Will Windows 7 Detect XP When GRUB is Installed?

bcdgrububuntu-10.04windows 7windows xp

There's similar questions but nothing quite exactly what i'm looking for

I have a laptop that currently dualboots XP and Ubuntu, with XP chainloaded by grub. I'd like to get windows 7 in the mix, need to upgrade my version of ubuntu anyway, and adjust the partitions quite a bit so my current plan is to wipe out the ubuntu partition and shrink XP, split what i have in 2, install 7 (so BCD will boot windows XP) then install ubuntu so that grub will chainload BCD

I have 2 questions
1) will BCD/windows 7 detect and chainload the XP system
2) will grub2 on the latest ubuntu LTS chainload BCD

Best Answer

I found a forum post which says he got it working two ways.

It notes that if you install GRUB to the MBR, the GRUB menu will have a single item for the BCD. Then, the BCD contains entries for "earlier versions" (XP) and 7 (you can set BCD labels with easyBCD). I think this is what you want.

The same post notes that he rejected that solution because he was mostly booting to Windows. It gives a explanation in which he installs Windows first (letting it keep the MBR), then installs GRUB to the Ubuntu partition. The result is that the BCD menu comes first, giving three options, 7, XP, and Ubuntu. The Ubuntu menu really goes to GRUB, which you can tell to instantly boot Ubuntu.

Related Solutions

Windows – Grub rescue command line, chainloading Windows 7 installer

Just have been there too (where you are right now) And if you tablet is a Toshiba 10"... we are brothers in arms... ;-)

Just add this entry to your GRUB2 menu

menuentry "Windows 7" {
     insmod part_msdos
     insmod ntldr
     insmod ntfs
     ntldr (hd0,msdos1)/bootmgr
}

Windows 10 – Will Installing Overwrite Linux/Grub?

I was in your exact situation, dual-booting Windows 8.1 and Ubuntu (15.04). While I would not recommend attempting any sort of Windows OS upgrade without a backup (like I carelessly did), upgrading went miraculously well for me.

Using the tool found at the Microsoft website, I simply ran it from my Windows 8.1 partition, let it download and configure its files, and install with the recommended settings (i.e. checking the "keep users and data" box). During every restart, GRUB would pop up like an old friend asking me where I wanted to go, and selecting the Windows Boot Manager each time led to the installation proceeding as smoothly and consistently as could be. Once I even left the installation running unobserved, and upon a restart the computer automatically booted to Ubuntu--simply rebooting the computer and selecting the Windows option in GRUB, the installation picked up as if nothing had happened!

Despite my reckless behavior, however, I would still highly recommend following Journeyman's advice: make a full disk backup before attempting anything else. On other occasions (when I was more thoughtful about my actions), I used this Ubuntu help page to help myself out with the dd command.

TL;DR: Reckless user upgraded to Windows 10, found GRUB left untouched and working like a charm, but still implores you to use dd for disk backup beforehand.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Windows – Grub rescue command line, chainloading Windows 7 installer

Windows 10 – Will Installing Overwrite Linux/Grub?

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