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Background:

Initially, I created a small partition on a hard drive to try Ubuntu as an alternative to the previously installed Windows XP. After finding Ubuntu useful and running into space problems on that small partition, I created a new bigger one next to it and installed Ubuntu (same version) there again. The boot menu was updated correctly after both installations but since I didn't need the smaller Ubuntu partition any more, I deleted it - leading to a boot menu entry pointing to a non-existent installation. After learning about Grub Customizer, I was able to delete (or hide, whatever) the boot menu entry of the old Ubuntu installation and set the new one as default, everything was fine.

Problem:

After I received an update today (kernel image or something, not sure how to find out what it was exactly), suddenly the old boot menu entries are back at system boot:

boot menu screenshot

An interesting detail is that since the update, the top two entries show the new kernel version 3.8.0-35-generic, even though the entry for the "current" (existent) Ubuntu installation (under which I received the update) is the 6th from the top, i.e. the one on /dev/sdb7, which still shows 3.8.0-29-generic.

The Grub Customizer still showed the menu the way I had configured it previously (removed 2 top entries pointing to the old Ubuntu installation as well as the "Previous Linux versions" entry):

Grub Customizer screenshot

I already tried running update-grub as found here, but this still seems to find the old (3.8.0-29-generic) version, although I am unsure if they are really reported correctly:

friendfx@Laptop:~$ sudo update-grub
[sudo] password for friendfx: 
Generating grub.cfg ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.8.0-35-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.8.0-35-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.8.0-29-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.8.0-29-generic
Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.bin
Found Microsoft Windows XP Professional on /dev/sdb2
done

...and, more importantly, after rebooting the menu at system boot is still the same, i.e. with the old and "Previous Linux versions" entries.

Question:

What can I do to get the configuration I set in Grub Customizer to apply to the actual boot menu at system start? Did I miss anything obvious?

1 Answer 1

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grub-install --boot-directory=/boot /dev/sda
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    I am always a little scared by something like this... how can I check what /dev/sda really is before modifying it somehow? Ah, got an idea: I can use the Disk Utility program. I'll give it a go and let you know, thanks in the meanwhile...
    – FriendFX
    Feb 1, 2014 at 12:58
  • It worked, accepted your answer. If you care, could you also explain why it worked and I had to use it instead of update-grub? What's the difference? Thanks again!
    – FriendFX
    Feb 1, 2014 at 13:07
  • update-grub updates grub configuration in /boot/grub directory. so everything is kind of set. but the grub in MBR is not aware of this. had the same problem. i guess grub-install /dev/sda rewrites stuff in MBR so grub loader is aware of new configuration. i cannot explain it in more technical terms.
    – anonymous
    Feb 1, 2014 at 13:14
  • That's good enough for me :) ...upvoted your answer.
    – FriendFX
    Feb 1, 2014 at 13:15

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