I cannot change the grub Default item from OS-1, but I can from OS-2 (dual-boot 10.04 on both)

Posted by fred.bear on Ask Ubuntu See other posts from Ask Ubuntu or by fred.bear
Published on 2011-01-04T03:58:02Z Indexed on 2011/01/04 3:59 UTC
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grub

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bootloader

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mbr

My 10.04 system (OS-1) got into a tangle the other day, so I installed a second, dual-boot 10.04 (OS-2), so that I could trouble-shoot the hung system...

In case it is relevant to my question, I'll mention that since I got OS-1 working again, it has shown a few battle wounds from its ordeal (.. actually the ordeal was mine ... trying to figure it all out ;) ... I lost some custom settings, but not all.

(For the curious: the hangup was caused by rsync writing 600 GB to OS-1's 320 GB drive.. The destination drive was unmounted at the time, and rsync dutifully wrote directly to /media/usb_back; filling it to capacity... I have since, ammended my script :)

Because the dual-boot MBR was prepared by OS-2, it is first on the grub list.. However, I want OS-1 to be the default OS to boot...

From OS-1, I tried two methods to change the grub-menu's defaule OS. eg.

Directly editing /etc/default/grub (then update-grub)
Running 'Startup Manager' (then update-grub)

Neither of these methods had any effect... so I started OS-2, and tried method 1... It worked!

Why can I not change the grub menu from OS-1? .. or if it can be done, How?

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