Brief: Cannot access Linux in dual boot because system boots straight to Windows without showing the grub menu? Here is a possible fix for you.
So, finally, I upgraded Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 last night. Since, I dual boot Windows 8.1 with Ubuntu, I was expecting to see the Grub menu at the boot so that I could choose the operating system of my choice. But the upgrade to Windows 10 from Windows 8.1 messed up the settings and it never showed Grub menu. It just kept booting into Windows 10 at each start up.
Frustrating, isn’t it? It seemed like as if there is no way to access Ubuntu at all. No! the Ubuntu install on the other partition was fine. It was just the UEFI settings that were different in the boot manager. I verified everything by accessing UEFI firmware settings in Windows 10.
If you too are unable to boot into Grub and rebooting Windows 10 repeatedly, I am going to present you the simple solution that worked for me.
Warning: Playing with your boot settings can leave your system messed up. I advise having a recovery disk or Windows installation disk with you to reverse boot settings. Keeping the Linux live USB can also help in many situations.
Fix Dual Boot system going booting straight to Windows
Though I am saying Windows 10, the steps are equally valid for Windows 8 and 8.1. Similarly, I am using Ubuntu in dual boot here but the trick applies to all other Linux distributions such as Linux Mint etc.
Step 1
In Windows, go to the menu.
Step 2
Search for Command Prompt, right click on it to run it as administrator.
Step 3
In here, copy paste the command below:
bcdedit /set {bootmgr} path \EFI\ubuntu\grubx64.efiYou don’t need to enter a password or anything like that. The command should run just fine given that your account has admin rights.
Step 4
Restart and you’ll be welcomed by the familiar Grub screen. I hope this quick tutorial helped you to fix the Grub issue.
It did not work?
If the above entry didn’t change anything, you can reverse it using the command below:
bcdedit /deletevalue {bootmgr} path \EFI\ubuntu\grubx64.efiEven if the above command didn’t work, try the command below to set the boot back to Windows.
bcdedit /set {bootmgr} path \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efiIf you are not able to boot into Windows installation, plug in the Windows installation disk and there you’ll have access to the command prompt.
You can try some suggestions mentioned here to stop dual boot from booting straight into Windows.
If you see a “no boot found” error, you can try this or this solution.
It works great — Thank you!!!
Thank you, worked for me!
Lone Coder’s comment on the BIOS made me look there first.
I developed this problem after updating MSI BIOS.
Before running the command I looked at the boot order and it had changed to Windows before Ubuntu (– thanks MSI).
All I had to do was make it boot Ubuntu first and my grub menu reappeared!
laptop was booting directly in windows, after installing linux mint 19. Unsurprisingly, after trying these instructions, NOTHING changed, everything remained the same
Thanks, worked like a charm, don’t know how it happened because it was a old install but never really use windows. However I did turn it on and it did some updates.