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A common problem many users face after installing either Linux or Windows on a system when the other is already present is an override of the default boootloader. Without a bootloader, the system is clueless about where to get boot data from. In such a case, you can try these simple steps to restore your grub menu with all the Operating Systems present in the list.
- Boot from Ubuntu 9.10 or any Ubuntu 9.10 derivative live CD ( the CD from which you installed Ubuntu).
- After the boot is complete, press alt+F2 to open a terminal.
- Enter the command fdisk as
sudo fdisk -l
This lists all the partitions as shown. - Mount the drive marked as Linux under System ( the last column) using the command
sudo mount “device” /mnt
Replace “path” with the corresponding device ID under the Device Boot section. So, for the given screen-shot,
my command will be
sudo mount /dev/sda12 /mnt
- After the mount is successful, install grub with the command
sudo grub-install –root-directory=/mnt “path”
- Unmount the drive with
sudo unmount /mnt
Now, restart your system. Your grub will be restored with both Windows and Linux in the menu.
Tags: grub
Author: Chinmoy Kanjilal
Chinmoy Kanjilal is a tech enthusiast, a web2.0 and Linux evangelist and an Android fanboy. He has an in depth knowledge of working of software, operating systems, hardware and computer networks. Blogging is his favorite pastime. You can connect with him on Twitter @ckandroid.Chinmoy Kanjilal has written 513 articles for us.
The author of this post can be contacted at chinmoy@techie-buzz.com
Thanks for post, I am hunting for a fix.
Note "-" missing in action, else get unrecognised option.
Using: sudo grub-install -–root-directory=/mnt “path”
Using full path of /dev/sda6 in line above, I get a warning.
Attempting to install GRUB to a partition instead of the MBR. This i a BAD idea……….
using /dev/sda
I get Installation finished. No error reported, but on reboot it arrive at grub>
with no menu and no way (that newbie me knows) to get into either ubuntu or windows installed on my machine.
Goto the wiki on grub on ubuntu.com. I think the link is wiki.ubuntu.com/grub. Refer the reinstall grub and you should be fine. I have borked my grub too multiple times!
I still have the old GRUB (black and white) because I upgraded from 9.04 to 9.10.
I think the next upgrade will have the colorful and classy 'new' GRUB. I'm looking forward to that.
The 'new' GRUB is not 'colorful' or 'classy' by default. In fact it looks identical to the 'old' GRUB. You need to download the grub2-splashimages package and play around with config files to make it 'colorful' and 'classy'.
And, by the way, you can still make the 'old' GRUB 'colorful' and 'classy' too. Just download and install grub-splashimages package and tweak around with the config files. You can find step by step instructions at – https://help.ubuntu.com/community/GrubHowto#Boot%...
Thanks, I will definitely check it out.