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i installed Ubuntu 13.04 after using windows 8 for a while. everything during installation went smooth and fine but after the reboot, i am unable to boot into Ubuntu as my computer directly boots into windows!

i tried everything on the web using the live USB - boot repair, reintall, everything! still no help.

i got this from the boot repair program - Ubuntu pastebin

thank you in advance.

2 Answers 2

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You seem to have booted Boot-Repair in UEFI mode but your install is in BIOS mode. Boot the Boot-Repair in BIOS mode and run the auto fix to install grub2's boot loader for sda5 into sda.

Was there an error message during install that grub did not get installed. A few BIOS have security on MBR to prevent writing. If you still get an error check BIOS.

You can manually install grub2's boot loader to MBR also.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2#Reinstalling GRUB 2

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestoreUbuntu/XP/Vista/7Bootloader

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  • i used the ubuntu live usb for the boot repair and i guess my computer does not have UEFI hardware because i dont see any option in the advance reboot option. Aug 7, 2013 at 10:03
  • There is no ESP, so Boot-Repair's Recommended Repair will reinstall grub-pc in the MBR of sda. But according to his description, Nischal seems to have already tried that, so I'd bet for a 100GB BIOS limitation.
    – LovinBuntu
    Aug 7, 2013 at 18:50
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Your issue probably comes from a limitation of your BIOS. Here is how to workaround it.

  1. backup your documents on an external disk (DVDs or USB)
  2. boot into Windows. Via the Windows partitioning tools, shrink your C:/ Windows partition from 210GB to 60GB.
  3. boot on an Ubuntu disk, choose Try Ubuntu, run the Gparted utility, delete the sda4, sda5 and sda6 partitions.
  4. Via the Gparted tool, create a new 150GB extended partition just between your sda2 (60GB) partition and your sda3 (240GB) partition.
  5. Inside this new partition, create a 20GB EXT4 partition. This one will contain your Ubuntu root partition. Just behing, create a small (eg 4GB) SWAP partition.
  6. Run the Ubuntu installer. At the Installation type step, choose SomethingElse. Use the previous two partitions as your root and SWAP partitions. See https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DiskSpace for more info.
  7. Reboot. You should now be able to access both Windows and Ubuntu. If any issue, please run Boot-Repair and indicate the new URL that will appear.
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  • thanks for your answer, but my cousin got it working somehow! :P and he did tell me i was running in UEFI. O.o weird! thanks anyway, appreciated! Aug 8, 2013 at 16:42

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