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I'm installing ubuntu on someones computer after repairing it as they asked, but I did not expect to need a password and boot into windows to be able to boot ubuntu. How do i configure it and get it to boot (it can use grub, I don't care and neither does he) from the livecd only as the configuration option? Once I can boot into ubuntu from the hard drive I'm good

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  • can you boot from a live disk?
    – mchid
    Jul 20, 2014 at 1:29

1 Answer 1

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If you can boot from a live disk, you can install grub to a USB to essentially function as an MBR.

Here's what you will need . . .

  1. An ubuntu live disk DVD
  2. A blank USB formatted to FAT32

Now, Step One

  1. Insert the live disk and boot or reboot into a live session.
  2. Insert the USB drive
  3. Unmount the USB Drive by clicking the eject arrow in nautilus or the equivalent file manager.

Step Two

Open a terminal and execute the following commands to install Grub to the USB drive.

1-First, determine your Ubuntu partition device and the USB device:

sudo lsblk

My Ubuntu partition is at /dev/sda3 and I will be using this as an example for the following commands, however, your's may be /dev/sda2 or even /dev/sda5. Use the output of lsblk to determine what you should substitute.

You will also need to know the drive letters for the USB. I will use /dev/sdb as an example, however, again your's may be something else.

2-Execute the following commands making sure to substitute /dev/sda3 with your Ubuntu partition and /dev/sdb with the USB drive.

sudo mount /dev/sda3 /mnt
sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/ /dev/sdb

Grub is now installed to the USB drive.

Now, to update grub:

sudo mount /dev/sda3 /
sudo chroot /
sudo update-grub
sudo reboot

Be sure to remove the live disk DVD from the tray quickly but leave in the USB and Grub will be loaded from the USB when you boot. You will be given the option to select ubuntu from the grub menu.

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  • I think I may have found a way of chainloading the bootloaders with the windows one feeding into grub into ubuntu, I wish we didn't have to make the change to uefi and all that ****, it gets really aggravating when you factor that in along with secureboot and the windows bootloading being arranged and designed entirely differently from the others
    – sbergeron
    Jul 20, 2014 at 4:09
  • @sbergeron I think that's the way it's done now but I thought you wanted a way to bypass that - my bad
    – mchid
    Jul 20, 2014 at 4:12
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    I was kind of just wondering how I would dual boot them, like I just created a new partition and installed ubuntu on it, and I had expected it to automatically install grub or something. I wish it was easier to do, but until microsoft builds up the will to get off its high horse we won't be seeing a grub/unix based bootloader in windows machines any time soon
    – sbergeron
    Jul 20, 2014 at 4:33
  • I still need help
    – sbergeron
    Jul 20, 2014 at 19:52
  • I'm able to get windows 8 to boot, and from easybcd I have a bootloader that resembles the windows 7 one in theme, but every time I add a boot entry from easybcd that links to the /boot partition I set up, it says it does it successfully but when I reboot and select the ubuntu option, it gives me this error: "windows failed to start. a recent blah blah blah, same set of recommendations such as insert windows install disk and click repair computer. The file it mentions is \NST\AutoNeoGrub4.mbr and the status code is 0xc000007b
    – sbergeron
    Jul 20, 2014 at 19:56

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