GRUB menu missing after installation

Question

I am running windows 7 64 bit on my comp and just installed ubuntu 11.04 64 bit after partitioning the hard drive to give ubuntu 50gb of space.

I used a usb drive to try it out first and then i installed it and it worked perfectly and the asked me if i wanted to restart. I allowed it then it asked me to remove any 'installation media' AKA my usb drive and press enter. I did so but next a black screen came up with no text.

I thought it was part of the installation so i left my comp and came back 15 mins later but it still was at the black screen! I tried typing something, pressing 'esc' and even pressing the power button but nothing happened. Then I pressed the restart button and it restarted and booted into windows 7 with no trace of grub!!!!what am i supposed to do? I'm only a novice.

Solution 1

In order to view the GRUB menu in 11.04 do the following in terminal

gksudo gedit /etc/default/grub

Comment the following lines

#GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=10
#GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true

Uncomment this line

GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480

Enter the default time for grub menu to display

GRUB_TIMEOUT=10

save the file and run

update-grub

reboot, you will see the grub menu

Solution 2

I installed 11.04 over the top of a Win7 installation and upon booting never saw a GRUB menu. In my case I just had to reinstall GRUB 2 using instructions from here

Booting into the Ubuntu CD:

sudo fdisk -l

Giving:

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1   *           1          13      102400    7  HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdc2              13       12195    97851877+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdc3           12195       15567    27078657    5  Extended
/dev/sdc5           12195       14784    20796416   83  Linux
/dev/sdc6           14785       15567     6281216   82  Linux swap / Solaris

So I am working with /dev/sdc5. If yours is different, substitute throughout the following commands.

Mount it:

sudo mount /dev/sdc5 /mnt

Reinstall GRUB 2. Note that this command doesn't have a number on the end of the volume's path:

sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sdc

Unmount:

sudo umount /dev/sdc5

Reboot:

sudo reboot

That was all it took for me. Read the full instructions to be sure your case is not different.

Solution 3

Are you sure Ubuntu was installed ? If so, then you can recover your grub . Follow the procedure as explained on this post.

Comments

[Drew Noakes]

I just experienced the exact same thing. Do you have any good news for me? :)

[Drew Noakes]

I sorted my situation out. Answer below.