Get assistance with dual boot setup.
Get assistance with dual boot setup.
I possess a vintage laptop (HP Envy m6 1125dx, i5 3210m, 256 GB SSD) that I've dual booted with Windows 8.1 and Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. I'm really enjoying the latter version, especially since it's stable beyond 17.10. My problem isn't about setting up the dual boot correctly—it's about how it's currently configured. When first installed, GRUB2 became my boot manager as expected, but later Windows took over and stopped showing GRUB2 altogether. I discovered an online solution suggesting I swap the Windows boot file for the GRUB boot file so the system boots to GRUB instead of Windows (though switching back to Windows is still tricky).
Ideally, I want the computer to start directly in GRUB2 without any interruptions, allowing me to choose between Windows or Ubuntu. The challenge lies in my laptop's inability to alter its boot order; it always boots to the same file, and efibootmgr fails on restart. I have some understanding of partitions and suspect it might relate to the BIOS treating an MBR and Windows overwriting it, but I'm not sure if that's accurate.
Could you clarify what steps are needed? I’m open to guidance and will provide any details I need.
If you reinstall GRUB, Windows will reset the bootloader each time a major update occurs.
Consider installing from a live USB for a fresh setup, or run the installation inside Ubuntu if you prefer.
It's about adjusting the system startup sequence instead of modifying the grub configuration. I'm aiming to reorder the boot process so that the current default doesn't automatically launch Windows. While I can set the boot device in BIOS, I don't have control over the final destination of the boot process.
I believe there might be some misunderstanding. Grub is a bootloader that handles selecting the operating system to load. You can't simply swap "Windows" for Grub; instead, you replace the Windows bootloader. The Windows bootloader only boots into Windows and doesn’t support other systems, whereas Grub can boot into many different operating systems.
You have a few choices here: stick with Grub as your sole bootloader, or if you have multiple disks, you can assign different boot loaders to each. You can keep the Windows bootloader on the disk for Windows and use Grub on another disk for Ubuntu. This way, you only need to adjust the order of the boot drives when selecting the operating system at startup.
Your laptop has a single drive, which means your system can indeed run only one bootloader. To make GRUB the bootloader for that drive, you'll need to set up the correct EFI files properly. You've already updated the EFI path to use the grub file, but you may want to ensure the configuration matches your hardware and preferences.
Start with a live USB, mount the boot sector to /boot, and execute grub-install. This will set up the boot partition on the disk and include all required grub files. After that, regenerate your grub configuration and you should be finished. Verify the os-prober package is available since it helps grub locate Windows. Arch Wiki offers extensive details: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB