Ubuntu – Change boot order for Wubi

10.04bootwindows-vistawubi

I've setup Ubuntu via Wubi recently for a friend and he came back with a complaint: On reboots the Windows partition is always selected by default, figured this was just a need to update Grub but realized that Wubi writes to the Windows Boot Manager and does not use Grub.

Though this is technically a "Windows" question I wasn't able to find a clear answer for this.

How to do I modify the boot/selection order for Operating systems (Mainly Ubuntu via Wubi) on the Windows Boot Manager?

Best Answer

The Wubi Guide on the Ubuntu wiki (manual uninstall section) gives some hints on how to edit the Windows Boot Manager boot order in Vista and XP.

In Windows Vista you can either use EasyBCD or modify the boot menu via Control Panel (Classic View) > System > Advanced system settings; then choose "Settings..." under Startup and Recovery.

In Windows XP, edit C:\boot.ini.

According to this Wubi HowTo, the default OS can be changed in Windows 7 by going to Control Panel > Advanced System Settings, and in the Default operating system drop-down selecting Ubuntu instead of Windows.

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Boot loading problem after Wubi installation of Ubuntu 12.04 on Windows 7

Run a live Ubuntu CD/USB.Mount the drive where you installed Ubuntu.Run terminal and type sudo update-grub and reboot.If you still stuck with grub issue,come back again to live,type this command sudo install-grub /dev/sda where sda is the drive where Ubuntu lies.Then sudo update-grub and reboot.More info here.

Ubuntu – Fixing grub menu after migrating wubi to partition

The Wubi migration will only ever install the Grub bootloader on the drive you are migrating to. In this case /dev/sdb. It does this to make things simpler (and I believe it's the safest option). So the easiest way to boot the migrated install is to set /dev/sdb to boot first in the BIOS options.

The way Wubi boots - and the way you are booting right now - is from the Windows Boot Manager (BCD store), wubildr.mbr (in the \ubuntu\winboot directory), then wubildr (C:\wubildr), then the grub.cfg from inside the Wubi install (the root.disk). This is where you are booting your migrated install from. If you uninstall Wubi ALL these things will be removed (not the Windows Boot Manager but it won't show, because the Wubi entry is deleted).

So you cannot boot the migrated install with the Wubi boot method after getting rid of Wubi. You can instead install grub to the migrated partition and use easyBCD to do it. But personally I wouldn't recommend this. If you have to boot from the drive containing windows (in your case /dev/sda) instead do this:

Boot the migrated install
Install grub to the MBR. Assuming the drive you boot from is /dev/sda you would run: sudo grub-install /dev/sda
Change the boot order so Windows is first.

Code:

sudo mv /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober /etc/grub.d/09_os-prober
sudo update-grub

These last commands just change the order in which Grub generates the menu entries, placing the Windows entry (generated out of 30_os-prober) first.

PS. since you have already tweaked your grub menu on the migrated install, you probably just have to install Grub to /dev/sda to get things to work right and can leave the grub scripts alone.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Boot loading problem after Wubi installation of Ubuntu 12.04 on Windows 7

Ubuntu – Fixing grub menu after migrating wubi to partition

Related Question