If we install any Windows Operating System (Windows XP, Windows 7 etc) on a computer already having Linux based Operating System (Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Suse etc), the system is not able to boot into Linux based OS, as Windows installers overwrite the GRUB boot loader during installation. As a result we don’t get any option to select the operating system during boot up and system boots up into Windows straight away.
This may create a lot of panic in the mind of the user as there are fears of loosing complete Linux based installations. But no need to worry as the installed Linux based system is already there. What we need to actually do is to restore the GRUB in Linux mode.
For the above problem we need to do following:
Download SuperGRUB from http://www.supergrubdisk.org/.
Burn the ISO into a CD using a CD burner tool.
Make sure your system is set up to boot from the CD (in the BIOS set up).
Reboot your computer after placing the CD so burned, into the CD tray.
The computer will boot up from CD and will load GRUB 2 and show you a screen as shown below.
Select the option named “Detect any Operating System” using arrow keys and press enter key.
Please wait for a while, during which the superGRUB searches for the installed operating systems.
It will show up a list of all the Operating Systems installed in your computer.
Select the latest version of Linux Kernel shown from the available choices using the arrow keys and then press enter.
And you will see your system booting up into your Linux installation.
After complete loading of the Operating System you see your familiar desktop. This was all fine to boot up your system once. But to have a permanent choice of the Operating Systems we need to Install and Update the GRUB on the hard disk drive.
For this please follow the relevant instructions for your relevant distribution of Linux. For example, you may use the following link for doing the same on Ubuntu….
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