11.10 dual boot no grub menu

Question

I have installed Windows 7 and then Ubuntu 11.10 on my computer but no grub menu came up on reboot and it went straight into Windows.

I then removed the Ubuntu created partitions and tried Fedora 16 - it created slightly different partitions - which worked (grub menu was shown). Not wanting to keep Fedora, I formatted it's partition and installed Ubuntu onto it. Grub still loads but still with the Fedora options (which obviously don't work).

When I try to run boot-repair it warns me:

"The boot of your PC is in EFI mode, but no EFI partition was detected. You may want to retry after creating a EFI partition (FAT32, >200Mo, start of the disk, EFI flag)"

If I continue, I can't run the recommended fix as it keeps asking me to add software sources for grub2 even though they are there.

                     Boot Info Script 0.60-git      [2 Jan 2012]


============================= Boot Info Summary: ===============================

 => Grub2 (v1.99) is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda and looks at sector 1 of 
    the same hard drive for core.img. core.img is at this location and looks 
    for (,msdos3)/grub2 on this drive.
 => Syslinux MBR (4.04 and higher) is installed in the MBR of /dev/sdb.

sda1: __________________________________________________________________________

    File system:       ntfs
    Boot sector type:  Windows Vista/7: NTFS
    Boot sector info:  No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
    Operating System:  
    Boot files:        /bootmgr /Boot/BCD

sda2: __________________________________________________________________________

    File system:       ntfs
    Boot sector type:  Windows Vista/7: NTFS
    Boot sector info:  No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
    Operating System:  Windows 7
    Boot files:        /Windows/System32/winload.exe

sda3: __________________________________________________________________________

    File system:       ext4
    Boot sector type:  -
    Boot sector info: 
    Operating System:  
    Boot files:        /grub2/grub.cfg /grub2/core.img

sda4: __________________________________________________________________________

    File system:       Extended Partition
    Boot sector type:  Unknown
    Boot sector info: 

sda5: __________________________________________________________________________

    File system:       ext4
    Boot sector type:  -
    Boot sector info: 
    Operating System:  Ubuntu 11.10
    Boot files:        /boot/grub/grub.cfg /etc/fstab

sda6: __________________________________________________________________________

    File system:       swap
    Boot sector type:  -
    Boot sector info: 

sdb1: __________________________________________________________________________

    File system:       vfat
    Boot sector type:  SYSLINUX 4.05 2011-12-09
    Boot sector info:  Syslinux looks at sector 2652248 of /dev/sdb1 for its 
                       second stage. SYSLINUX is installed in the  directory. 
                       No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
    Operating System:  
    Boot files:        /boot/grub/grub.cfg /syslinux/syslinux.cfg 
                       /efi/boot/bootx64.efi /ldlinux.sys

============================ Drive/Partition Info: =============================

Drive: sda _____________________________________________________________________

Disk /dev/sda: 256.1 GB, 256060514304 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 31130 cylinders, total 500118192 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Partition  Boot  Start Sector    End Sector  # of Sectors  Id System

/dev/sda1    *          2,048       206,847       204,800   7 NTFS / exFAT / HPFS
/dev/sda2             206,848   153,602,047   153,395,200   7 NTFS / exFAT / HPFS
/dev/sda3         153,602,048   154,626,047     1,024,000  83 Linux
/dev/sda4         154,628,094   500,117,503   345,489,410   5 Extended
/dev/sda5         154,628,096   492,013,567   337,385,472  83 Linux
/dev/sda6         492,015,616   500,117,503     8,101,888  82 Linux swap / Solaris

I've been trying to get this to work for a couple of days with no luck!! I want to end up with a Windows 7 & Ubuntu dual boot. I don't mind re-installing Ubuntu or recreating partitions but am really stuck.

Answer 1

Got it working eventuall. I'm sure that the below involves a lot of unnecessary steps but it worked and maybe someone can point out what's not needed?

sudo mount /dev/sda5 /mnt
sudo mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev
sudo chroot /mnt
sudo grub-install /dev/sda
sudo update-grub

At this point, grub was loading but displaying the rescue prompt (error: no such partition)

sudo mkdir /media/sda5
sudo mount /dev/sda5 /media/sda5
sudo grub-install --root-directory=/media/sda5 /dev/sda

And it works!!

Answer 2

Install ubuntu after windows. If grub menu is not shown, then take a ubuntu bootable pen-drive, boot from pen-drive and

grub-install --root-directory=/dev/sda

don't worry even if it doesn't boot, You have not lost anything yet, if you still encounter problem try with

grub-install --root-directory=/media/WIN_DIR

WIN_DIR is the directory where your windows 7 is installed.