I am trying to change the booting order in my pc temporarily. I have two hard drives and I have the Fedora drive set to boot when I turn on my pc. I have Windows 7 on my original hard drive and I want to boot into that while I am installing Windows 10 over the windows 7 OS.

The problem is, when installing windows 10 it reboots 3 times while going through the install. When I do that I don't want it to boot into my Fedora hard drive. I want it to boot into C:\Windows.
I have tried several times to change my booting order and I have tried + and -, the arrow keys, pg up and pg down and and none of them work. I can move the hilight up and down but I can't move the actual Windows up to the top. I am posting a screen shot of my bios and the boot drive thing.


From what I understand, this is a Linux thing. so I am not sure if I have to do this through the terminal or not.
Help will be appreciated.

This is how mine works. I have Fedora on both hard drives though.

Close everything and restart your computer.

On booting up press the Delete key to get into the BIOS screen (Says CMOS Setup at top)

Use arrow keys to hilite Advanced BIOS Features, press Enter

Select Hard Disk Boot Priority and press Enter.

Use the arrow keys to highlight one of the hard drives. Use the + key to move it up or the - key to move it down.

Press F10 to save. You may get asked more than once to save. Just say yes each time.

Keep pressing the ESC key until you are out of the Bios screen. Your computer will boot.

This step isn't working on my pc. I can't hi-lite this step with the arrow keys or anything else so I can't get to that next step.

Use arrow keys to hilite Advanced BIOS Features, press Enter



@Wallace, that is a lot like the instrucs I got when I went into the Fedora Forum but I was afraid to try it. I didn't know if I had to put yum in front of it or what. then I wouldn't know how to put it back to the way it is now. seems like an awfully long command line.

It is a bit scary. I would like to make those first instrucs work but my arrow keys just won't take me to the advanced Bios. DAM

I've looked all over the place and because I'm not familiar with how this grub or grub2 bootloader configuration stuff works. I can't really be sure what needs to be edited or what to edit it with.

If you can find this file, that would be a good starting point. You would need to copy this file, so that you could get back to where you began from.
Then it would be a mater of editing this file with the correct command line or whatever is needed, to set win7 to boot instead of Fadora.

I think you are right when you told me each pc is different because the + and - keys do nothing on my pc and apparently they do work on O's and Tux's pc's. That leads me to believe because mine is a DELL, the Bios don't work the same. I remember back a couple of computers ago, I could move the selected booting order just by using the arrows, I think that was a Toshiba PC, not sure. It is very frustrating not to be able to do these things that should be so easy. grrrrrrr

Hi Molly,

I can tell by looking at your 1st screenshot, (bios boot menu) that you have two hard drives in your system. You have a Western Digital Caviar 1TB and a Seagate Barracuda 500GB. Your system is currently set to boot from the Seagate Barracuda 500GB, as the default.

To get to the 1st screen (bios boot menu), I assume you press F2/F10/F12 or some function key (during start up) to get you there. So, the first thing you need to determine is whether one of those drives has a Windows bootloader on it, or if both drives have the Linux bootloader on them. The way to determine this is to press F2/F10/F12 or whatever function key takes you to the 1st screenshot you posted, then..

select the WD1001FAES and press enter. Does it boot to Windows?

If not, reboot, select ST500DM002 and press enter. Does it boot to Windows?

If there is a Windows bootloader installed on either of those hard drives, this will tell us which drive it is installed on. Let us know what you have determined and we can go from there.

Ok, I hilited the WD1001FAES and this is what I get when I press enter...


When I click enter with the Seagate 500GB selected, it boots right into Fedora

Ok, when you select WD1001FAES, you get the Windows bootloader screen. So, that tells us the Linux bootloader (Grub) is installed only on the Seagate 500G drive.

Your 1st boot device is the CD/DVD, which is fine.

Your next step it to change your 2nd boot device (as listed in your 2nd screenshot) from ST500DM002 to WD1001FAES. Boot your system and press whatever key (Del?) that takes you to the 2nd screenshot you posted. Highlight the 2nd boot device: ST500DM002 and press enter. That should take you to the next screen where you can select WD1001FAES as your default 2nd boot device. Once you've done that, F10 saves that selection.

Now your system should boot to the Windows bootloader as the default, and you can proceed with your Windows 10 install/upgrade, without affecting your Linux installation on the 500GB Seagate (ST500DM002).

Hi Tux,
I can't quite understand these instructions but I did try to figure them out and nothing I tried is working.
I rebooted and pressed F2 to take me to setup and the screen you are referring to. I selected the 500GB Seagate and pressed enter and it took me right back to Fedora again. I selected the Faes windows and pressed enter and it still took me back to Fedora. I think I might be doing something wrong.

Whenever I have these issues with my Linux & Windows dual boots, I use Grub4dos which comes with Puppy Linux by default. If you download Puppy (go for the main one called "Lucid Puppy") then burn it to A BLANK CD, boot it as a live session, and then run Grub4Dos from the menu. It should be under Menu > System > Grub4Dos bootloader config.

Once loaded up, you should be presented with a step-by-step GUI where you can config your bootup as desired. Everything should be automatically detected.

Puppy also has a second GRUB installer program, but I've never used it. All I can say is that I've never had problems with it's version of Grub4dos.

As for your BIOS not recognizing your +/- and PgUp / PgDn keys, not too sure about that one. Make sure your Number keypad isn't disabled on your keyboard (via the NumLock key).

Don't confuse the boot menu (Screenshot #1) with the BIOS boot device configuration screen (screenshot #2).

The drive highlighted in red below needs to be changed to; WD1001FAES, then F10 to save.



With your setup, there is no need to mess around with the Linux bootloader (grub). You have two physical drives, one with Linux (and grub) and one with Windows (and windows boot manager). All you need to do is change the default boot device in your computer's BIOS.

I was able to get it to boot up in windows but that black screen comes up first and I have to click enter to get into windows.
Now I can't get into Fedora and when I boot up it goes straight to that screen and there are no options to get into Fedora
I am writing this from my iPad. I also can't get into a browser in windows so couldn't get to GC.

Oh Molly! What a mess...
Did you do a total shutdown and try to get into the bios during startup?

I assume you were able to change the Default Boot Device to: WD1001FAES.

It's possible that at some point, your Windows boot manager was modified. If you want to update to Windows 10, you should go ahead and press enter, boot to Windows, then do your upgrade. The upgrade will probably rewrite (fix) your Windows boot manager.


Ok, good. You must have been able to change your default boot device to boot to the Windows drive, which will make it easier to update to Windows 10. If you want to get back to Fedora, just boot to your Boot Menu (1st screenshot you posted) and select to boot with the Linux drive: ST500DM002.

Once you get Windows updated, you can change the default boot device back to the Linux drive: ST500DM002 and the system will boot to Linux, as default.

Thank you Tux. I was able to get back into my Fedora so I am not sure now that I want to take the chance again if it is going to bring up the black screen. I will have to think about it for a while until I calm down. I panicked.

Your biggest obstacle to Windows 10 and Linux dual boot might be secure boot firmware (or lack thereof). I know Windows 10 requires secure boot firmware on new machines. I don't know the requirements for Windows 10 upgrades on older hardware that doesn't support UEFI 2.3.1 with Secure Boot, but you're probably OK.

Maybe someone here knows the answer to this. Secure boot requirements can make it more difficult to run (or dual boot) operating systems other than Windows.

Edit: Here is the answer to my own question, so you'll be OK without "secure boot".

Thanks tux, I am still on the fence about this and looking at all the pros and cons.

Now that you know how to switch back and forth between making Windows the default boot drive and making Fedora the default boot drive, you can do the Windows 10 update.

Just make SURE you set the Windows drive to your default boot drive before you start the upgrade to Win10.

That way, Fedora will not be affected by your Windows 10 update. You will always be able to switch back and make Fedora the default boot drive, no matter what happens with the Windows 10 update.

As always, make backups before you attempt any upgrades.

Hope that helps.

thank you tux. i feel better now that i know all that.