow the instructions that you linked, make sure you're doing following them exactly, then if that fails, please [edit] your question with the result, including any terminal output. If you want to try another method, see this answer. – wjandrea Sep 13 '17 at 17:26
  • Thanks wjandrea, i gave up in the end and reinstalled ubuntu all over again, it took a while but quicker and safer than fiddling around with code for me at the moment. the next woeful tale is that my keyboard and even Onboard doesn't work when Terminal asks for a password which means i can't install software via the terminal. linux is fun – Joel Sep 13 '17 at 19:52
  • ....... ah ok it does work but pretends not to. linux is quirky – Joel Sep 13 '17 at 20:27
  • Wow, I totally didn't realize that reinstalling would fix it. Sorry for putting you through any hassle, but glad you got it fixed in the end! – wjandrea Sep 13 '17 at 20:53
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    For the password in terminal, it's never shown, not even dots. It's a security feature. There's some discussion of it here. – wjandrea Sep 13 '17 at 20:54

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