Neogrub dualbooting Vista & Ubuntu

Deliverance XXV

Hey guys. Hope you can help me out on this one.

I'm currently dualbooting Ubuntu with Vista (Vista installed first.)
All is good but I wish to change the boot order. Currently, Ubuntu loads up first but I'd rather Vista to get the nod ahead first.

I've followed this guide but they have been very vague in a certain important area.

On this page I have to copy and paste some text but never say directly from where to where?

Anyone got a notion as to what exactly I should be copying to paste? I didn't want to try it myself just in case I fecked the whole boot file up.

Cheers

duffman85

Are you just trying to change the boot order/which OS starts by default?
Or are you trying to do this and reinstall the vista boot loader?

If its just the first part then boot into Ubuntu, login and open a Terminal window.
Type the following and when prompted for your password,enter it.
[PHP]
gksudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst
[/PHP]
This opens the gedit text editor with elevated rights.
It looks something like this:


Count the number of entries starting at 0
In the above menu.lst Vista is entry 4

There is a line at the top of the file(not shown above) like this
[PHP]default 0
timeout 10
[/PHP]

change it to

[PHP]default 4
timeout 10
[/PHP]
timeout is the time in seconds grub waits before automatically booting the default entry.

Deliverance XXV

Cheers for the fast reply. I went a bit of the way through the tutorial.
I exported the 'menu.lst' file and followed the EasyBCD tutorial as in I re-installed the Vista bootloader.

So for 'managing existing entries' I have:

Microsoft Windows Vista
Neogrub Bootloader

And the entry for the bootloader is:

[PHP]# NeoSmart NeoGrub Bootloader Configuration File
#
# This is the NeoGrub configuration file, and should be located at C:\NST\menu.lst
# Please see the EasyBCD Documentation for information on how to create/modify entries:
# http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD

## ## End Default Options ##

title Ubuntu 9.04, kernel 2.6.28-11-generic
uuid 6dd819ec-f0c5-4c84-bf3b-c17c95964b6e
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-11-generic root=UUID=6dd819ec-f0c5-4c84-bf3b-c17c95964b6e ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.28-11-generic
quiet

title Ubuntu 9.04, kernel 2.6.28-11-generic (recovery mode)
uuid 6dd819ec-f0c5-4c84-bf3b-c17c95964b6e
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-11-generic root=UUID=6dd819ec-f0c5-4c84-bf3b-c17c95964b6e ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.28-11-generic

title Ubuntu 9.04, memtest86+
uuid 6dd819ec-f0c5-4c84-bf3b-c17c95964b6e
kernel /boot/memtest86+.bin
quiet

### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

# This is a divider, added to separate the menu items below from the Debian
# ones.
title Other operating systems:
root


# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/sdd1
title Windows Vista (loader)
rootnoverify (hd3,0)
savedefault
makeactive
map (hd0) (hd3)
map (hd3) (hd0)
chainloader +1

[/PHP]

Can I just add in the code:
[PHP]default 4
timeout 10 [/PHP]
and save it?

Cheers

duffman85

Deliverance XXV wrote: »

Can I just add in the code:
[PHP]default 4
timeout 10 [/PHP]
and save it?

From my reading of this yes you can add it in and save but you may not need to.
I think you can select Vista as the default OS within EasyBCD.
Then you have an entry for Vista and an entry for Neogrub.Vista boots by default.When you select neogrub it shows the entries from the menu.lst and you can then choose ubuntu.

Deliverance XXV

I looked at EasyBCD's default option for booting and Vista was already selected. I also added in the extra code, saved and no joy.

Something worth noting is the way it all starts. Seems a bit strange and may be nothing but may shed some light on what's happening.

When I boot up I get the four options:

Ubuntu
Ubuntu #2
Ubuntu #3
Vista

I select Vista and then I come to another menu...

Vista
NeoGrub Bootloader

So not exactly sure what that implies but...

Deliverance XXV

Okay it gets stranger...

I was fixing another issue that involves moving boot devices/hardware in bios and suddenly the two options appeared first:

Vista
NeoGrub Bootloader

Vista works fine but any of the options in the Neogrub option do not.
It seems based around a file missing. Didn't get a chance to capture the error but will next time upon re-boot

An Fear Aniar

There is a Startup Manager gui people can use to handle stuff like this, it means they don't have to mess about with menu.lst if they don't want to.

It's in Synaptic, package is called startupmanager.

.

Deliverance XXV

Cheers m8. That looks like the right job if I could get into Ubuntu! I'll try a few options with the menu.lst and try see where that brings me.

An Fear Aniar

Try sorting it out with Supergrub disk:

http://www.supergrubdisk.org/

Burn it to a CD and boot up from it. It may help you sort out whatever you've done and look in their Wiki, it's got loads of solutions to common Grub problems.

.