Score:0

Only able to access grub menu through windows advanced startup

cn flag

The grub menu doesn't show up during regular boot and I can only access it through advanced startup in windows recovery, after selecting start up from a device or disc. How do I make it appear while booting?

If it matters, I actually installed Ubuntu, deleted the partitions in windows (didn't do anything with EFI partition) then installed again. But only one 'Ubuntu' shows in grub menu (while accessing from windows recovery). You'd think there would be 2 entries there.

ChanganAuto avatar
us flag
You need to open UEFI > Boot and set "Ubuntu" instead of "Windows bootloader manager"
Skawang avatar
cn flag
I was gonna say there's no option for Ubuntu, because only windows is listed at first glance as I have a shitty click BIOS thing. But after doing some searching I actually found it and setting Ubuntu first seems to have done the job. It's a bit embarrassing as I had assumed I could see only Windows because there was something wrong with my installation (fast startup enabled among other things), but option to set Ubuntu was there all along. I'll accept if you add as an answer.
Skawang avatar
cn flag
Also I noticed that there's 3 options in the boot priority list (1 Windows and others Ubuntu). I think the extra Ubuntu entry comes from when I installed Ubuntu first but only deleted the storage volumes through windows. Should I delete the extra UEFI entry and will it cause problems?
ChanganAuto avatar
us flag
Answer posted with additional info re: the way to remove the non-working entries.
Score:2
us flag

As usual, the boot order can be set in UEFI settings > Boot menu by choosing "Ubuntu" instead of "Windows bootloader manager".

After booting Ubuntu, Grub can and often should be updated with sudo update-grub. Disabling the Fast Startup feature in Windows is must when dual-booting and should be disabled already when updating Grub otherwise the other OS may not be correctly identified.

From comments,

Also I noticed that there's 3 options in the boot priority list (1 Windows and others Ubuntu)

due to multiple Ubuntu installation attempts. EFI boot entries can be easily managed from Ubuntu with the help of efibootmgr:

sudo efibootmgr #display the current settings; take note of BootCurrent

BootCurrent shows the working Ubuntu boot entry you're currently running. Notice that typically the entries are numbered as 000X as mentioned in the examples in the manual page of the command but can be different in some cases. Then the non-working Ubuntu entry can be deleted with

sudo efibootmgr -b X -B or sudo efibootmgr -b 000X -B (or specifying the 4 digits number if different; X represent an order number previously obtained when listing).

Skawang avatar
cn flag
I tried running efibootmgr command and I'm only seeing 2 entries. But if I make any changes to the options in boot priority in the BIOS settings, in addition to the changes I made, in the message it also says something like `Boot option#3 ubuntu-0002 to ubuntu-0002` where the ID is same as the other Ubuntu option which actually works. Do you have any idea what might be going on? I might put it as another question.
ChanganAuto avatar
us flag
Better ask a different question and post there the efibootmgr results from a normal session where it can identify the ID of the boot entry that works along all the others.
mangohost

Post an answer

Most people don’t grasp that asking a lot of questions unlocks learning and improves interpersonal bonding. In Alison’s studies, for example, though people could accurately recall how many questions had been asked in their conversations, they didn’t intuit the link between questions and liking. Across four studies, in which participants were engaged in conversations themselves or read transcripts of others’ conversations, people tended not to realize that question asking would influence—or had influenced—the level of amity between the conversationalists.