GRUB does not detect Windows

Solution 1:

1. Boot Ubuntu and mount your Windows partition (simply open the disk on Nautilus)

2. Run the following on the command line (Ctrl+Alt+t):

   sudo os-prober
   

3. If your Windows installation was found, you can run:

   sudo update-grub
   

Note that step 2 is just for your convenience. You could just mount the Windows 7 partition and then run update-grub.

Related question

• Unable to mount Windows (NTFS) filesystem due to hibernation

Solution 2:

If the os-prober method above doesn't work try adding a custom grub menu entry. Documented here.

First two steps are for finding your <UUID>.

1. Run lsblk and find the name of the row with /boot/efi

Example output (here the answer is sda2):

lsblk
NAME        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda           8:0    0   477G  0 disk 
├─sda1        8:1    0   450M  0 part 
├─sda2        8:2    0   100M  0 part /boot/efi
├─sda3        8:3    0    16M  0 part 
├─sda4        8:4    0    47G  0 part /windows
├─sda5        8:5    0 425,6G  0 part /
└─sda6        8:6    0   3,7G  0 part [SWAP]
mmcblk0     179:0    0  14,9G  0 disk 
└─mmcblk0p1 179:1    0  14,9G  0 part

2. Run sudo blkid /dev/sdaX where sdaX is the answer from previous step (sda2 in my case).

Example output (here the answer is 58E4-427D):

/dev/sda2: UUID="58E4-427D" TYPE="vfat" PARTLABEL="EFI system partition" PARTUUID="b81727be-ba90-5f8c-ab98-d3ec67778b7d"

3. Add the following at the end of the file /etc/grub.d/40_custom:

menuentry "Windows 7" {  
     insmod ntfs  
     set root='(hd0,1)'  
     search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set <UUID>
     chainloader +1  
}

4. Run sudo update-grub and reboot.

Solution 3:

I had Windows 10 running and then tried dual boot. Once Ubuntu was installed, Win 10 wasn't showing up in my GRUB loader. I tried the following --

First of all, I disabled Secure Boot in Win10. Then ran the below commands in Ubuntu :

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y boot-repair && boot-repair

Worked out pretty well. Was able to find both Windows and Ubuntu in GRUB after that.

Solution 4:

I solved a similar problem following steps of Boot-Repair

Install boot-repair

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y boot-repair && boot-repair

Push "Recommended repair" And put in a terminal some commands as it suggested.

I think my Grub doesn't recognize windows due to a bad shutdown, and it solved the problem.

Solution 5:

Slightly different method as I copied from a working example on another computer, posting for my own records.

Append the following to /etc/grub.d/40_custom:

menuentry "Windows 10" {
        insmod part_gpt
        insmod fat
        search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set <boot_efi_uuid>
        chainloader /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
}

where <boot_efi_uuid> is the UUID of your /boot/efi partition. To find this:

$ lsblk
NAME              MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE  MOUNTPOINT                                                  
sda                 8:0    0 119.2G  0 disk
└─md126             9:126  0 357.7G  0 raid0
  ├─md126p1       259:0    0   499M  0 md
  ├─md126p2       259:1    0   100M  0 md    /boot/efi                                                   

$ sudo blkid | grep md126p2 # Replace with your device
/dev/md126p2: UUID=<boot_efi_uuid>

Then of course, once you're saved the file, run:

sudo update-grub

Reboot, you should now be able to successfully start up Windows.