Changing Boot Order on Dual Boot Windows 8 and Ubuntu

[Njits]

Sorry for the late reaction. The output of efibootmgr -v is:

BootCurrent: 0003
Timeout: 2 seconds
BootOrder: 0003,0004,0001,0005,0002,0006,0007,0008,0009,000A,0000
Boot0000  Fixed Windows Path	Vendor(99e275e7-75a0-4b37-a2e6-c5385e6c00cb,)WINDOWS.........x...B.C.D.O.B.J.E.C.T.=.{.9.d.e.a.8.6.2.c.-.5.c.d.d.-.4.e.7.0.-.a.c.c.1.-.f.3.2.b.3.4.4.d.4.7.9.5.}...b................
Boot0001* USB Floppy/CD	Vendor(b6fef66f-1495-4584-a836-3492d1984a8d,0500000001)..BO
Boot0002* USB Hard Drive	Vendor(b6fef66f-1495-4584-a836-3492d1984a8d,0200000001)..BO
Boot0003* ubuntu	HD(2,200000,b4000,f3ff2afd-b514-43c2-a653-c9ceeeb552dc)File(\EFI\ubuntu\shimx64.efi)
Boot0004* USB Floppy/CD	Vendor(b6fef66f-1495-4584-a836-3492d1984a8d,0500000001)..BO
Boot0005* USB Hard Drive	Vendor(b6fef66f-1495-4584-a836-3492d1984a8d,0200000001)..BO
Boot0006* CD/DVD Drive 	BIOS(3,0,00)..GO..NO........o.h.p. . . . . . .D.V.D. .A. . .D.H.1.6.A.E.S.H....................A...........................>..Gd-.;.A..MQ..L.4.2.4.8.0.2.0.9.5.8.6.9. . . . . . . . ........BO
Boot0007* USB Floppy/CD	Vendor(b6fef66f-1495-4584-a836-3492d1984a8d,0500000000)..BO
Boot0008* Hard Drive	BIOS(2,0,00)..GO..NO........o.W.D.C. .W.D.1.0.E.Z.E.X.-.6.0.M.2.N.A.0....................A...........................>..Gd-.;.A..MQ..L. . . . .W. .-.D.C.W.3.C.E.F.3.T.R.A.U.U........BO
Boot0009* IBA GE Slot 0300 v1321	BIOS(6,0,00)..BO
Boot000A* Realtek PXE B05 D00	BIOS(6,0,00)..BO

 At every boot of windows, the "Fixed Windows Path" is put back in place.

The computer is an HP 500-307nb desktop.

[GreatEmerald]

Ah, so this is a different issue, probably due to a different UEFI in your machine. In mine the UEFI regenerates an entry "OS boot manager" and sets it as first. In your case it seems to be that the UEFI simply fails to parse the BootOrder variable and goes from 0000 onwards every time (in the boot menu the second entry is CD, right?). In which case it's a real UEFI bug (not to mention a blatant violation of the UEFI spec); maybe this will be solved in a later update.

Meanwhile you could try and find a way to put the Windows option at the very end instead of the front. Maybe there's a way to copy an entry with efibootmgr, or maybe swap entries in the EFI shell, or maybe deleting the entry and then recreating it in Windows will do the job. Some experimentation might be needed.

[seravilo]

hello, thankyou for your guide but I don't know with precission what I must do when you write "...you'll have to create a new file in /etc/grub.d and rerun grub-mkconfig..."  I think in execute grub-mkconfig in the shell, but about the file in /etc/grub.d/SOME I don't know what file can I make in that "SOME".  Then after the previous steps you write I execute in the shell:

#grub-mkconfig

#os-probe (Ms-win is not recognized obviously)

#update-grub2

My bios Legacy mode say Enabled, but my Debian System say it is EFI mode.

Too I must say when I'm in windows and I write "bcdedit /set {bootmgr} path \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi~ " the system again power on and it go to windows inmediatly, then  only when  the "set {bootmgr} path" point to an invalid file  like "\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi__" while bootmgfw.efi__ isn't  exist , only there grub2 is active by default, but never before, then to access to windows, in the boot moment I press F9 in the list I select the option EFI file, from the 2 elements of the list I select hda6 then I go for the folders /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/CorrectEfiFile.efi and now after all that I access to win.  Then I want know if that steps for grub-mkconfig and make a file in /etc/grub.d/... help me to access win of a short method.

Thankyou (sorry the bad english)

[GreatEmerald]

See this post on the second page (from "as for step 8"):

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Operating-Systems-and-Software/Changing-Boot-Order-on-Dual-Boo...

[Raster80]

Hi,

 I was becoming crazy until I read this loop. I even  set a password in the BIOS to avoid automatic boot order...without success.

I read https://pctechman.wordpress.com/2014/09/13/dual-boot-windows-8-1-with-linux-grub-boot-order-hp-lapto...

but to be honest it's to complicated to me. I feel I will convert my new computer in a stone in any tricky step.

Someone knows  please if HP fixed this "feature" about reset to original boot order?  

Thanks.

[shubhamrana2009]

How to complete step 6?

I completed step 5 from command prompt in windows 8 after installing ubuntu.

[GreatEmerald]

I reinstalled the system today, and had to go through the same process again. I noticed a few things I didn't notice before.

First off, apparently it's true that the BootOrder variable parsing in the UEFI is broken. It deletes it before boting and resets it to go in numerical order, from 0000 (if exists) through 0001 through 0002 and so on, and also even lists some nonexistent entries in there. So changing the BootOrder variable in fact has no effect.

Which is a problem whenever the Windows entry is created before the Linux entry, so the former is 0001 and the latter is 0002.

A workaround that seems to work so far is, since the "OS boot Manager" entry is deleted, to create a new boot entry with efibootmgr:

efibootmgr -c -l \\EFI\\opensuse\\bootx64.efi

If slot 0000 is not taken, then this creates an entry called "Linux" pointing to said file in slot 0000. If the aforementioned EFI/boot/bootx64.efi and EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi files do not exist, then the slot shouldn't get overridden (the only problem may be if Windows updates the bootloader and recreates said files) and you'll get GRUB every time.

Alternatively, one can just simply delete the Windows entry. Since GRUB is good at chainloading, it can be left to do said task itself. However, I'm not sure how well Windows would take the entry not being there at all and whether it wouldn't attempt to recreate it.

Also, while testing, after deleting the two files, they did somehow get recreated the first time. I don't know how. Deleting the files a second time made them stay deleted. Mysterious.

Lastly, about GRUB configuration so it could find the renamed Windows file: the quickest and most fool-proof way is actually to install Windows first, then install Linux, then do all the changes, then copy the /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober section from /boot/grub2/grub.cfg into /etc/grub.d/40_custom, changing the chainloader line to point to the new name, and then rerunning grub2-mkconfig (or whatever else your distro uses to generate the config file).

shubhamrana2009: Sorry for the late reply, but, well, step 6 is just a matter of executing said command in Linux.

[David_880]

Thank you GreatEmerald. I have been looking for a solution to this problem for weeks.  It works!

[guest3445]

GreatEmerald,

I made account soley to thank you for your great advise and guidance to solving this problem with windows and grub.

At first I was not able to get grub to appear after following your instructions. After searching the ubuntu forums, I found that instead of doing this: 

bcdedit /set {bootmgr} path \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\windows.efi

I set the path to point to grubx64.efi to get it to work.

Again, thank you for all your help. 

[GreatEmerald]

Well, that works, but it's not optimal, because what it now does for you is try to boot Windows, then Windows runs GRUB, which in turn then perhaps runs Windows. If you remove Windows or if it tries to update its bootloader, you might have a problem again.

If your problem is that the Windows entry is higher on the efibootmgr list than the GRUB entry (output of efibootmgr -v would help), then doing as I said above is probably best: remove slot 0000 (sudo efibootmgr -b 0000 -B), and manually add a GRUB entry into it (efibootmgr -c -l \\EFI\\path\\to\\bootx64.efi). It will then be at the top of the list.