91

If you press escape in grub menu you end up at the grub command prompt.

My question is, how can I go back to the menu, without rebooting?

Improve this question
3
  • 3
    So I finally got it working using escape. I have to be very careful though to stop hitting escape at just the right time otherwise it brings me to the grub terminal and there's no way to go back to the grub startup options screen.
    – obesechicken13
    Jun 19, 2018 at 20:48
  • Is there a way to get to the Grub menu via a command? None of the below answers are working for me.
    – semitones
    Jul 14, 2020 at 19:15
  • If nothing seems to work, try this: Shut down the computer/laptop Power it up again Press bios key to enter bios Change the boot priority order Done! ✅
    – Rahul
    Apr 21, 2022 at 8:20

6 Answers 6

Reset to default
95

Type normal, hit Enter, and then tap Esc until the menu is displayed. Hitting Esc at this point won't drop you to the grub command prompt (so don't worry about hitting Esc too many times).

Improve this answer
3
  • 1
    I'm amazed the only answer to actually work for me was the one with joint least votes.
    – Vala
    Sep 19, 2018 at 20:32
  • Jack, you are my hero. I searched for 2 days about this and I find it in some random answer. Your beautiful profile picture and your name will forever be engraved in my heart. Thank you, you beautiful soul.
    – cgf
    Apr 27, 2019 at 15:03
  • 1
    Unfortunately, hitting escape multiple times Doesn't take you to the grub menu -- it just boots into whatever grub was going to boot into.
    – semitones
    Jul 14, 2020 at 19:14
40

Executing the normal command brought me back to the grub menu.

I found this command (and others) by pressing Tab in the grub CLI.

Improve this answer
3
  • 20
    it just boots normally, does not show the grub menu
    – dashesy
    Nov 8, 2016 at 1:50
  • 5
    normal does nothing on my system.
    – James Moore
    Apr 7, 2018 at 2:43
  • boots normaly, the answer above did the trick
    – Thundercoal
    Dec 31, 2019 at 16:13
8

Type exit and then press your Enter key twice. Or press Esc.

More info

Improve this answer
6
  • 1
    Esc does bring me next prompt, it's like Enter and exit does exit grub and bring me back to the bootloader, rEFInd in my case. That's booted in EFI mode and maybe that's changing grub behaviour.
    – sorin
    Nov 24, 2013 at 16:09
  • Umm.. weird, it should allow you to go to the boot menu according to the manuals I've found...
    – Braiam
    Nov 24, 2013 at 16:21
  • that starts network boot, it does not show the menu, it seems nothing does!
    – dashesy
    Nov 8, 2016 at 1:49
  • 2
    This just launches me into some kind of hardware testing
    – Ben Farmer
    Feb 26, 2018 at 14:13
  • @BenFarmer, does the testing ever end? What happens after?
    – obesechicken13
    Jun 19, 2018 at 19:08
1

Shift + Esc: What worked for me was holding down Shift and pressing Esc several times.

Improve this answer
1
  • on virtualbox this worked for me
    – Foad
    Dec 29, 2017 at 2:08
0

Press the q button or type :q.

Improve this answer
0

for me only writing 'halt' worked

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .