Troubleshooting: Help, my GRUB bootloader is gone after installing XP/Vista/7

Yes, I have faced this problem. Not one time but two times. First my PC had only Windows XP. Than I installed Ubuntu. Than due to some problem, I again wanted to format Windows XP and install it. After doing this my GRUB bootloader was gone, and I can only start Windows XP. Second time, I wanted to triple boot i.e Windows XP + Ubuntu + Windows 7. Now again after installing, my GRUB is gone. So, many of you must have faced a similar problem. Now today, lets learn how to solve this problem and restore GRUB bootloader.

So, I hope you clearly understood the problem. To tackle this situation, all we have to do is to restore our beloved “GRUB bootloader”. Follow the below steps to recover GRUB bootloader:

1) Boot from the live CD / DVD of Ubuntu

2) Open the terminal, now type “sudo grub”

3) Type “find /boot/grub/stage1” (Do note that there is a space after “find”)

4) After our previous command, it will show you the linux boot file location. e.g. (hd0, 6).

5) Now you need to type “root (output of the above process)”. e.g. root (hd0, 6)

6) Also type “setup (hd 0)”

That’s it. Your GRUB bootloader will get restored if you followed this process properly. Do note that linux is a space sensitive and case sensitive language. You can follow this process if you have installed Windows XP or Windows Vista or Windows 7 and you are unable to boot to other operating system’s. For those who want to know the full form of GRUB, it is “GRand Unified Bootloader”. So, happy restoring GRUB.