# adding vista safe mode to Grub



## deuce (May 26, 2001)

Hi; I am dual booting Fiesty (ubuntu) and Vista, and was hoping to add an option in grub to boot into vista's safe mode.

How do I go about adding it? I know how to edit grub, but I'm not sure what to put in the lines for safe mode. Ubuntu is hd0,0 and vista is hd0,2

I used this when I added vista to grub:

title Vista
root (hd0,2)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1

Thanks,
Mike


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## RootbeaR (Dec 9, 2006)

When Vista starts to boot, start tapping F8 key.
When have you used windows that it showed safe mode from boot screen without doing above?


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## saikee (Jun 11, 2004)

Don't think Grub can control Vista's way of booting until Vista's boot loader takes over.

In a nutshell every PC operating system has a boot loader divided into two parts; part-1 512 bytes large in the 1st sector and part-2 as large as needed starting from the second sector.

All Grub does in booting Vista is cut its Part-1 and paste it with the part-2 of Vista's boot loader in the memory.

It is always the duty of the Part-1 to pull up Part-2 in every boot loader. Once Vista's boot loader is in charge you can then choose the safe mode if it can be activated by F8 as indicated by RootbeaR


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## deuce (May 26, 2001)

Thanks, I'll have to try next time I restart. I seem to remember that when I choose the the vista option it immediately boots and F8 didn't do anything. I'm sure when there is a problem and I can't boot into windows, the failed boot screen will show up like in XP and allow me to roll back changes and boot into safe mode...but if F8 isn't going to work as normal, it would be nice to force an option somewhere. I'm sure I just missed something. Vista actually boots really fast on my notebook though...(not enough to win back any approval but at least impressive) In about a third of the time it takes Feisty to load the login in, vista can load it's log in, and then after submitting info it loads everything and gets me to a workable state as fast as it would if I were resuming from stand-by...


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## deuce (May 26, 2001)

RootbeaR said:


> When Vista starts to boot, start tapping F8 key.
> When have you used windows that it showed safe mode from boot screen without doing above?


I don't remember if I ever have had a automatic safe mode boot option...possibly when I was dual booting only XP and XP x64 I may have, but I don't remember.

On my grub though, I do have a boot option to boot Feisty in safe mode for each kernal, so I was looking for that type of thing and put it in grub from editing it in linux


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## saikee (Jun 11, 2004)

The booting of a Linux is totally different to a MS Windows by a Linux boot loader, be it a Grub or Lilo.

At the heart of the matter no Linux boot loader can understand a NTFS partition. That is to say if you ask Grub to find a file inside Grub will be at a total loss because it can't read it.

Both Lilo and Grub boots a MS system indirectly by "chainloading". In it the Linux boot loader does not boot the MS system. It boots its boot loader only by loading the +1 position (or at the beginning of the second sector) of the MS partition. After MS WIndows' own boot loader has taken over then it pull up the rest of the system into the memory.

A Linux boot loader can play tunes with a Linux because it can read a Linux partition (actually Lilo may have a problem with that) and able to find the kernel and pass on various parameters at boot time.

Technically it is a waste of time to expect Grub to control a MS system down to booting in safe mode because it isn't designed for it.


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