Tnx for reading. I ran the linux Mint 18 install disk on my HP/Compaq nc220 after a fresh install of Windoze 7. Chose the dual-boot option, and left partitioning to the install program. After it was over, I powered down and restarted. No boot options menu, "Welcome to Windows". I downloaded the linux mint rescue disk and rebooted with it in the drive. This gave me a set of options, including "5) Boot an existing Linx system installed on the disk", which I chose.

This was followed by a string of characters for a couple of pages, and the end looked significant. it ends with:

>> Starting mdadm (linux software raid)
mdadm: No arrays found in cfg file or automtically
Reading all physical volumes. This may take awhile...
>> performing the network configuration...
>> searching a root filesystem having /sbin/init
>> File.sbin/init found on already mounted filesystem, link created in /newroot
>> Checking /sbin/init can be executed by the current kernel...
readelf: Error: '/newroot/sbin/init': No such file
/sbinit on the root filesystem is an binary
The current running kernel architecture is i686
mont: mounting /dev on /newroot/dev failed: No such file or directory
!! /sb/init not found on root filesystem
!! running a mini shell (cannot complete the boot process)
/bin/sh: can't access tty: job control turned off
/# (flashing cursor)
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All I can understand of this is that it can't find the file "/sbin/init",
or that it found one but it's a(n) binary file and that's bad. I poked around in the filesystem a bit, and found the /sbin directory, and in there is a file labelled "init", but I didn't want to click it or anything, since I really don't want to break anything. I'm wondering how close I might be to fixing this thing myself - for instance, do I just have to convert the init file from binary to something else, but then of course I have no idea how to do that anyway, but in any event I'm fully aware that for a newbie discretion is the better part of valour, so I'm asking for any help over what to do next.
Thanks for reading; any replies will be much appreciated.
ps, newbie extaordinaire.

Boot into into Linux mint and select the try before installing option
From the desktop menu open a terminal and post the output "sudo fdisk -l" without the quotes that is a small L
The /sbin you see is most likley from the running rescue cd

At the Mint site below, you can view the Installation Guide in various languages. Click your preferred language, scroll down to Installation and click the Install Linux Mint link. Compare their explanations/steps to what you did. The questions you need to answer, did you install windows 7 as a Legacy/MBR install? Did you install Mint Legacy/MBR or make the mistake of installing it EFI? If your machine boots directly to windows, you either didn't install the Grub bootloader properly or have mixed Legacy/EFI installs. Use the Mint disk to boot, open aa terminal and run this command to see if there is an EFI partition:

Lower Case Letter L in the command.

https://linuxmint.com/documentation.php

Thanks much for the replies, guys! Here are the results of my sudos:
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First, for fdisk:
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mint@mint ~ $ sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/loop0: 1.7 GiB, 1837953024 bytes, 3589752 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes


Disk /dev/sda: 149.1 GiB, 160041885696 bytes, 312581808 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x344e91e5

Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sda1 * 2048 206847 204800 100M 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2 206848 264327839 264120992 126G 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3 264327901 312580095 48252195 23G f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 264327903 268425359 4097457 2G 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda6 268427264 309454847 41027584 19.6G 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 309456896 312580095 3123200 1.5G 82 Linux swap / Solaris


Disk /dev/mmcblk3: 3.7 GiB, 3965190144 bytes, 7744512 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x64e276c6

Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/mmcblk3p1 * 8192 7744511 7736320 3.7G b W95 FAT32

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and for parted:
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mint@mint ~ $ sudo parted -l
Model: ATA WDC WD1600BEVE-0 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 160GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 106MB 105MB primary ntfs boot
2 106MB 135GB 135GB primary ntfs
3 135GB 160GB 24.7GB extended lba
5 135GB 137GB 2098MB logical ntfs
6 137GB 158GB 21.0GB logical ext4
7 158GB 160GB 1599MB logical linux-swap(v1)


Model: SD SD04G (sd/mmc)
Disk /dev/mmcblk3: 3965MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 4194kB 3965MB 3961MB primary fat32 boot


Error: Invalid partition table - recursive partition on /dev/sr0.
Ignore/Cancel? c
Model: HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-U10N (scsi)
Disk /dev/sr0: 1882MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 2048B/2048B
Partition Table: unknown
Disk Flags:

mint@mint ~ $
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I wasn't sure which of the two options I should chose for the question about the Invalid PT; I hope Cancel was the correct one. I was afraid that Ignore might be telling it to just go ahead and do something. Discretion is the better part and all that..... 8-)
I did think that the /sbin I found must have been on the rescue disk, but I'm learning from all this as we go along. I appreciate the attention, guys, and hope that this research will bear some fruit. Meantime, I'm pleased to see how much functionality is afforded just by booting off the install disk. Like allowing email and firefox.
Tnx much so far,
ps

The above, from your initial post. Does that mean that when you reboot and set your hard drive to first boot priority, it boots windows 7 directly? If that's the case, you didn't properly install the Grub bootloader with Mint. You can boot Mint from the windows BCD but it is a fairly convoluted process. You can get boot repair by booting the Mint install DVD and going to the site below to download it. Use the 2nd option of using the .ppa. Once downloaded, run it per the instructions on the site but do NOT try to make any repair but rather, select the option to Create BootInfo Summary. THis will output a link you can post here which will give enough details on your system for someone to help.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

Another possibility is to simply re-install Grub which will only work if you have the necessary and correct Grub files on the Mint partition. Boot the Mint CD/DVD and run the following command consecutively:

After running the two commands above verify that you have a /boot directory on the partition by running:

If you have the /boot directory and the correct Grub files there you should be able to re-install Grub with:

1 members found this post helpful.

Reply to Yancek:
Again, tnx much for the help. I tried the 2nd option first, because I was (I thought) able to make more sense out of it, but no joy. Result posted later down on this page. Then, I went to the ubuntu site and downloaded the boot repair file, and chose, I think, the .ppa. Here's what came back:

mint@mint ~ $ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair
You are about to add the following PPA:
Simple tool to repair frequent boot problems.

Website: https://sourceforge.net/p/boot-repair/home
More info: https://launchpad.net/~yannubuntu/+a...tu/boot-repair
Press Enter to continue or Ctrl+C to cancel

Executing: /tmp/tmp.XluSzzIHQP/gpg.1.sh --keyserver
hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80
--recv-keys
60D8DA0B
gpg: requesting key 60D8DA0B from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com
gpg: key 60D8DA0B: public key "Launchpad PPA for YannUbuntu" imported
gpg: Total number processed: 1
gpg: imported: 1 (RSA: 1)
mint@mint ~ $

When I tried the 2nd option above, using mkdir and such, this is what I got:

mint@mint ~ $ sudo mkdir /mnt/sda6
mint@mint ~ $ sudo mount /dev/sda6/mnt/sda6
mount: can't find /dev/sda6/mnt/sda6 in /etc/fstab
mint@mint ~ $ sudo mount /dev/sda6
mount: can't find /dev/sda6 in /etc/fstab
mint@mint ~ $
----
That's when I tried the second option, and got this;
mint@mint ~ $ ls /mnt/sda6/
mint@mint ~ $ sudo mount /dev/sda6 /mnt/sda6
mint@mint ~ $ ls /mnt/sd6
ls: cannot access '/mnt/sd6': No such file or directory
mint@mint ~ $ ls /mnt/sd6/
ls: cannot access '/mnt/sd6/': No such file or directory
mint@mint ~ $ ls /mnt/sda6
bin cdrom etc initrd.img lost+found mnt proc run srv tmp var
boot dev home lib media opt root sbin sys usr vmlinuz
mint@mint ~ $ sudo grub-install --boot-directory="/mnt/sda6boot" /dev/sda
grub-probe: error: failed to get canonical path of `aufs'.
Installing for i386-pc platform.
grub-install.real: error: failed to get canonical path of `aufs'.
mint@mint ~ $

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and that's all she wrote for today. Next, I'll consult some docs, but I think I'm gonna need your help some more..
tnx,
ps

sudo mount /dev/sda6 /mnt/sda6
sudo mount --bind /dev /mnt/sda6/dev
sudo mount --bind /proc /mnt/sda6/proc
sudo mount --bind /sys /mnt/sda6/sys
sudo chroot /mnt/sda6
grub-install /dev/sda
update-grub
exit
reboot

when I enter sudo mount /dev/sda6/ /mnt/sda6
it comes back with "mount point does not exist"
same for all those other commands, other than reboot - at which time it did that anyway...

Of course it does, you previously ran those commands from a Live DVD which is read-only. That means any changes you make using the DVD will be lost on reboot. EVerytime you reboot to test somethin you will need to repeat the entire process, mkdir, mount, etc.

That's somewhat surprising as most commonly used filesystems are detected. You can then add the filesystem type to that specific command, guessing it is ext4 so change it to below and change ext4 if you used some other fs:

THis method has worked for me in the past but I will agree that the method suggested above by colorpurple21859 is a better more surefire method.