Accidentally Changed Boot System, Need a Fix

[sse11791]

I apologize in advance if I am not being very cler. I have *very* basic skill levels with a computer.

I used to have Fedora 15. The computer would boot up, and automatically go to a screen where I could choose what operating system I would use. If I made no choice, I would automatically boot into Windows 7.

I decided to upgrade and I installed Fedora 17. Now, when I turn on the computer, if I do nothing, the screen stays black and nothing happens. I must press F12 when the computer starts to get to a screen where I select the disk I want to boot from, then I can choose the operating system I want.

Is there a way I can change back to the old way? I would like to be able to have the computer turn on and if I do nothing, let it boot into Windows without having to press F12.

But before I do anything, can someone suggest which way is better? Which way would cause the least problems to my system in the event I want to make more changes in the future?

[glennzo]

Something that comes to mind would be the existence of these lines in /etc/default/grub

PHP Code:

GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=3
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true 


If those lines are there they may need to be "commented out" to get the menu to show. If that's the case then comment them out with a hash mark.

PHP Code:

#GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=3
#GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true 


Then run grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg and reboot. See if the menu is now closer to what you're looking for.

[sse11791]

Thank you glennzo,

The file reads like this

GRUB_TIMEOUT=5
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR="Fedora"
GRUB_DEFAULT=saved
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="rd.md=0 rd.lvm=0 rd.dm=0 SYSFONT=True KEYTABLE=us rd.luks=0 LANG=en_US.UTF-8 rhgb quiet"
#GRUB_THEME="/boot/grub2/themes/system/theme.txt"

Since there is nothing for me to cross out, should I still run grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg and reboot as you suggested?

[glennzo]

Nothing there that would give you a blank screen as near as I can tell. You could change the timeout to something like 30 but all that will do is make the countdown longer (30 seconds).

To answer your question, no, if you didn't make any changes then there's no need to run grub2-mkconfig. However, any time you do make changes, yes, you need to run grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

I'm not sure what your issue is caused by. I'm wondering if the bootloader wasn't installed properly during the upgrade from 15 to 17. If that's the case reinstalling the bootloader may fix the issue.

Have you searched the forum for similar issues?

I'm signing off for the evening. Look before you jump.

[DBelton]

Actually, what is described in the first post sounds like the boot order in the BIOS got changed.

If you can hit F12 and select the drive, and then it boots, then the bootloader is installed.

Try going into your BIOS setup and make sure the drive boot order is set correctly.

Also, but not related to it not booting, I notice you have the SYSFONT-True parameter in your kernel line. Go here and see how to fix that so it doesn't throw up an error on boot (it doesn't prevent it from booting, though).

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=282574