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Thanks, stanvan. I'm a desk-bound working man outside the IT field, so an hour and a half of extra reading isn't in the cards for me I'm afraid. Linux would be a hobby for me (and I do hate Windows like everybody else, lol) so I'd love to get Mint up and running to play around with, but it's proving to be fairly time consuming, and I'm not even up and running yet. I am kind of a persistant bastard tho.
In dealing with computers (and all operating systems)... I think being persistent is a virtue! You'll be fine!
OK, went back over the "grub2 intallation via chroot" instructions in Ubuntu article.
Corrected an error in my command code (need new glasses).
Successfully mounted chroot.
Successfully downloaded grub package, installed and upgraded.
Exited chroot. Rebooted.
Error 1962: No operating system found. Boot sequence will automatically repeat.
Arghhh!
[Recap: Formatted old HD and installed Mint successfully from DVD iso, but the HD won't boot. The HD is definitely listed in the boot sequence, so it's not that. I used: sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt And then: sudo grub-install --boot-directory=/mnt/boot /dev/sda, and GRUB was installed successfully. Won't boot. Successfully downloaded, installed and updated grub2 via chroot. Still won't boot. Arg.]
Got back: /usr/sbin/grub-probe: error: failed to get canonical path of '/cow'.
That error means you were trying to install Grub to the DVD which will never work. It might help if you posted the individual commands you ran so someone could point out the problem because if you got that error, you did NOT do the chroot correctly. Is there some reason you don't want to post more details on your machine from the boot repair script? That would be helpful as right now everyone is just guessing. Probably has to do with it being set UEFI and installing MBR but who knows?
That error means you were trying to install Grub to the DVD which will never work. It might help if you posted the individual commands you ran so someone could point out the problem because if you got that error, you did NOT do the chroot correctly. Is there some reason you don't want to post more details on your machine from the boot repair script? That would be helpful as right now everyone is just guessing. Probably has to do with it being set UEFI and installing MBR but who knows?
Aha! That is critical info--I definitely don't want to be trying to install grub on the DVD.
I was following the grub installation instructions from the Ubuntu article tho and it seemed to go well on the last try.
OK, I'm gonna throw in the towel for now and give it another shot toward the end of the month when time constraints aren't as heavy.
Thanks to all. I appreciate your efforts and will do some reading up in the meantime on your good links and such, and hopefully at least be a more informed newbie when I get back to it.
DVOM, thanks for the link. That's also an interesting link about the 'cow' error. I guess I'm on the right track but it definitely sounds like I need to figure a way to install grub on the HD instead of the DVD, which I'm apparently trying to do, lol.
DVOM, thanks for the link. That's also an interesting link about the 'cow' error. I guess I'm on the right track but it definitely sounds like I need to figure a way to install grub on the HD instead of the DVD, which I'm apparently trying to do, lol.
Mike103, put Parted Magic on a CD or USB, boot to it. Click the start button and near the top of the menu is a "boot repair" or "boot utilities" choice. Open that and at the first window you choose which partition to put it on, in your case it's probably "sda1", the next window is for which HDD you want it on. In you case that's probably "sda"
It'll work at it for about a minute and a half, then you're done, Reboot. Easy Peesy, I use it at least 3 times a week.
Sorry, I meant to write "64-bit". Don't know why I wrote 32-bit. So that isn't the problem, but that's a good point, thanks. You did make me double-check tho. I assume the system is UEFI (and 64-bit) since it originally had Windows 8.
Right now I'm trying to figure if it might be good to try to install grub in a different part of the HD to see if that might get it to boot.
You shouldn't install Grub anywhere but to the MBR:- Master Boot Record
Mike103, put Parted Magic on a CD or USB, boot to it. Click the start button and near the top of the menu is a "boot repair" or "boot utilities" choice. Open that and at the first window you choose which partition to put it on, in your case it's probably "sda1", the next window is for which HDD you want it on. In you case that's probably "sda"
It'll work at it for about a minute and a half, then you're done, Reboot. Easy Peesy, I use it at least 3 times a week.
Cool. Sounds promising. I'll probably try it over the weekend and report back. Thanks!
Good article. I glanced over it tho and the commands look similar to ones I've tried where I got the 'cow' error (failed to get canonical path of '/cow'). Also, in the comments, it apparently worked well for some and some got errors, and one said that the infamous 'cow' error is actually a necessary step in the process. Weird. I will investigate more on the weekend. Thanks!
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