[SOLVED] Looking for help with grub

[Jimbotious]

I've got a bit of a problem getting into Windows 7 after I installed Ubuntu 9.1 today.

I've got windows 7 and Ubuntu each installed on separate hard drives. When I set the Ubuntu drive to boot first in bios, I get a blinking cursor. When I set the windows drive to boot first in cmos, the word "grub" pops up, but it offers me no choices, and the proceeds to boot up Ubuntu.

I'm thinking that this means that grub has been installed somewhere on the windows hard drive, how do I get to, and edit it there?

I think I could run sudo update-grub and get a menu.lst file in ubuntu, but I think I'll still be blocked out of windows by the grub on the other drive, is that correct?

[mzv]

Just install grub to the Ubuntu drive and then add some info related to Windows in your grub.conf

title xp
root (hd1,0)
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

[retired1af]

An easy way to repair the MBR on your Win 7 drive is to install the Win 7 installation CD and go to Windows recovery. Get to a command prompt and run bootrec.exe. This will fix the Windows 7 installation so it boots normally.

What you most likely want to do is set grub to the boot record of the second drive, then set your BIOS for the boot order to go to the second drive first.

What I've done is use an external drive for my Linux installations. I set LILO on the external drive and then set the notebook to look for the external drive first. If it's not plugged in, it then defaults to the internal drive on the notebook and boots Windows normally.

[devils casper]

First of all, remove GRUB from Windows Partition as suggested by retired1af.
If Windows 7 boot up fine, next thing is to fix Ubuntu because it will not boot up after fixing Windows 7.
Boot up from Ubuntu LiveCD, open Terminal and execute this

sudo fdisk -l

Post output here.

* Its small L in fdisk -l.

[Jimbotious]

Hey guys, i still havn't tried this stuff. I've gotten Ubuntu to the point where it's working so well on my desktop that I haven't even wanted to go back into windows and risk messing up my boot system. I've got my windows partitions mounted and have access to all my files, i've got wine working and have a couple of my windows programs that i need working right now. And I've found open source substitutes for other windows programs.

Anyway, I'm still going to need to get into windows, I'll be trying this stuff out when I have a span of time that I can afford to go without this machine if something goes wrong, haha.

Thanks again so much guys, I appreciate all your help.

[devils casper]

Glad to know that you are enjoying Linux.
Nothing will go wrong if you follow instructions properly. Re-install Windows Boot Loader and re-install Ubuntu's GRUB after that, as suggested earlier.

[Jimbotious]

Ok i had a bit of time today and decided i'd get that windows partition going. Thanks everyone for your help.

I did as retireda1f said and used the windows DVD to repair the MBR, i don't know what i was doing in bootrec.exe, but i must have done something right since windows 7 booted.

Booted into a live CD and picked the hard drive i wanted to have GRUB on as devils suggested.

Then from the live CD I used this page hxxp://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1195275, for a little Grub2 background and installed grub to my partition as it instructed.

I then used mzv's info and added windows to my grub file.

I'm rocking now and with minimal downtime, Thanks again guys!

[devils casper]

Glad to help you !