Ubuntu 11.10 doesn't boot after installation, only boots into Windows 7

Question

Windows 7 was pre-installed on my machine. Ubuntu 11.10 doesn't boot after I installed it. Once Ubuntu finished its installation, I restarted.

After that, it just boots straight to Windows 7, no sign on Ubuntu at all.

It seems Grub installation is not correctly finished. If you watched the installation, did you see any error message?
No installation went through fine. I have watch it every move. Dont kniw why.

wisdom · Answer 1 · 2012-01-04 13:56:55Z

if there was no error while installing then you can re-install your grub as following:

First,boot from live CD
second,open your terminal and write "sudo fdisk -l" to see all your partitions and exact name of your linux one (sdxy) where "x" means the hard number(a,b,c,...) and "y" the number of partition (1,2,3,4,...)
Third, after that you should write these following instructions:
sudo mkdir /media/root
sudo mount /dev/sdxy /media/root
sudo grub-install --root-directory=/media/root /dev/sdx (be aware without y number !!)
sudo update-grub

======================= Congratulation,I hope to be helpful :)

i have followed all your steps but at the end of your steps where it says "sudo update-grub" it gave me error. Here is an error: cannot find a device for / ( its / dev mounted?)what should i do now plez?
well, have you checked that in the 6th step you wrote at the end of line (sda);where "a -or even- b -or- c" is your entire hard ?? if so then you could try write in step 7 "sudo update-grub2"

madmaze · Answer 2 · 2012-01-04 13:41:16Z

Something likely failed with the Grub installation.

There are multiple ways to tackle this.. but ill give you the short one

boot the Ubuntu live disk
mount your root directory(the partition you installed ubuntu on)
- this can be done commandline or through the file browser
then use:

sudo grub-install /dev/DRIVE

DRIVE is the drive first starts as selected in the BIOS.. usually this is /dev/sda

i have wrote that code and it gave me error as well, here is what error said: cannot find a device for /boot/grub (is/dev mounted?). What should i do now plez?

2 Answers