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I told my friend that I would create a dual boot system with his Windows Vista and not screw it up. It only boots to Ubuntu with no boot menu. At least it kept the compressed Windows partition. How do I get a dual boot system without being a rocket scientist before he comes home and breaks my neck?

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Can you tell us more about the machine's hardware, in particular the graphics? Also, does it still display Plymouth, and if it does is there a 10-second or so pause between the POST messages and that? You may be experiencing a similar issue I have. – WarriorIng64 Oct 18 '11 at 20:49
Also, depending on how urgent your situation is or if you can't get it to work, you may want to look at this online article on how to remove Ubuntu and go back to a Windows-only setup. – WarriorIng64 Oct 18 '11 at 20:56

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Install startupmanager, an application to help configure the boot up menu.

Open up the Software Center and Search for "Startup Manager" or "startupmanager" and click install. Once it has installed run it by clicking on the ubuntu logo on the top left of the screen and searching for Startup Manager.

There should be a section that says "Timeout: in seconds". Choose a period of time that you want to see the boot menu for. (You can also select an operating system to boot into by default).

Close the application (it will make you wait as it cleans up). Restart your computer. This time you should see a list of options that will stay for the period of time you choose earlier. If you choose a short period of time, just press the up or down arrow keys to cancel the automatic boot and make it wait for your choice.

Look for the option that should say something like "Windows Vista Loader on ...." and select it and press enter. This should boot you into your windows partition :)

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Boot ubuntu. From a terminal ctrl alt t type this sudo update-grub
Reboot and you should see a menu to choose windows.

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I tried it. In the message list it said it found the vista partition, but when I rebooted it still booted straight into ubuntu – Steven Davidson Oct 18 '11 at 20:30

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