I just got a new Windows 8 PC, and I wanted to dual boot Linux right away. I was able to get Ubuntu to work, but not through GRUB. I had to hold F2, disable secureboot, then choose either my HDD, or "ubuntu" which would take me to GRUB. From GRUB, I could boot Ubuntu, but not Windows 8.

Well then my friend told me I ought to use Fedora instead. So I used the partition I had Ubuntu in and loaded Fedora via USB. Again, same thing, GRUB won't allow me into Win8, but now, when I select my HDD for boot in the menu, it tells me I need a recovery disc. I'd like to solve this, but I'm fine going back and just doing Ubuntu again. If I can just get back into Windows 8 I should be able to work it out. I've been googling this for quite a while and no luck.

Permanent fix would be to get Win8 to boot through GRUB, but if I can go back to doing what I was doing, I'd accept that as well.

bump? should I put this in another category?

You should probably post more information.
Was windows 8 pre-installed on the computer?
Did you install it your self?
Number of drives/partitions?
Do you have an entry for windows in the Ubuntu grub.cfg file?
Posting more detailed information would help and the best way to do that is to post the output of the bootinfoscript. Go to the site below and read the instructions, download and run the script and review it or post the results.txt file here.

Uh, which site? Did you mean to post one?

Hi King,
I'm sorry that I have no solution to offer you, but after reading your post, I googled around a bit and found that if you get a windows 8 system with the logo that says "built for windows 8" it comes with hardware signatures that tie windows into your computer's hardware. As of now no unix system has been able to circumvent this issue (at least as far as I could find out) which means that your best bet would be to eraze your ubuntu installation and recover from your windows recovery partition. After that if you are interested you can once again load ubuntu and do what you did earlier.
The reasoning/explanation that MS is doing this to prevent malware getting installed on to your comp seems to be a bit far fetched because I read an article on ARS Technica where malware was found installed on systems that were brand new. And these systems were ordered by Microsoft for their R&D Department!

Luckily this PC is an x86 one. If it wasn't, I wouldn't be able to be on Fedora or Ubuntu as I am. I've been able to do it by disabling secure boot, which on the ones you mentioned is impossible. I'm not sure how I can boot into the recovery mode, though I'm fine with doing that. I'll start googling that. Last thing I remember is seeing them talk about setting up a recovery USB, which I'll be doing as soon as I get it running on Win8, but unfortunately I need to get into windows in order to get that set up :/

Have you tried reinstalling ubuntu in your fedora partition? Maybe that might bring things back to how it was initiall.

Just tried that, no luck. Booting from the HDD rather than ubuntu still asks for the recovery disc.

Sorry, just noticed I forgot to post the bootinfoscript link:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/bootinfoscript/

You need to run the script in Ubuntu or with any Linux Live CD.

I had a similar problem. I have a Toshiba Qosmio with Windows 7 preinstalled. I put Opensuse 12.2 on it, then found that the Grub boot page offered both Suse and Windows, but said the latter had no Boot Manager installed: presumably Grub had overwritten it. My (rather messy) work around was:

Get EasyBCD; you'll find it free on the web; write it onto a CD or DVD.
Restore the Windows Boot Loader; as far as I remember, EasyBCD has an option to do this.
Reset your Grub to boot from the OpenSuse partition, not the MBR!
Copy EasyBCD into Windows and set up the boot loader as instructed.

Then you have a menu in the Windows boot loader.

You'll find EasyBCD here:
http://neosmart.net/EasyBCD/

I used the free (non-commercial) one.

So you're saying if I write the .exe file to a CD, I'll be able to boot from that and set it up that way? It's an .exe file... Restoring the windows bootloader is what I'm trying to do, and that will allow me to run Ubuntu, which is second best but still a good option IMO. It sounds like if I run EasyBCD in windows I may be able to do Fedora, which would be great.

As far as bootinfoscript, I'll try to get that to you, but I'm currently stuck in Fedora.

Fedora is a Linux distribution so you can download and run it from Fedora.
I guess you were referring to the EasyBCD file, my mistake. Yes, you do need to run it from windows.

>fedora is linux
yes I know. You said Ubuntu or a Live CD. I figured you meant Ubuntu or a Live CD.

I tried running it and terminal is telling me it doesn't exist. Sorry I'm so new to this, I've been doing this by trial and error, and unfortunately as much as I'd love to google everything and figure it all out one step at a time (for example, it's not recognizing my wireless card so I've had to plug it in) and as fun as that is, I wanted to dual boot so I'd still be able to use my comp and I'm stuck without knowing much about where I am.

Seems like no matter what I do, the GNU GRUB shows up. No matter what I boot from, it's there. Including when I tell it to run from my USB (I made an image of SuperGrub2Disk and Rescatux) it goes straight to GRUB. I feel like if it wasn't for that, I might be able to get into windows. Would disabling GRUB do it? Last time I was in the mobo and 'reset boot settings' it gave me a message about ipv4 or something, and I had to reinstall fedora from my flash drive.