Adding a GRUB entry to the Vista boot menu

[mndar]

With Microsoft having done away with the boot.ini file, the procedure to get a GRUB entry in your Windows boot menu has changed. Instead of boot.ini which was a simple text file, the boot configuration is now stored in C:\BOOT\BCD. This being a binary file, it cannot be edited manually. Microsoft has provided bcdedit.exe to do add,delete and modify entries from this file.
Follow the steps mentioned below

• While installing FC, Install GRUB on the first sector of the boot partition
  
• After installing FC, boot using the FC disc, go into rescue mode and run the following command
  dd if=/dev/sda2 of=grub.bin bs=512 count=1
  [Replace /dev/sda2 with your boot partition]
  
• Copy the file grub.bin to your Vista partition.
  
• Under Vista, start Command Prompt in Administrator mode by right-clicking on it and choosing "Run as Administrator".
  
• Enter the following commands
  bcdedit /store c:\boot\bcd /create /d "GRUB" /application BOOTSECTOR
  You'll get an output similar to
  The entry {some-description-id} was created successfully.
  Copy {some-description-id}. You'll need it for the remaining commands.
  
• Next,
  bcdedit /store c:\boot\bcd /set {some-description-id} device partition=C:
  bcdedit /store c:\boot\bcd /set {some-description-id} path \grub.bin
  bcdedit /store c:\boot\bcd /displayorder {some-description-id} /addlast
  
• Thats it, the GRUB entry should now be present in the boot menu !!

[rhka]

I think Grub is nicer; it loads windows boot-loader.

But do you (or anyone else) know how to change the text (Another windows...) in the Vista boot-loader. I want to have the text "Windows XP SP2".

[bob]

Thanks Mndar; that at least gives dual-booters an option and a pretty complex one at that.

[kolorahl]

Two quick questions since I'm a n00b at this sort of stuff:
1) How do I copy grub.bin to my Vista partition? Just 'cp' the file to my partition?
2) Which boot drive am I going for? I've installed Linux on my external hard drive and have Vista on my internal, and I selected the option to install GRUB on my external with Linux. Should I use the external drives boot partition in lieu of /dev/sda2?

Thanks!

[mndar]

Hi folks!

But do you (or anyone else) know how to change the text (Another windows...) in the Vista boot-loader. I want to have the text "Windows XP SP2".

Unfortunately, I messed up my partitions, so I don't have access to Vista right now. Check the help for bcdedit.exe. Its pretty extensive and I'm pretty sure there is an option to change the 'display text'. There's also an option to take a backup of the current config. You might want to do that before trying anything else.

[mndar]

Hi folks!

1) How do I copy grub.bin to my Vista partition? Just 'cp' the file to my partition?

Yeah you just need to copy it over to the Vista partition using a pen drive or a FAT32 partition.

2) Which boot drive am I going for? I've installed Linux on my external hard drive and have Vista on my internal, and I selected the option to install GRUB on my external with Linux. Should I use the external drives boot partition in lieu of /dev/sda2?

Since the first menu you'll be seeing is the Vista boot menu, the Vista partition is your boot partition.
But the method of using grub.bin doesn't work well with multiple hard drives even if they are internal hard drives. I doubt it will work at all in your case. You can try anyway and hope that I am wrong!

[dvtriple6]

I have a prompt to add, the OP couldn't test it so he didn't wanna add it but anyway, it changes the name of the GRUB entry in the Vista bootloader to whatever you prefer.

bcdedit /set {some-description-id} description "your name here"

[mndar]

Someone might find this useful.

I bought a laptop that came with Windows 7 pre-installed. It had a 100MB 'System Reserved' partition. So, as far as Linux is concerned

sda1-> Windows System Reserved Partition
sda2-> Windows C:\
sda3-> Created this as my /boot
sda4-> Extended Partition
sda[5-xx] -> Logical Partitions

I followed this guide to add an entry to the Windows 7 boot menu. http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/addi...ws7-boot-menu/

The steps are similar to the ones I posted, just the "/store c:\boot\bcd" is not required this time.