Wubi installer doesn't appear in boot menu on Windows 7

[bogdan2412]

I tried installing Ubuntu from Wubi on Windows 7 beta and it didn't create a boot menu option.

[moto4troy (moto4troy)]

It appears the the Windows 7 beta boot menu has had a little bit of changes to it. Guess compatibility for Wubi in windows 7 would be great. I miss Ubuntu but not enough to install it on its own partition

[Harrison Neal (hantwister)]

Yep, Wubi makes no changes to the Windows 7 boot config. Let us know if you need any information.

[Harrison Neal (hantwister)]

If it helps:

1. Install *buntu using Wubi.
2. Install EasyBCD.
3. Using EasyBCD, add an entry for Linux>Wubi; change the drive from C: if appropriate.
4. Copy files from the winboot folder that Wubi created (wubildr*, menu.lst) to the root of the drive.
5. Go into a command prompt with admin privileges.
6. Use bcdedit to change the path of the BCD entry created by EasyBCD for Wubi from the mbr file EasyBCD installed to the mbr file you just copied to the root of the drive. (bcdedit by itself first to get the ID, then bcdedit /set {...ID...} path /wubildr.mbr)

I'm sure there is a better way (if someone could install on Vista and examine Vista's BCD entries after installing Wubi, it could help), but this seems to be a fairly quick fix/workaround.

[bogdan2412 (b-tataroiu)]

@Harrison Neal: thanks a lot for that tip :) you don't actually have to move the files from winboot to the root of the drive, you can just set the path \ubuntu\winboot\wubildr.mbr

Seems to me the boot loader for windows 7 hasn't really changed from vista's since easybcd works with it just ok. I glimpsed at wubi's source code a bit, from what I saw the installer has if cases for different versions of windows: xp, vista and other... I think the code for vista would work fine on windows 7 (haven't tested this)

[Harrison Neal (hantwister)]

Hmm... when I tried just setting the path to \ubuntu\winboot\wubildr.mbr, it started to load, then listed all of my partitions with a note that "the file wasn't found", and told me that wubildr couldn't be found anywhere, that Grub couldn't be started, and to restart the computer. That's when I got the idea that I should try putting the files in the root of the drive, since it seemed to be searching the root of the partitions.

If it works, great; I'm just not sure why it works one way for one person and it works a different way for someone else... (I'm documenting this for whoever ends up trying to fix this)

[Agostino Russo (ago)]

If you can find out the bcd commands required, I can add support for that. The current BCD implementation for Vista (which was contributed by the author of EasyBCD) is: http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-installer/wubi/trunk/annotate/head%3A/src/wubi/backends/win32/backend.py (modify_bcd, line 561)

[Harrison Neal (hantwister)]

bogdan2412: Were you using 8.04 or 8.10, and do you have some wubildr files on the root of your partition? When I used the 8.10 installer, I had to copy files from \ubuntu\winboot to the root of the partition; the Wubi 8.04 installer copied some of those same files to the root of the partition for me, and I was able to skip copying files as you suggested.

Agostino Russo: Running the commands manually worked. At that point, I remembered the "Compatibility Mode" options in Windows, and running both the 8.04 and 8.10 installers in compatibility mode for Windows Vista worked without a hitch, including the 8.10 installer now copying some of the winboot files automatically to the root of the drive. At this point, I'd be willing to bet simply checking for either Vista or Windows 7 and following the same instructions would work.

[bogdan2412 (b-tataroiu)]

Harrison Neal: I used the installer from http://wubi-installer.org to install 8.10. I see now I do have those files at the root of the disk, not sure if the installer copied them there, or I did when I was following the instructions and forgot about them. :)

[dijon (daniel-delaney)]

In order to get the boot menu correctly shown, I ran wubi with "Vista" Compatibility, and "Run as Administrator". The boot menu appeared correctly, and the Ubuntu entry appeared OK. I checked bcdedit before allowing Windows to be restarted, and it was all there.

Regards,

Dan

[Pranav (pranavmarathe)]

@Harrison Neal : I performed the same operations as u suggested. And it started to load Ubuntu, but after this I got the error like "root is not defined". Have you come across the same error? please let me know, how should I solve it furter..

Regards,
Pranav

[Harrison Neal (hantwister)]

@Agostino Russo: I think It'd be worth a shot just checking for Vista and 7 and following the same instructions for both. Currently, it's "6.1 Build 7000", though I'm sure it'll change soon enough.

[Harrison Neal (hantwister)]

@Pranav: Hmm... not sure; I haven't seen that error yet. Did you try the manual way, or did you try running the setup under compatibility mode (right click, Properties, Compatibility, select Windows Vista)?

[Pranav (pranavmarathe)]

I followed all the steps as u said. I feel there is no problem with compatibility at this point, because ubuntu is not finding the root partition which is present in Ubuntu folder.
The error is "No root file system is defined"
where can be the error?

Thanks
Pranav

[Agostino Russo (ago)]

Pranav try to uninstall and reinstall.
It would be interesting to understand how to make it work without the vista compatibility flag

[Harrison Neal (hantwister)]

@Agostino: That seems to be an error by the setup partitioner. Based on a Google Search, quite a few people have gotten this error, regardless of if they are or aren't using Wubi, and, if they are using Wubi, there are reports of this problem on 7, Vista and XP - I can't say if this problem is Windows 7 specific.

The only thing I feel qualified to suggest would be to make sure enough space is allocated (>=4GB) and to run a chkdsk (right click the Drive in My Computer, select Properties, click Tools Tab).

[goto (gotolaunchpad)]

can yuo upload a guid with picture how to solve this problem?
thank you

[Pranav (pranavmarathe)]

Hi,
I didn't get any solution for that problem. I dropped that idea for some
time as I'm busy in some other activity. If I get any solution to it I'll
post.

Regards
Pranav Marathe

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 8:23 PM, goto <email address hidden> wrote:

> can yuo upload a guid with picture how to solve this problem?
> thank you
>
> --
> Wubi installer doesn't appear in boot menu on Windows 7
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/318135
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in Wubi, Windows Ubuntu Installer: Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> I tried installing Ubuntu from Wubi on Windows 7 beta and it didn't create
> a boot menu option.
>

[moto4troy (moto4troy)]

The problem has been solved just run wubi in compatibility mode. for vista. I did it and now I can use ubuntu dual booting with my windows 7

[Agostino Russo (ago)]

Should be fixed in Wubi 9.04 r98+ (builds are available here http://people.ubuntu.com/~evand/wubi/jaunty/). Feel free to reopen if the problem persists.

[Don_Vito (manuel-spangher)]

Unfortunately the Ubuntu installation doesn’t work also with the latest alpha (v. 9.04),
Windows 7 appears to have no great priority in the Wubi development.

:-(

[Agostino Russo (ago)]

There is a log in the user temp folder, if you use v 9.04 please post the log

[Don_Vito (manuel-spangher)]

OK

THX!

[Agostino Russo (ago)]

It looks like BCD was actually modified, you should check that with EasyBCD, it might be that you have a nested bootloader configuration

[Don_Vito (manuel-spangher)]

Sorry, the bootloader works fine (i think) … the Ubuntu setup - startup doesn’t march… stops whit a error in every mode what are to choice (x86 8.10 and x64 8.10)

:-(

[Agostino Russo (ago)]

From what I gather this issue should be addressed in the latest Wubi 9.04 (see Ubuntu beta). Feel free to reopen if appropriate.

[Agostino Russo (ago)]

framas777 can you please add more details and possibly a log file?

[Stuart P. Bentley (stuart)]

I tried uninstalling Ubuntu because Wubi didn't create a boot entry (but didn't raise an error) on install and I got the error detailed in the attached logfile.

Why are you using the absolute path to bcdedit?

[Stuart P. Bentley (stuart)]

Never mind. I don't know why it couldn't find the entry (possibly because I had tried some mucking around with easyBCD before uninstalling), but I solved it by creating a dummy entry ant replacing that one with my stored one.