Win7 and Ubuntu - Boot entry not saved?

T

tsiebold

Member
Here is my situation:
- have Win7 running on laptop
-installed Ubuntu 11.10 with Wubi inside Win7
-uninstalled Ubuntu using the Win7 uninstall
-this did not remove the UBUNTU in the WIN7 boot option screen
-then installed UBUNTU selecting "side by side"
-after this GRUB comes up to select OS; both of them (Win7 and UBUNTU) are bootable
-when I select Ubuntu I can boot into Ubuntu without seeing any error message (see below)
- then I stumbel on the following article "http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/Ubuntu"
- I did what was described in there
- Created a new entry with a new name and wrote it to the MBR
- when rebooting, I did get the windows boot options dialogue, BUT the new entry is NOT there, BUT the old UBUNTU entry is there
- selecting the (old) UBUNTU entry lets me get to the GRUB boot options screen (I do get 2 messages which disappear fast)
- then I can boot into Ubuntu

My question is: WHy was the 3rd entry called "MyNewUbuntu" not saved to the MBR or BCD?
I tried several times.
Whenver I run EasyBCD after a reboot after a new write, it tells me that the BCD conatins only 2 selections (Win7, Old Ubuntu). The newly added entyr disapear between boots.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks for any help!

cheers

Thomas
 
If grub is doing the booting, it doesn't matter what you do with EasyBCD to the BCD. That's used by the MS bootmgr and has nothing to do with grub at all.
However, your post is a little confusing.
BCD entries are in the BCD and have nothing to do with the MBR.
You say
"Created a new entry with a new name and wrote it to the MBR"
What did you do ?
If you add a BCD entry, you click "add entry" on that page and it's done.
If you then go to BCD deployment, select "install W7 boot loader" and click "write MBR"
then you are replacing the grub boot with the Vista/7 boot and refreshing the boot information in an infinite loop of adding and removing the BCD entry.
"Write MBR" should only ever be used if you lose the MS boot and you want it back (e.g. Install XP after Vista/7, or Install Linux without preventing it from taking control of the MBR) or if you want to go in the other direction and abandon Vista/7 and return to an XP-only PC, then you would use it with the other option (Install XP......) selected.
In either case it's a one-time only option, to change the very nature of the boot loader in use, not something done on a regular basis.

Multibooters, Vista Dual and Multibooting - A Guide to the Multiboot Process
Updating the MBR and Bootsector - EasyBCD - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki
 
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Well it looks like a misunderstanding.
The article (see link in the original post) said "Go to the "BCD Deployment" page in EasyBCD, and select "Install the Windows Vista/7 Bootloader to the MBR" then press "Write MBR":"
and this is what I did, I clicked on WRITE MBR!!

If I understand you correct, I should do:
1) create a new entry -> which creates it in the BCD
2) done (Do NOT do the write to MBR)

WIll try it later.
THANK YOU!

Thomas
 
Yes, if you've let grub take over the MBR and you want bootmgr back in charge, then you use "install Vista/......write MBR" to achieve that.
Your OP was ambiguous in the
"Created a new entry with a new name and wrote it to the MBR" quote
conflating 2 separate functions into one apparent action.
If you have a working Ubuntu entry in the W7 BCD, but you don't like the name, you don't need to add a new one and delete the old, just use "edit boot menu" and change the name.
Any time you do add or change an entry, that's all you need to do.
Don't subsequently write MBR again, that just takes you back to square one.
 
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