Ubuntu Dual Boot with Win 7 & XP

[Lyrrad]

Hi

I've got laptop with Win 7 & XP.

I have managed to install Ubuntu but when I start laptop I have Ubuntu as default with choice of Win 7 & XP and (sorry for my lack of knowledge here) appearance is different here [grub etc].

Is there anyway for laptop to boot in normal manner I would be used to with Linux being 3rd option. I have uninstalled and used mbrfix.


Hopefully I've explained my situation properly

[wetdog]

i stand corrected.

cheers Egren71.

mick.

[Egren71]

Assuming you have 3 operating systems on 1 disk you have two options as changing bios setting wont help. This also assumes that you are using a fairly new version of Ubuntu and therefore Grub2 (Now called Grub) and not Grub (Now called Grub Legacy. Confused?). This also assumes that you was letting the windows Boot loader load the operating systems.
In you post where you put appearance is different here was there supposed to be a link?

Option 1 is Load startupmanager in Ubuntu. Run startup manager from System-Administration and set what ever you want to be the default operating systems as the default operating systems. If you used to by default boot to say Windows7 and then that would give you an option for Win7 or Xp the choose Win7 as default operating systems in Grub and you should get the same options again. Set the timeout in seconds very low and untick both the Show boot splash and Show text during boot. This should set the grub to be used but to stay invisible and default to a window operating systems of your choice as default. It will never give you the Ubuntu option unless you press Tab (i think) during boot up to get the grub menu. I don't think the windows boot loader will give you the option of Ubuntu. But this way the Ubuntu operating systems is hidden unless you want it and you should get the old windows options back. The exception to this is if for some reason the install has written over the windows boot loader. In which case this solution will only boot into your default OS unless you press Tab during boot up to choose another OS.

Option 2 and here i get a little less certain about what i am saying. If you boot into Ubuntu and go into Places-Computer and then open File System - etc - grub.d you will see a load of files starting with numbers eg 00_header, 10_linux, 30_os-prober amongst others . These numbers govern the order in which grub looks for new OS's when it is updated. So if you change the 30_os-prober option to a lower number than the 10_linux number say make it 09_os-prober and then update the Grub config it should put the windows options at the start of the Grub menu. This is probably not the correct way to do this here (http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/grub-2.html#mozTocId293325) is a link to a Grub tutorial.
The command to update grub is surprisingly update-grub from the command line. And all of option 2 needs to be done with admin rights.

As i said this all assumes that you have a relatively new version of Ubuntu probably version 10.04 or 10.10 or 11.04, not sure if Grub2 was on earlier versions, and are running Grub2. If you are running the original Grub this info will all be wrong.

I hope this has been of some help.