Boot-Repair-tool for Ubuntu is Updated with Lots of New Features!

Boot-Repair is a bloody excellent little utility that lets you recover your boot-loader configuration (GRUB actually) related settings which seems to be pretty common with MS Windows 7 and Ubuntu users since when you do updates in MS Windows and if the OS core files are updated, then sometimes Windows just update/over-write (errrr :D) MBR thus breaking GRUB boot-loader files, completely or partially.

Although when it was released few months ago some of the advanced options were not shown to the Ubuntu users but I don't know when it happened, but the author has released a new version/updated of Boot-Repair which brings a lot of very useful, advanced features such as ...

*. A simple welcome screen from which now we can choose either:

1. "Recommended Repair": If you choose this option, then you don't have to do anything the Boot-Repair will take care everything for you.

From checking the partition to removing your current installed/broken GRUB to re-installing it... everything is automatic (few minutes ago I successfully reinstalled my GRUB and everything went really well, hey I'm still here!).

2. "Create a Bootinfo Summery": This is another very useful feature. For instance, say that you have a partially installed GRUB, wait!, what the heck does that mean!?

Well lets just say that you have a GRUB menu without anything but a blank screen .... and you went to an online community of Ubuntu experts and the geeks out there asked you whether you could give them a "log-file" related to your current GRUB settings or something similar.

Then you can use this second option that will create a full summary about your GRUB boot-loader and in my case it took like 40-50 seconds. Boot-Repair even uploaded that log-file in the Ubuntu Paste-Bin service which makes sharing it a breeze!.

But if you want additional controllability, then simply click on the "Advanced" button which will let you do things like...

*. Reinstall the GRUB (with or without replacing MBR).

*. Show/Hide the boot-menu after few seconds (that you can define manually).

*. Repair File Systems.

*. Install the GRUB loader into a different location (other than your MBR which is the default location) such as on the Ubuntu 11.04 partition, USB drives, etc.

Don't worry if you don't see your MS Widows 7 or Vista here since it only shows the OS that you're currently running...

*. Add additional initial boot-functions such as ACPI on/off, disable APIC, ATI Readon GPU related settings, etc.

Watch out for Pride! :P...

*. Enable/disable ATA disk support.

*. Restore the original MBR (the one that came with MS Windows which was there before you install Ubuntu). This however will only be available if it's not deleted by the Ubuntu OS installer.

*. Manually edit the GRUB file using a text editor (ahh, the good-old-days :D).

You can install Boot Repair in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot, 10.10 and 10.04 by using the below three command in your Terminal window.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install boot-repair

After installing, you can run it by pressing "Alt" + "F2" keys and entering the below command.

boot-repair

Remember, I think before going into the advanced section, you should try the Recommended option that'll solve many known GRUB boot related problems with Ubuntu 11.04 and MS Windows 7/Vista, etc.

And lastly, please don't try to enable advanced Kernel settings (above mentioned ACPI, etc) unless you know what you're doing.

Update: You can also visit this new official Boot-Repair Ubuntu Wiki-page for more (thanks Yann for the update!).

Install Boot-Repair in Ubuntu 11.04 (Reinstalling GRUB in Ubuntu Made Easy!)

The Boot loader is one of the most important aspects/programs of all operating systems. Whether its GNU/Linux, MS Window or Mac OS, etc it must be present!. And it is also a very fragile one as well. That's why having a recovery disk is also very important otherwise, say you're a bit new to all these "stuff", then you might easily end up losing data on your hard disk drive for instance.

Anyhow, there are primarily two main boot loaders can be seen in computers, one type is called the primary boot loader which represents a small piece of code/instructions that lets you computer to boot or load the most primary software contents without problems (that are closely related to the actual hardware, such as sending display signals to the Monitor screen or checking your RAM for errors for instance). This is usually stored in a ROM (read only memory) or EEPROM chip. The best example for such a Boot loader is the BIOS on your computer's motherboard.

Although the functions of a primary boot loader can be quite limited because those ROM chips usually have smaller capacity + since every operating system has a way of its own doing things, it's almost impossible to add all the details into the ROM. Even if we put our OS boot information into it, yet it can be quite hard to update it whenever the OS developers want since updating a BIOS chip has is "risks".

As an answer to all these issues they came up with another kind of boot loaders that run after the BIOS|primary boot loader is executed called secondary boot loaders. They're usually stored in your HDD/USB, etc, a place called MBR (master boot record). Now, these type of boot loaders are OS specific (not always true because they do have the ability to boot into other OS boot loaders. Multi OS boot for instance) and are behind the perfect execution of your operating system into your RAM.

Although there are several types... yet in GNU/Linux there are primarily two main BL can be identified. One is called Lilo and the other is called GRUB. GRUB is the primary one (if I'm not mistaken) these days which is an official part of the GNU project as well.

There can be many occasions a boot loader can be "corrupted"... say due to a virus attack or while trying to install/reinstall a boot loader or can occur after using a disk repair app in GNU/Linux (yes, it's possible) . When it comes to GRUB, in GNU/Linux you can install/reinstall GRUB loader without any GUI, even if your GNU/Linux PC Laptop is un-bootable, as long as you have the Live CD, etc you can use a command called "grub-install".

But then again, when you have an excellent grub installer GUI, why the heck u wanna do that! :). Sorry to drag you along with all these "related" details (just kinda felt like writing em)... if you want to easily control your GRUB boot loader in Ubuntu, then there is an excellent, GTK written GUI called "Boot-Repair".

This "window" is not available for those of us who use the original, official Ubuntu LiveCD... thus once installed and run we should be prompted by the below one instead...

Main features...

*. Recover or Repair your Grub code in MBR when you can't even boot your OS.

*. Repair it within the OS (you know, even if you removed your boot loader, as long as you don't reboot your PC, you're gonna be fine, for a while :P)

*. Reinstall the loader.

*. Change the location of the GRUB installation (you know, installing it into an another HDD, etc).

*. Restore the original boot sector.

You can install the magnificent :D Boot-Repair in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot, 12.04 Precise Pangolin, 10.10 and 10.04 by entering the below command in your Terminal.

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

How the heck can I use it if I can't boot into my Ubuntu desktop Gayan!, you... nutcase?

Well my friend, use your Live CD or Live USB... boot into your desktop using those media and simply instal the Boot-Repair using the same command. Or I think you should be able to run it in the "/usr/bin" directory if no internet connection is available. In that sense, we can actually create a Linux recovery disk/LiveCD by using this app that should help to access/recover our data without even losing a single byte! :D. Good luck.

Oh, I should be thankful to this awesome Ubuntu forum thread for this app news as well :).

Update: You can get more information from this official Boot-Repair Ubuntu Help page too. Thanks "Yann" (the developer) for the update :).