GRUB not booting Vista

[T3Roar]

Re: GRUB not booting Vista - FIXED!

FIXED THE PROBLEM!!!

Anyone who finds this page through searching for a solution should do the following:

Visit this link and reinstall the bootloader using the command prompt on your Vista DVD: http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBC...r+from+the+DVD

Step three didn't work for me so I recommend you use step 4.

The problem was that GRUB was installed to the MBR, and overwrote Vista's MBR entry. You need to put Vista's bootloader back into the MBR by following step 4 on that method.

You then download EasyBCD and follow the instructions on this page: http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/Ubuntu

If for some reason, the Vista recovery environment on the CD doesn't see your partition, use Super Grub Disk to 'activate the partition'. If you don't know what this means, just download SGD and follow the instructions on screen at boot.

Thank you so much Qqmike, I really couldn't have done it without you. I'll certainly be back on these forums soon, hopefully contributing somehow once I've gained some useful knowledge.

T3Roar

[Snowhog]

Re: GRUB not booting Vista

Yup, Neosmart's EasyBCD is a good utility to use when dual-booting Vista and Linux. I was using it when I still had Vista installed on my laptop.

[Qqmike]

Re: GRUB not booting Vista

"I'll certainly be back on these forums soon, hopefully contributing somehow once I've gained some useful knowledge."

I'd say you already gained some useful knowledge!

That is very excellent work you did here, T3Roar -- a work of art!
Good detective work.

Glad you got it (and YOU got it) -- thanks for the vote of support for providing moral support (while you did the work ...)


Carry on!


EDIT:
After studying your work ...
So, in particular, you have re-set Vista's bootloader (in the MBR) to boot Kubuntu (i.e., not used GRUB to boot Vista). And you get Kubuntu on the Vista menu using EasyBCD.
Now--and you probably should not do this!--one could re-install GRUB over the MBR (overwrite Vista's bootloader), using our root-setup-quit, and that should also work now that Vista is cleaned up and put back into place. I think . Again, very nice work you've done.

[T3Roar]

Re: GRUB not booting Vista

After studying your work ...
So, in particular, you have re-set Vista's bootloader (in the MBR) to boot Kubuntu (i.e., not used GRUB to boot Vista). And you get Kubuntu on the Vista menu using EasyBCD.
Now--and you probably should not do this!--one could re-install GRUB over the MBR (overwrite Vista's bootloader), using our root-setup-quit, and that should also work now that Vista is cleaned up and put back into place. I think . Again, very nice work you've done.

That's correct, I've put Vista's bootloader back onto the MBR, my mistake was putting GRUB on the MBR, as I assume Vista only put it's bootloader on the MBR and not on its partition.

Vista's bootloader now summons GRUB as a second option at startup, and it's not a problem for me at all as I'm the only user of this computer who uses Kubuntu.

I think if I re-installed GRUB on the MBR, I would be left with the same problem, i.e. Vista's bootloader not being found due to it's lack of proper placement during my installation of Vista. I recommend that if anyone has a similar setup, that they leave Vista's bootloader and select GRUB if wanting to boot Kubuntu/other Linux distros.

Thanks again guys