Other Linux Distros deleting Ubuntu from GRUB

Question

Ok, so I installed Fedora on a dual boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu machine to see which distro I liked better, and now Ubuntu doesn't appear in the GRUB menu. In fact, Windows doesn't either. There are only two items, Fedora and Other (which boots Windows) How do I get GRUB to recognize all installed operating systems?

Answer 1

If you want to keep the Linux distributions as separate as possible, I would suggest only installing one distro's boot loader to the MBR (e.g. /dev/sda), and install the other distros' boot loaders into their respective partitions (e.g. /dev/sda1). For whichever boot loader you've installed to the MBR, add entries that chain load to the partitions holding the other boot loaders.

If you use Ubuntu's grub as the main boot loader, you can add extra entries by editing /etc/grub.d/40_custom and adding entries like:

menuentry "Other Linux" {
    # The partition holding the boot loader in Grub's syntax.
    set root=(hd0,2)
    chainloader +1
}

After saving the file, run sudo update-grub to assemble the Grub configuration file.

This should give each Linux distro its own boot loader configuration to play with and reduce the chance of them stepping on each others feet. It will even handle the case of different distros expecting different boot loaders.