Hi Guys,

 

It's been a while since I've needed to set up a dual boot and am running into some slight difficulties. 

 

The PC was originally windows 7, but I've installed Ubuntu for my dev environment.

 

I have a 1TB drive partitioned into two and have Ubuntu 14.04 installed on one, and Windows 7 Ultimate on the other. 

 

I want it to work so that it automatically loads Ubuntu when the PC is started, and then I can select either Win/Ubuntu using GRUB.

 

When starting the PC currently, the windows boot manager shows where I can pick either Windows 7 or Ubuntu. I do not want this to show, but instead boot straight into Ubuntu and show GRUB.

 

Any ideas?

Thanks.

You should be able to just install GRUB, and so overwrite the MBR record. After that it should be a piece of cake. GRUB has a lot more options than the Windows boot loader too, so that is a good choice. 

You should be able to just install GRUB, and so overwrite the MBR record. After that it should be a piece of cake. GRUB has a lot more options than the Windows boot loader too, so that is a good choice. 

I've tried that. First the Windows Boot Manager shows, and then after selecting Ubuntu GRUB shows...

 

I just want to go straight to GRUB.

There should be an option to completely wipe the Windows MBR. I am sure someone can help out further, as I am at work.

 

It should be possible to overwrite it though. 

Edited September 16, 201411 yr by ineseri

The easiest method to overwrite the windows boot manager is to use Boot-Repair on a live USB (use UNetBootIn or similar utlilty to create a live usb): https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

 

From there you can choose to completely overwrite the windows boot manager and choose any other miscellaneous settings you may want (you can even install GRUB to every single disk at once).

 

if you don't want to do that, run a sudo grub-install to the drive itself (sda for example) rather than the partition (sda1) (if you didn't do that already).  Depending on whether your system is running an MBR or EFI basis, some things may need to be tweaked.  I'm assuming you're running an MBR setup.

The easiest method to overwrite the windows boot manager is to use Boot-Repair on a live USB (use UNetBootIn or similar utlilty to create a live usb): https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

 

From there you can choose to completely overwrite the windows boot manager and choose any other miscellaneous settings you may want (you can even install GRUB to every single disk at once).

 

if you don't want to do that, run a sudo grub-install to the drive itself (sda for example) rather than the partition (sda1) (if you didn't do that already).  Depending on whether your system is running an MBR or EFI basis, some things may need to be tweaked.  I'm assuming you're running an MBR setup.

Haha, I literally just did this!

 

I used boot-repair within Ubuntu to repair the GRUB and reset the MBR.

 

Many thanks for everyone's help :)