How to change from USB boot to HDD boot?

wwarren · 01-10-2014, 11:00 AM

I have a 4gb USB stick, which when in place causes my computer to boot to the grub menu which lets me boot into Ubuntu or Windows7. Once it's booted, I can remove the USB stick and everything continues to work. My Ubuntu installation is on the hdd in a linux partition alongside the windows partition. With the USB unplugged, it boots directly into Windows 7. I'm now wanting to have the grub menu show up without needing the USB stick plugged in. How do I move the boot info from the USB stick (scsi-b) to the hdd (sata-a)?

l0p3n · 01-10-2014, 11:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wwarren

I have a 4gb USB stick, which when in place causes my computer to boot to the grub menu which lets me boot into Ubuntu or Windows7. Once it's booted, I can remove the USB stick and everything continues to work. My Ubuntu installation is on the hdd in a linux partition alongside the windows partition. With the USB unplugged, it boots directly into Windows 7. I'm now wanting to have the grub menu show up without needing the USB stick plugged in. How do I move the boot info from the USB stick (scsi-b) to the hdd (sata-a)?

Have a look at EasyBCD.

wwarren · 01-16-2014, 07:58 AM

Oops. Discovered the Windows install was XP and apparently EasyBCD doesn't work with XP. It had been a while since I'd booted into the Windows side and had forgotten. Any suggestions for an EasyBCD-like program that will work with XP?

wwarren · 01-16-2014, 08:46 AM

I'm wondering if a reasonably simple way to do this would be to install something small like Puppy linux. Maybe that would put a grub menu on the hdd boot sector, and still recognize the existing Windows and Ubuntu partitions. Then I could remove the puppy partition, edit the grub menu to take out the choices for it, and be back in business. Is that likely to work?

yancek · 01-16-2014, 02:08 PM

If the Ubuntu system on your hard drive is working, the simplest way to get Grub on the hard drive in the mbr is explained at the link below. This will overwrite the windows code in the mbr but, since support for xp ends in a couple of months, that should not be a problem. There are additional methods explained at the link below also:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Gr...talling_GRUB_2