I have recently installed Ubuntu 12.04 to dual boot with Windows 7, but upon startup, the grub menu does not appear and boots into Windows 7

Question

I am running a single SSD. My motherboard has UEFI bios, though I'm not sure that helps. I've tried holding shift on multiple startups without success.

Answer 1

Boot from your Ubuntu Live DVD and try this tool- Boot Repair

Answer 2

The likely problem is that the Windows Master Boot Record (MBR) is installed on your SSD.

You probably need to boot into your Linux from DVD (rescue mode) or USB drive, then write the grub MBR to your SSD by doing something like:

grub-install /dev/sda

This assumes your SSD is named /dev/sda

Answer 3

I would guess that you chose the wrong place to install grub. Try to install it in the mbr of your drive. I do not know what your bios lets you choose to boot from (drives or also partitions), but since you have only one drive it should be okay. But it should work if you should reinstall grub using a livecd.

Maybe you could provide more information. What is the holding shift part about? Are you trying to get into the BIOS?

Best solution would probably to use Rescatux. This distro is designed to solve problems like yours.

Hope I could help you, Phil