7

I did a clean install of Windows 7 on the same hard drive. I followed the instructions at:

http://www.howtogeek.com/114884/how-to-repair-grub2-when-ubuntu-wont-boot/

I followed the terminal instructions to restore grub bootloader.

Whenever I reboot. I see two entries of Windows 7 on Grub. I don't recall seeing this the last time. I am aware that Windows creates a 'System Reserved' partition (which is currently on sda1).

When I select either of the two boot options, Windows 7 boots fine (so it seems).

This is what update-grub returns:

$ sudo update-grub | tee ~/update-grub.txt
[sudo] password for christian:
Generating grub.cfg ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.8.0-29-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.8.0-29-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.8.0-27-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.8.0-27-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.8.0-19-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.8.0-19-generic
Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.bin
Found Windows 7 (loader) on /dev/sda1
Found Windows 7 (loader) on /dev/sda2
done

Will booting from the System Reserved cause any issues on Windows?

Why are there two entries of Windows 7 instead of 1? Should I have installed Windows 7 without creating a system reserved partition? Is that even an option?

I am on Ubuntu 13.04. My other Ubuntu machines only list down 1 entry for Windows 7. Ideally, if it had to list down 2 entries. It would be better if it displayed as:

Found Windows 7 (System Reserved) on /dev/sda1
Found Windows 7 on /dev/sda2

Can this changes be made via a Grub configuration file somewhere?

2
  • 1
    Normally Windows 7 has boot files only in sda1 which is the boot partition and is 100MB. But so many users do not know what it is and delete it, Boot-Repair copies boot files to the main install. Then grub finds both sets of boot files and offers to boot either partition. You can force Windows to install into one partition if you want, but either way should have a separate flash drive or CD with the repair console which also is in the boot partition.
    – oldfred
    Sep 4, 2013 at 4:01
  • So Boot-Repair copied the boot files into the main install? Causing two Window 7 entries to appear in Grub? Sep 4, 2013 at 4:14

3 Answers 3

4

This 2nd entry has been added by Boot-Repair as a security: from now, if you accidentally delete the sda1 partition, you will still be able to boot Windows via the 2nd entry.

If you want to hide or rename one one these entries, you can use GRUB-Customizer, that you can install via its PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:danielrichter2007/grub-customizer
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install grub-customizer
2

That's normal, though not often behavior. For Windows, GRUB detects loaders, not systems. In your case, there are loaders on system reserved partition and on Windows partition. You may want to delete one of those loaders, but I do not recommend to do this, because it can harm your system. Keeping both loaders is the safest decision.

You can even create more loaders, and all of them will be recognized! It is convenient to use them if you want to load different versions of Windows straight from GRUB. Just experiment with this command:

bcdboot C:\Windows /s D:

As it is typed, it will create loader on D: drive, which will load Windows from default location. Replacing C: and D: you can adjust which version to load and from where.

If you want to delete some loaders not using GRUB-Customizer (which sometimes gets out of development), look for Boot folder on Windows 7+ systems and ntloader file on XP and earlier systems.

Modern way is to delete corresponding files from EFI partitions or to disable them with efibootmgr.

4
  • If I accidentally boot onto the 'System Reserved' partition. It still boots Windows 7 fine though. Will it cause any problems if continue working from that partition? Or doesn't matter which partition it boots from? Sep 4, 2013 at 8:15
  • I did not experiment with it so far, but it seems to me that Boot Configuration Data is independent on each disk from which Windows starts. So, answering to your question — no, it will not cause any problems. Just remember that you are using another loader and another BCD, so any changes you make into Windows startup configuration will reflect in only that loader you chose during startup.
    – Danatela
    Sep 4, 2013 at 10:34
  • So which Windows 7 partition should I boot from? System Reserved or the main Windows 7 partition? Sep 5, 2013 at 3:34
  • Any of them. And LovinBuntu already explained how to hide or rename one of these entries.
    – Danatela
    Sep 5, 2013 at 4:42
-1

yes you can do it by type "sudo gedit" if your style gedit or "sudo nano" if your style is nano

so it will be sudo gedit /boot/grub/grub.cfg just find menu entry for your windows on /sda1 and rename that as you want
ex:

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ### menuentry 'Windows 10 (loader) (on /dev/sda1)'

to

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ### menuentry 'Windows 10 (System Reserved) (on /dev/sda1)'

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