can't access windows off of alleged dual boot ubuntu 10.10
 

i am dual booting ubuntu 10.10 and window 7. i was doing this a few months ago as well but had to wipe the hard drive for unrelated reasons. every time i would turn on my laptop i would have an option of choosing ubuntu or windows. since i installed ubuntu this time i dont get that option. its not like i plan on getting rid of ubuntu for windows but i liked the idea of windows still being there as sort of a security blanket. also its to my understanding that if i want to run a windows program through wine i do need to get to windows to install it there. any ideas? help? something?

Hi,

You dont need to go to windows to install software using wine.You can do it straight inside the wine.
As far as the windows and ubuntu dual boot is concerned,
just add the following in the /boot/grub/grub.conf

title WINDOWS
root (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

this will fix the dual boot problem.

samtoddler

do i post /boot/grub/grub.conf in the terminal? do i need to root access?

Let's see how things are set up first. Go here, do as it says and post the RESULTS.txt

can't access windows off of alleged dual boot ubuntu 10.10
 

Hi,

you can just edit it using the command

when it asks for password just type in your password and add the entries I've given at the end.

save it and exit.

samtoddler

syg00 im not sure if this is what you would call a RESULT.txt but after typing what i was told to and following said instructions this is what i got

spiky@spiky-Aspire-7741:~$ sudo bash ~/Downloads/boot_info_script.sh
bash: /home/spiky/Downloads/boot_info_script.sh: No such file or directory

samtoddler after typing in that command into the terminal i got this exactly

spiky@spiky-Aspire-7741:~$ sudo vim /boot/grub/grub.conf
sudo: vim: command not found

im getting a little discouraged here....almost like ill never see windows on my bootloader again....also...i dont even get the bootloader...it goes directly into ubuntu....when installing ubuntu i made sure to specify that i wanted it to dual boot and when i start up the laptop it says its unable to do something but it flashes by so quick i can't read it

also how do you post something in the lighter blue box to show exactly what you see. like you did syg00...i feel like such a serious newbie just posting what i got how i did...but hey im learning little by little...that is what matters right?

**** it says it's unable to detect available WMD devices....i think i just retarted it like 4 times....its a real quick flash

can't access windows off of alleged dual boot ubuntu 10.10
 

syg00 im not sure if this is what you would call a RESULT.txt but after typing what i was told to and following said instructions this is what i got

spiky@spiky-Aspire-7741:~$ sudo bash ~/Downloads/boot_info_script.sh
bash: /home/spiky/Downloads/boot_info_script.sh: No such file or directory
hi,

you can edit the grub.conf file in any text editor like gedit or nano

try

and put the content here what i've asked you.

samtoddler


........

Did you unzip the downloaded file ?. What does the following command show

samtoddler

i opened up the gedit through the terminal and used exactly what you said to (gedit boot/grub/grub.conf) and it opened the text editor exactly like it should have so i put in exactly what you said

it told me i didn't have the authority to do that so i entered the same command using sudo before gedit and it seemed to work fine. it didn't tell me i didn't have the authority again so i hit the save button (being im not too sure how to use the text editor) and shut down the laptop, restarted it, and there was no bootloader screen...went straight to Ubuntu again....did i do something wrong in the text editor? did i copy something incorrectly?


syg00

i did unzip the file into my Downloads folder (provided unzip and extract are the same thing....pretty sure they are) when i typed in the code you gave me into the terminal (with the zip file and the extracted folder in the Download folder) and i got this

since the first line was red and not white i felt like it was wrong and it said something about zip i tried taking the zip file out of the Downloads folder and put it elsewhere, leaving the extracted folder and i got this

No, they're not (quite) the same unfortunately. It created another level to drop the files in - you need to run the script as That will create a file called RESULTS.txt - hopefully in your current directory. Post that here.

If you are using Ubuntu 10.10, you should have Grub2 installed and a /boot/grub/grub.cfg file which you can edit. It would be simpler to update grub. If you do have the default Grub2 installed and there is a grub.cfg file, just open a terminal and enter the following:

You should be prompted for your user password. Enter it and hit the enter key. Reboot and see if you have a windows entry on the menu. If not you may need to run: sudo os-prober and then sudo update-grub again. If you get an error with os-prober, you may need to install it.

sudo apt-get install os-prober.

If you've replaced the default Grub2 bootloader with Grub Legacy, ignore the above.

You should probably make sure you have a boot cd or bootable usb stick of a Ubuntu live cd before you muck around with grub too much. It's possible to make the system not be able to boot at all if you do the wrong thing. If you already have a tested bootable live distro, you can much more easily fix it if things go wrong.

i agree with the above. ubuntu by default uses grub2, and so does debian, and when i used windows, and i first installed debian, i had to do the above to have it listed.

okay didn't get to try that yet but by general consensus it seems like this should be the final step in the little quest i've been going on...i'll try updating grub in just a little while being i'm mid-download of some things (being i should shut down the laptop after i update it) but one thing that i feel should be asked...should i backup everything onto like an external hard drive or something? i have the cd of ubuntu so i can always get it back thats no big deal, but i don't want to loose things that i 1) can't retrieve or 2) take 3 days to download again...so is this a "you'll possibly loose everything" type of deal? or should i not worry about it?