Windows – No boot menu for Ubuntu 14.04 after dual boot installation

fedora 20grubmulti-bootUbuntuwindows 7

I assume, this is not a duplicate post. Please read my findings below before assuming so.

I have gone through several questions over the Internet regarding people complaining that they are not getting GRUB option to get into Ubuntu OS after dual boot installation. But, unfortunately none of the answer worked for me.

I will explain issue that I observed in chronological order.

A month ago, I had set up Windows 7 installation along with RHEL 6.5 in dual boot scheme. RHEL's GRUB used to appear to show me options to select between Windows 7 and RHEL (which means I installed Windows 7 first and later installed RHEL).

Below is/ was my laptop's current partition scheme:

100 MB of Windows boot partition.
100 GB of partition labelled C (Windows partition).
300 GB of partition labelled D (my personal partition dedicated to movies 😉 ).
75 GB of partition on which RHEL is/ was installed. (Just the root partition).

And, please note that my laptop has BIOS (not UEFI).

I wanted to replace RHEL 6.5 with Ubuntu 14.04 using a bootable USB with the live ISO of Ubuntu and started setup of Ubuntu but Ubuntu's setup showed that:

The computer has currently no detected operating systems

So, I didn't want to take risk of moving into custom partition step. (I guess, there is a module named as "os-prober" which is definitely not working. But it always works with RHEL and that's why I have currently RHEL and Windows 7 installed in dual boot mode in my laptop ).

I have followed this, this and this and made below attempts.

Clean any invalid GPT leftover in /dev/sda using "sudo fixparts /dev/sda". While performing this step, I accidentally deleted MBR and lost all data stored in my other partitions. 🙁
Clean shutdown of Windows 7 must be done.
Maximum 4 partitions should be created. Fourth one being the partition dedicated to Ubuntu.
Format fourth partition using GParted.
Tried to fix any boot-loader issue using boot-repair-tool.
Ran "chkdsk" command to make sure there is no error in HDD.
Tried to install Ubuntu using WUBI. Installed successfully, got an option to choose between Windows and Ubuntu. But Ubuntu failed to mount root directory by complaining that no root partition found.
Last one but not the least: Totally cleaned the partitions and performed re-partitioning using GParted as well as windows partitioning tool.

After following Point No. 8, I again tried to setup Ubuntu and Windows 7 as dual boot but the issue remains the same. No OS detected.

Someone might ask me to install ubuntu anyway (custom partition) without caring if it shows that the computer has no detected OS. But, please be informed that I have tried this also. Ubuntu was installed successfully but I didn't get any GRUB menu while rebooting. I had tried to fix this by using boot-repair-tool. But still no GRUB menu was found.

Is there any step I am missing?

Now there is an another story: I tried to have a fedora 20 and Windows 7 dual boot setup. With Fedora I did not get the "No OS detected" message. However, I installed Fedora 20 on the last partition. As you know, Fedora 20 doesn't offer an option as to How and Where to install GRUB. Still, I proceeded, and after successful installation I didn't get any GRUB menu while booting. My laptop went straight into Windows 7. Also tried boot-repair-tool but still no luck.

Let me know if you want any data related to my partition or BIOS.
Please don't ask me to create at most 3 partitions, otherwise I have to better live with RHEL in dual boot setup. Please don't ask me to install ubuntu in VM either because I have just 3 GB of RAM.

What else should I do to get Ubuntu dual boot with Win 7?

Best Answer

This will most likely seem like a ridiculously stupid answer but it just worked for me and for anyone else having this problem it might help. When I installed ubuntu I selected "other" as I had already set up the partitions and didn't want ubuntu to do it. Doing it this way meant that the windows partition had the boot flag and therefore I got no boot menu. All I had to do was select the ubuntu ext4 partition as the boot and it worked!

Tl;Dr: Change the boot flag from windows loader to GRUB partition.

Related Solutions

Linux – Dual boot Arch and Windows 10 with GRUB

As described here, you need to do the following (The following must be done as root on your Arch OS):

As I can assume from your Output /dev/sdb2 seems to be your Windows-Bootloader so the First step will be:

$ mkdir /mnt/windows
$ mount /dev/sdb2 /mnt/windows
$ grub-probe --target=fs_uuid /mnt/windows/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi

Copy the Output of the last Command to a File and proceed with this:

$ grub-probe --target=hints_string /mnt/windows/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi

Also copy the output to the File. After that run the following to unmount the Partition

$ umount /mnt/windows
$ rmdir /mnt/windows

After that open the File /boot/grub/custom.cfg with your preferred editor and add the Following Lines:

if [ "${grub_platform}" == "efi" ]; then
    menuentry "Microsoft Windows Vista/7/8/8.1 UEFI/GPT" {
        insmod part_gpt
        insmod fat
        insmod search_fs_uuid
        insmod chain
        search --fs-uuid --set=root $hints_string $fs_uuid
        chainloader /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
    }
fi

Where $hints_string is the second Output and $fs_uuid is the first one.

At least run this to update your Grub:

$ grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

After reboot your Grub should contain the Entry for Windows, for more information about how to configure your Grub see this Page

Windows – Ubuntu Windows 10 Dual boot with TPM & Bitlocker

I chose to install the GRUB bootloader on the SSD as a whole not a specific partition on it so I guess that would make it install GRUB in the EFI partition?

Yes it would. The question whether to install GRUB into a disk vs partition doesn't even make sense on UEFI.

the EFI partition exists (System Reserved Partition)

That's not the same partition.

I want to uninstall grub and return to the Windows Bootloader/boot manager without reinstalling Windows. Then boot by default into it and have the option to chose to go to GRUB or Ubuntu directly as this tutorial https://stomp.colorado.edu/blog/blog/2011/12/05/on-dual-booting-tpm-linux-windows-and-bitlocker/ says.

The tutorial is written for PC BIOS systems. It does not apply to UEFI – the special partitions are different, bootloaders live elsewhere, the whole boot process is nothing like BIOS boot.

For UEFI, the Windows Boot Manager refuses to start any other boot programs except for what comes with Windows itself. You can still add the corresponding entries, but they won't work.

However, for UEFI, your EFI System Partition already has both bootloaders installed and the firmware itself has a boot menu that allows you to choose between them. Hold Esc or F12 or whatever your computer uses; you'll find an entry for "Windows Boot Manager" and an entry for "Ubuntu".

Within Linux you can manage these boot entries using efibootmgr. For example:

# efibootmgr
BootCurrent: 0001
Timeout: 0 seconds
BootOrder: 0000,0001
Boot0000* Windows Boot Manager
Boot0001* Ubuntu

To swap them around (make Windows primary), you can again use the firmware settings screen, or you can change the BootOrder variable:

# efibootmgr --bootorder 0001,0000

To boot into Windows once while keeping Ubuntu as default, you can set BootNext:

# efibootmgr --bootnext 0000

And vice versa, if you're using Windows, to boot into Ubuntu just once:

Use bcdedit /enum firmware to find the Windows BCD GUID for the Ubuntu entry.
Use bcdedit /set {fwbootmgr} bootsequence {UBUNTU_GUID_HERE} to program the BootNext variable.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Linux – Dual boot Arch and Windows 10 with GRUB

Windows – Ubuntu Windows 10 Dual boot with TPM & Bitlocker

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