Dualbooting Windows and Linux when grub2 fails to boot Windows

By | February 26, 2012

Of course I’d like grub2 boot all my operating systems, showing me a nice menu at boot time, but in my case that doesn’t work.
When grub2 tries to boot Windows, my machine reboots.
The documentation, forums, bug reports, etc. didn’t help me, so now I use the Windows bootloader to load grub and boot Linux.
This is tested on Windows 7 and Vista.
Here’s how:

First, from Linux, install the grub2 bootloader to the partition you installed Linux to (root partition).
In my case Linux is installed to /dev/sda5, so I go

sudo grub-install /dev/sda5 --force

If you can’t boot Windows at the moment, reinstall the Windows boot loader.
Insert your Windows install CD and run the bootsect.exe tool:

bootsect.exe /nt60 /all /mbr

Reboot into Windows.

Now, install Easy BCD, add your Linux partition (/dev/sda5 in my case) and select type grub2.

Remember to install the grub2 bootloader to /dev/sda5 (or your equivalent) when re-installing Linux or updating grub, as opposed to /dev/sda where the Windows bootloader resides.

Recent versions of Easy BCD also comes with a “bios extender” that allows you to boot from usb even when your computer doesn’t support it. I haven’t tried that feature.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *