Restoring GRUB after a Windows install
Linux and Windows dual booting has always been a hassle. Linux likes to do it it’s way and Windows likes to do the same. Installing one after the other, one usually gets a nice friendly boot up screen that allows you to choose which operating system to boot. Windows 7 in it’s current form for some reason seems to despise other operating systems and does not to put an option to boot other operating systems after a fresh install when you installed Linux first.
While there are many ways to get the Windows bootloader to give you options, I find the best way to get the option to boot into Linux back is to re-install GRUB. I happen to use Kubuntu, so following the instructions step by step on any variation of Ubuntu should work while some other distributions might require some tweaking to the steps.
First you will need the live CD you used to install Linux. Boot into the live CD and open a terminal.
In the terminal, enter the following commands …
sudo grub find /boot/grub/stage1 root (hd?,?) # replace ? with the information you got from the previous command. setup (hd0) quit
That’s it! Reboot and you should get your grub menu back.
