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I installed windows 7 on a RAID 5 (2@160GB SATA +1@160GB SATA for RAID 5) I then proceeded to install Ubuntu 11.10 using the Live CD and opted:

"Install along side Windows 7 Option"

Upon boot GRUB appears normally and I can select and run Ubuntu with no difficulties. When I select Windows 7 from GRUB the PC restarts and consequently goes back to GRUB.

I have attempted to use the Windows 7 DVD to repair the installation but to no avail. The Wizard ran twice as it described it might, after the second attempt came back with an '...inability to repair...' error.

I am sure there is an answer to this somewhere but I have yet to be able to find it. (2 weeks and countless attempts and searches before posting this question.

Although I am happy to use Ubuntu alone my wife likes to watch Netflix and therein requires the Windows 7 installation.

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  • I did attempt < sudo update-GRUB > and it again detected the presence of the Windows 7 installation. However, the Windows Installation continues to reboot the system and return to GRUB when selected from the GRUB menu.
    – Dan Still
    Dec 26, 2011 at 20:22

2 Answers 2

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Reinstalling Ubuntu's boot loader (GRUB2) to the Master Boot Record using any of these methods will often solve the problem. If it doesn't, then boot into your Ubuntu system, update your Ubuntu system (for example, in the Update Manager), and (whether or not there were any updates available for you to install) run these commands:

sudo os-prober
sudo update-grub

When you run those commands you may be prompted for your password. As you enter it, you won't see any placeholder characters (like *)--that's OK, just type it in and press enter.

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With a Windows 7 SP1 installation dvd, no matter what I tried Windows 7 refused to boot from Grub2. BCD did however work.

Here's what I did:

  • Install Windows 7
  • Install Ubuntu with the "along side windows" option. At this point Grub2 showed Windows in the menu, but it didn't work. As in the original issue it reboots back to grub. It didn't matter if I created the small recovery partition or not, or tweaked with the os-prober to detect properly the bigger one.
  • Boot to recovery mode from the Windows 7 installation media
  • Enter Windows 7 Recovery Prompt and run bootrec /FixMbr. Reboot and you should directly end up in Windows.
  • Install EasyBCD. (Limited Community Edition is free, see bottom of page).
  • Click Add New Entry in the left pane.
  • Click the Linux BSD tab under Operating Systems in upper right pane.
  • In Type, select Grub2 in the drop-down.
  • Give a name like Ubuntu 11.10
  • The Device option should be Automatically configured.
  • Go to View Settings pane and you should now show two entries, Windows and Linux.
  • Reboot. You should see the BCD Boot menu. Both options should now work, except Linux will take you to the grub menu. Select ubuntu from there.

Removing or minimizing the display time the grub menu is of course a good idea as it will be redundant.

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