Setup Grub2 bootloader with W7 and 2 Linux installs

Tomtom111 · 17 Apr 2013

Hi,

Currently I have windows 7 installed on one partition and I want to install Linux Mint on another and Ubuntu on third partition. I've tried using the windows bootloader, but I had to go through that and then the grub bootloader before getting the splash screen loading the OS.

How can I get all 3 OS's in one bootloader menu (either on the mint partition or on another separate one (btw I've merged the windows system reserved with the C: drive)) without having to go through any more bootloader screens?

Sorry if this is the wrong forum site, but since I'm starting with W7 I though it'd be the best place to go.

Thanks,
Tom

Golden · 17 Apr 2013

Tomtom111 said:

How can I get all 3 OS's in one bootloader menu

Hi,

Unfortunately, the answer is you can't (or at least not without great difficulty I think) - the windows bootloader and GRUB are completely separate formats (you will have noticed that the LinuxMint and Ubuntu installations do appear in the same bootloader since they both use GRUB).

The best you can do, is add the Linux entries to the windows boot menu, but if you select them, you will still have to select the Linux installation from the GRUB loader splash screen.

Have a look at PART D of this tutorial to see what I mean:

Dual Boot - Windows 7 and Linux

Regards,
Golden

Tomtom111 · 18 Apr 2013

Thanks for your reply. Could I not skip the grub bootloader menu screen on both Ubuntu and mint, so when I select say, mint, from the windows bootloader it starts loading it straight away. That would be as good as what I wanted before. And I would only have to go through one bootloader menu for any OS.

Golden · 19 Apr 2013

Nope. All the Windows menu option does is effectively tell GRUB to load (also known as chain-loading) - you still need to select which Linux you want to run.

There may be a way to force GRUB to load an item automatically without needing to display a choice, but that would mean editing and setting up the GRUB loader options within Linux to do that. Unfortunately, I have no experience in that at all, and I don't even know if it can be done.

Regards,
Golden