Installed Kubuntu but PC boots straight into Windows.

[username132]

I have six hard-drives in my computer. Two SATAs in a mirror RAID with WinXP installed, three IDEs, and one SATA on which I intended to install Kubuntu.

I installed Kubuntu and everything appeared to go just fine. I restarted the machine when prompted, and removed the disc when prompted. The machine booted into Windows with no mention of Kubuntu, no hint of a boot manager. What should I do?

[carolinason]

Re: Installed Kubuntu but PC boots straight into Windows.

In a dual boot scenario typically Grub should take over as boot manager. It would replace the Windows boot manager, which appears to be in your RAID.

Perhaps you can point the Windows boot.ini file to the drive you installed Kubuntu on to use it. You'll have to Google that.

The easier way probably would be to install Kubuntu again and make sure you install Grub in the first boot device mbr this be the drive where Windows will be. Use the Alternate CD to have control over the location of the grub install. This occurs at the end of the install, just before you reboot.

I know this is vague, but perhaps will get the post started.

Back up data!.

[divide0]

Re: Installed Kubuntu but PC boots straight into Windows.

Did you install Grub in the partition where Kubuntu is? If you have done this, but would like to keep the Windows bootloader, download a program called EasyBCD; this program allows you to configure windows bootloader to recognize Linux.

You can get EasyBCD here:
http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1

However, if you did NOT install Grub, then reinstalling Kubuntu is the better way to go.

[username132]

Re: Installed Kubuntu but PC boots straight into Windows.

Grub was installed to HD0, but I had no way of knowing which drive that was. "HD0" is really quite arbitrary. Kubuntu was installed to partition SDF3.

[dibl]

Re: Installed Kubuntu but PC boots straight into Windows.

You may have more than one drive (or less than one drive) with the "boot" flag set. Ideally it would be set on hd(0), where grub is, but it appears that it is not. Similarly, which drive is first in the "Boot Sequence" list in BIOS? Again, ideally it would be the same hd(0) where grub is, if you want the Grub menu to control booting.

[Qqmike]

Re: Installed Kubuntu but PC boots straight into Windows.

"Good news" is that GRUB did not overwrite your XP bootloader
(actually, we usually DO overwrite the XP bootloader with GRUB; but since you have RAID here, and we are not certain how this will work, by maintaining XP's MBR, you do have some safety net here)
So,
following dibl's line ...

Safest thing to do is to set your BIOS to boot first from the Kubuntu drive.
That should then be (hd0) where GRUB was installed ( ? we hope).
See what happens: If that boots Kubuntu, good.
Then edit the boot menu in Kubuntu--the file /boot/grub/menu.lst--to include an entry for Windows.
Then use that and re-boot to see if it will boot Windows.

To find the drive & partition Windows is on:

In Kubuntu (or Kubuntu Live CD)
Open Konsole
sudo grub
grub> geometry (hd<Press the TAB key now>
(don't type the < > symbols)

Try to figure out the (hdx,y) where XP is.
You'll need that in your menu.lst to boot XP:

title Windows XP
root (hdx,y)
map (hdx) (hd0)
map (hd0) (hdx)
makeactive
chainloader +1


>>>>> Possible problem: Not sure how RAID will work in this picture; I don't have it, never used it, and have seen/experienced mixed results on the forums in this context.

--------------------
How To GRUB Methods - Toolkit
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3081671.0

[username132]

Re: Installed Kubuntu but PC boots straight into Windows.

I changed the priotit of the drives to WinXP drive second and Kubuntu drive first. After checking the CD drives, (which come before the HDs in priority), the computer just hung.

Boot from CD:
Boot from CD:
_

[dibl]

Re: Installed Kubuntu but PC boots straight into Windows.

If there's not a bootable CD in the optical drive, then it should not hang here, unless your boot sequence in BIOS has no hard drives listed in it.

[Qqmike]

Re: Installed Kubuntu but PC boots straight into Windows.

And it sure doesn't sound like GRUB got installed to the Kubuntu drive.
You can make that happen by re-installing GRUB (from the Kubuntu Live CD at Konsole) to the MBR of the Kubuntu drive, which ultimately you will either have to do or you will have to install GRUB somewhere, to a MBR of some drive; no question that the installer got confused about where to put GRUB; the installer put GRUB at (hd0), but which one is that? => the geometry command would answer that question ...
(caveat again: I hope RAID doesn't complicate this)

[carolinason]

Re: Installed Kubuntu but PC boots straight into Windows.

If the drive where Kubuntu is to be installed is changed to the first boot drive in the BIOS, wouldn't reinstalling Kubuntu detect the Windows XP OS and configure Grub with that option? If the RAID is a hardware controlled RAID then it should be one drive to anything accessing it, no. I hope Windows doesn't mind the shift, but it shouldn't matter, since the drive wasn't physically moved in the chain.

Since this is the first install of Kubuntu and there is no need to recover data, why bother with Grub's workings when the re-install would take little time. Unless username132 wants to learn Grub.

[Qqmike]

Re: Installed Kubuntu but PC boots straight into Windows.

Good points, carolinason.

>>> “If the RAID is a hardware controlled RAID then it should be one drive to anything accessing it, no. “

Hope so. Perhaps the geometry command would confirm that (used from a Live CD).


>>> “If the drive where Kubuntu is to be installed is changed to the first boot drive in the BIOS, wouldn't reinstalling Kubuntu detect the Windows XP OS and configure Grub with that option?”

In theory. But with the RAID and the mixture if IDE & SATA drives, the installer might get the drive/device naming messed up and put GRUB somewhere where it shouldn't be, necessitating a manual re-install of GRUB after the installation of Kubuntu.


>> “Since this is the first install of Kubuntu and there is no need to recover data, why bother with Grub's workings when the re-install would take little time. Unless username132 wants to learn Grub.”

See the above question. But he could try that, first setting BIOS to boot from the Kubuntu drive, hoping it is seen as hd0 and hoping XP is detected on hdx, x>0 and that a boot entry is set up for XP in the menu.lst (which boot entry must use the map commands, as noted in a post above).

[Qqmike]

Re: Installed Kubuntu but PC boots straight into Windows.

Hey carolinason. -- you removed your first post, to which my answers now look out of place ...

[carolinason]

Re: Installed Kubuntu but PC boots straight into Windows.

Sorry, I had read my post and edited it. I'm bad about that, but I thought i only changed grammer, i'd pm you, but your off line. Your answers are still in order.

thanks Qqmike

***EDIT*** I'll label next time.

[carolinason]

Re: Installed Kubuntu but PC boots straight into Windows.

When 's the last time you saw /dev/sdf3 :P

At least they're all scsi in the eye of the beholder.

sda - Raid - i assume - 2
sdb - drive - 1
sdc - cd rom? -0
sde - drive -1
sdf - drive -1
--------------------------------===
1000W PSU 5 drives, I'm missing one

[Qqmike]

Re: Installed Kubuntu but PC boots straight into Windows.

That's OK
We certainly have a lot of talk here, don't we! -- Hopefully enough for username132 to grab onto something. Your idea about RAID being seen as one drive clarifies & simplifies things on that end.

Basically username132, what we are trying to get at is simple, and there's different ways to do it:

Set BIOS to boot from the Kubuntu drive.
Then that drive will be seen as hd0 at boot time.
And from the boot menu on that drive ( = the file /boot/grub/menu.lst), you can add an option (*** EDIT: or an option will be added automatically) to boot up XP as well.

That's the conceptual plan, right carolinason?