Installed elementary OS Freya alongside Windows 8 but does not show up

Question

I installed elementary OS Freya via USB alongside Windows 8. It finishes so I reboot.

The screen goes black, then automatically boots as Windows 8.

I searched on the internet a bit, then found out that I hadn't turned off Fast Boot. I tried changing boot order but to no avail.

When I go on the Advanced Settings, the option above troubleshooting, the things that show up are Normal Boot, GRUB and my USB.

GRUB didn't do anything I understood so I decided to try installing elementary OS again.

I chose to install alongside Windows and was given the option of partitioning.

But, it didn't show Windows 8 - just two elementary OS installs.

Answer 1

Check if your HDD with linux is top priority (I know you tried it already, but it's really a common mistake). GRUB manual is also a thing you can find your answer at https://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub.html#Installation

Plus, all this UEFI stuff (it sounds like your laptop is fairly new, so it should have UEFI) can mess you up. Try turning off Secure Boot in your BIOS (it's really stupid anyway, except, you're afraid of someone breaking into your house with a flash drive and installing virus into PC from BIOS).

Answer 2

if you are still searching for a solution this may help. I had a similar problem with installing elementary OS alongside a preinstalled Windows 7 on an Acer TMP 645 Notebook. The Problem in place seems to be that some UEFI firmware together with the Microsoft bootmanager prevents you from registering new bootloader or altering the priority order of bootloaders. It is: everything you edit from elementary OS with efibootmgr is reverted after the next reboot of the computer. I solved the Problem by using rEFInd bootmanager instead / alongside the grub bootmanager and putting it in the place where the system / Windows expect the Windows bootmanager.

You can find instructions on how to download and install rEFInd here: http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/ rEFInd scans your system for bootable OS and can boot Windows as Linux alike.

After installing rEFInd you can find it on the EFI partition on your computer. You can boot into a elementary live system from DVD or USB-drive and than 1. move the original Microsoft bootmanager into a different place and 2. move the rEFInd bootmanager into the place, where the Microsoft bootmanager was (renaming it as if it is the Microsoft one). For more detailed instructions read this part of the documenatation: http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/installing.html#naming Note for this operations you need to run the Terminal with root priviliges (type sudo -s). To get the work done the commands cd for changing the directory you work in, ls for listing the files in a directory, cp for copying and rm for removing files/directories will be helpful. google for documentation. For information where your EFI partition is situated the program gparted gives you an overview of your partitions and their respective naming in Linux.

After rebooting the system you should find a grafic menu with all OS on your system. You may find your elementary OS two times. This is because rEFInd find the bootloader in the EFI partition and the bootable file in the partition where you installed elementary os to. You can find more informations to fine tune this in the online documentation of rEFInd.