18 September 2009

Windows Missing in GRUB 2 Menu (Ubuntu Karmic Koala)

Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala uses GRUB 2 rather than GRUB. People with dual boot systems may find their Windows installation missing from the GRUB menu after installing Ubuntu 9.10.

Do not bother with editing the /boot/grub/menu.lst file as this is GRUB2 we're dealing with now.

To add or restore your Windows installation to the GRUB 2 menu, simply issue the following command in a terminal window:

sudo update-grub2


Related: Restore an Overwritten GRUB Boot Loader

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, such an easy answer. Thank you. :D

Anonymous said...

Tanks
You just saved my day :-)

Anonymous said...

Thank you SO much!!

Nabil said...

I get this error
/usr/sbin/grub-probe: error: cannot find a device for / (is /dev mounted?).

Would you mind helping me with the next step? Thanks

Nabil said...

I get this error while in Ubuntu LiveCD

/usr/sbin/grub-probe: error: cannot find a device for / (is /dev mounted?).

Could you please help me with the next step? The Grub installation via
sudo grub-install --root-directory=/media/sda1 /dev/sda

produced no error, and the Grub version is 1.98, so I'm definitely working with Grub2. So what gives? Thanks.

Wei-Yee Chan said...

What's your setup like? How many physical hard disks and partitions do you have? Do you have Windoze on your system as well? Which kernel are you using?

You might want to try this in the meantime:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RecoveringUbuntuAfterInstallingWindows

Nabil said...

I have a single HD dual-booted with Ubuntu (Crunchbang Linux) and Win7. I tried to upgrade from Karmic to Lucid and after doing so, lost the GUI and was only left with a CLUI login. When I tried to reinstall Grub2, the menu was missing Windows as an option.

I ended up rebuilding the MBR, and no longer have access to my Ubuntu setup. I will reinstall Ubuntu, and then Grub2 should autodetect the Windows install.

It would be nice to be able to get Ubuntu back, without reinstalling anything, but at this point, I can only login to Ubuntu via the command line and there is no GUI. I don't know if this is an Xserver issue or what. I posted on a couple forums and no one has really been able to help.

Thanks for your interest, and for the article.

Wei-Yee Chan said...

You might have lost your GUI somewhere along the upgrade. Did you try "apt-get install ubuntu-desktop" in the CLI?

What you experienced didn't happen to me when I upgraded from Karmic Koala to Lucid Lynx, but something similar occurred recently when I did an upgrade from the current version to Natty Narwhal (Alpha). It seems to be a much bigger problem.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/716865

Yes, I guess the easiest way would be to reinstall Ubuntu from disc and then run update-grub2 to regain your Windoze menu entry.


You might wanna preserve your app settings and data by backing up your /home directory before you do the re-installation, if the root and home directories are residing in the same partition. I always have /home in a dedicated partition.

You could also try Super Grub Disc (Rescatux version). That way, you might not have to reinstall anything.

http://www.supergrubdisk.org

However, in your case, the Ubuntu installation is in a really bad state, so I might wanna do a fresh installation if I were you.

Nabil said...

Thank you for the suggestions and for sharing your experience. I see if I can repair. If not, a reinstall is not a bad idea. It's been a while anyway.

Wei-Yee Chan said...

You're welcome.

Good luck!

Arjun said...

that was very helpful.....
didnt knew it was this simplee..!!!

Anonymous said...

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