Installing dual boot Precise (12.04) alongside Windows 7

[kjaspan]

Boot Repair ran to completion. Here is the Bootinfo output afterwards:
http://paste.ubuntu.com/1041672/

I will report on success/failure after reboot. Holding thumbs!!

[kjaspan]

That resulted in a grub menu giving me the choice of a Windows 7 loader on /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2. The first booted windows, the second gave me a menu that looked like one from EasyBCD with Windows 7 or Xubuntu 12.04 but, if I chose the second, it just returned me to the first menu. I think I know why: when Boot Repair asked me where to put grub out of 2 choices I chose /dev/sda1 or sda2. The other choice was /dev/sda7. I will try that now.

I reran Boot Repair and it did not ask me to choose where to put grub, but produced this report: http://paste.ubuntu.com/1041690/

I am now at an impasse and await further suggestions. Perhaps run Boot Repair in advanced mode or create and EFI file system to put /boot on??

[YannBuntu]

Hello

You now have a GRUB menu with access to all your systems, so Boot-Repair has done its job, it can't do better.
If you want to customize GRUB (hide an entry, or change the default entry...), you can use GRUB-Customizer.

[kjaspan]

Yann,

Merci.But I still cannot access my Xubuntu installation. I am seriously thinking of just overwriting Windows and having a machine with just Ubuntu, but I occasionally (1-5% of the time) need Windows.

[darkod]

You said it yourself in post #30. The EFI boot is detected, and it all revolves around that.

Windows is installed in standard mode, not EFI, but since EFI is still detected my guess is ubuntu doesn't want to install in standard mode, but it can't install in EFI mode neither because you are not actually running a full EFI mode with the EFI system partition.

Don't waste time on reinstalls or boot-repair, if it could help, it would have helped the first time you used it. Instead, look around very carefully in the BIOS and try to find an option to disable EFI mode. Not just to disable various EFI devices for boot, see if you can disable the whole EFI mode completely. If my logic is correct, in that case it will not even be detected, like it doesn't exist.

Same like if you disable your onboard graphics. From that moment on, it doesn't exist.

When EFI is completely out of the picture, I guess xubuntu will have no problem installing in the standard mode.

[kjaspan]

Yann,

Grub Customizer did the trick!! I put the linux..-generic and --recovery in the MBR and got the usual menu on bootup, then was able to get into Xubuntu.

Thanks very much (merci, gracias) for all your help. I will mark this as solved.

[YannBuntu]

Glad it worked!

(in my last post i hadn't seen that there was no Ubuntu entry in the menu, sorry. I still don't understand why. Please indicate your current BootInfo URL, it may help us understand how this was solved.)

[kjaspan]

Here is the Boot info report.
http://paste.ubuntu.com/1042711/

Darko, I searched around the BIOS Computer Setup menu for something to turn on/off UEFI and haven't found it (yet).

I am going to mark this issue solved. Thanks again, all of you, for all your help. I wonder why I'm the only one who encountered/reported this problem.

[martinr]

Here is the Boot info report.
http://paste.ubuntu.com/1042711/

Darko, I searched around the BIOS Computer Setup menu for something to turn on/off UEFI and haven't found it (yet).

I am going to mark this issue solved. Thanks again, all of you, for all your help. I wonder why I'm the only one who encountered/reported this problem.

Hi Kjaspan,

You're not the only one with this problem.
Have a look at this solution.

Might you have a boot device selector during POST without UEFI?

Good luck in tuning Ubuntu to your likes (shuffling the window buttons around, etc.).

[YannBuntu]

Here is the Boot info report.
http://paste.ubuntu.com/1042711/

Thanks.
(for information, your BIOS is not in EFI mode any more. That may be what was blocking)