I can't make my Windows 8 boot loader to run Ubuntu or even ask me which OS to run as dual boot!

Question

I've been trying to install Ubuntu 12.04 as secondary OS on my laptop. The primary OS I have is Windows 8.

So I have partitioned drive where NTFS is for Windows 8 and other partition is EXT4 for Ubuntu.

When I installed Ubuntu I picked the EXT4 partition and picked 3 boot loader options so far:

/dev/sta ATA HITACHI (750 GB) <-= this...
/dev/sta1 Windows 8 (loader) <-= and this...
/dev/sta2
/dev/sta5
/dev/sta6 Ubuntu 12.04 (12.04) <-= and this...
/dev/stb

After like 3 installations I still can't boot Ubuntu, nor can even see any boot loader... It goes straight to Windows 8 booting...

Please help! This has been very frustrating day and a half... And I don't think it should take that long to figure out =[

ANSWER: I could not find a proper solution for my problem. I'm not sure if I encountered some drive corruption, or program glitch, the only solution that fixed my problem was to make drive back-up and completely re-partition my hard-drive. Please post if anyone encounter similar problem. As I really would like to know why my drive failed to install Ubuntu on my drive.

Solution 1

How about you use /dev/sta6 for the grub bootloader. Next steps:

• Run update-grub to write the ubuntu bootsector
• Copy the ubuntu bootsector into a file: dd if=/dev/sta6 of=boot.lnx bs=512 count=1
• Transfer the file to the windows loader partition /dev/sta1, either by copying or via USB stick and booting to windows.

Then use these commands in windows shell to add a Linux selection to the windows loader:

bcdedit /create /d “Linux” /application BOOTSECTOR

BCDEdit will return an alphanumeric identifier for this entry that I will refer to as {ID} in the remaining steps. You’ll need to replace {ID} by the actual returned identifier. An example of {ID} is {d7294d4e-9837-11de-99ac-f3f3a79e3e93}. Next, let’s specify which partition hosts a copy of the boot.lnx file:

bcdedit /set {ID} device partition=c:
bcdedit /set {ID}  path \boot.lnx
bcdedit /displayorder {ID} /addlast
bcdedit /timeout 30

http://www.iceflatline.com/2009/09/how-to-dual-boot-windows-7-and-linux-using-bcdedit/

Solution 2

Make sure your Windows 8 is not 64-bit with the UEFI boot type, if it is pre-installed then it mean yes. If you run dxdiag and it says Windows 8 64-bit then it mean yes. If one or both are true then the basic thing you need is an ISO of Ubuntu 64-bit for installation, the rest goes here:

Installing Ubuntu Alongside a Pre-Installed Windows with UEFI

Comments

[Karthik T]

The first one on the list should work.. Was there no effect at all?

[HelpNeeder]

No effect what so ever.

[Mevin Babu]

was your problem solved ?

[HelpNeeder]

Yes and no, I had to repartition my hard drive. I couldn't didn't find any other cause of this but partition table.

[Eero Aaltonen]

Please boot with Ubuntu Live CD and post the output of sudo parted /dev/sda print (or sta?). At least Windows 7 Boot Manager will boot only primary partitions technet article.

[HelpNeeder]

No, I had Windows 7 reinstalled, then formatted drive and installed Windows 8, Both 64-bit, and also Ubuntu was 64-bit. The link you provided was not helping as I didn't have any problems while booting, but to install the OS.

[Tommy Aria Pradana]

It means your Windows boot with ordinary EFI with MBR disk ?

[HelpNeeder]

MBR, I assume..

[Tommy Aria Pradana]

You formatted the whole drive ? it means you cleared all partition then installed Windows 8 64-bit ? if yes,it means Windows 8 automatically turn your disk to GPT

[HelpNeeder]

I originally had 7, then installed 8, then formatted to get Ubuntu on it. I don't know the details of what partitioning table they all use :P I i believe you're statement is mostly correct.