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ASUS Laptop trouble booting in

Hello.

I have an ASUS Laptop with default windows 7 home basic, it doesnt have the usual bios boot screen but UEFI. I figured out how to boot from cd-rom. SO, i installed peppermint os and linux mint 16 on it. both times, at the end of both installations it said "installation complete". then, i restarted my laptop after removing the live cd.

Now here is my problem:after both successful installations, after restarting, instead of showing a linux bootloader or a menu of options of my 3 OS'es, all it showed (after the ASUS logo screen) was the thing in windows where it has 2 options: Launch Windows startup repair or Start Windows Normally. I can't find the option menu to select my Linux OS'es!

What should i do? Someone please help me, i want to figure this out!

Thanks

Boot into Windows and post back a screenshot of Disk Management showing the partitions on the drive.

Then boot into "live" Mint 16 install DVD, open a terminal and copy/paste the output from these commands back here to the forum:

Code:

ls /sys/firmware

Code:

sudo parted -l

(That's a lowercase "L" at the end.)

Code:

sudo blkid

First try booting off the install live CD, but do not install anything!
Instead open up a console window and try looking for where you installed Peppermint and Mint o/s's.
Look for your Linux partitions using:

Code:

sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda

or if GPT drive

sudo gdisk -l /dev/sda

You should see several partitions: Windows 7, maybe a recovery, several EFI, and hopefully your Linux partitions.
If you could post the output here it would help.

You can then try mounting your Linux partitions to check if you actually did install Linux successfully.

Code:

sudo mkdir /mnt/Peppermint

sudo mkdir /mnt/Mint

sudo mount /dev/sdax /mnt/Peppermint

sudo mount /dev/sday /mnt/Mint

where sdax and sday are your two Linux partitions.

If the two o/s were installed fully, then the next step is to check your boot loader process.
Unfortunately, I am not very familiar with Win 7 boot process on Uefi.
But this is a start!

Also did you turn off Secure Boot in Uefi?
And is this a GPT system?

to gold_finger

this is the output of the first plus second command:
mint@mint ~ $ ls /sys/firmware
acpi memmap
mint@mint ~ $ sudo parted -l
Model: ATA Hitachi HTS54505 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: gpt

Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 1049kB 211MB 210MB fat32 EFI system partition boot
2 211MB 345MB 134MB Microsoft reserved partition msftres
3 345MB 173GB 173GB ntfs Basic data partition msftdata
4 173GB 305GB 131GB ntfs Basic data partition msftdata
9 305GB 335GB 30.7GB ext4
6 335GB 335GB 1049kB bios_grub
7 335GB 472GB 136GB ext4 msftdata
8 472GB 473GB 1726MB linux-swap(v1)
5 473GB 500GB 26.8GB ntfs Basic data partition hidden, diag

Warning: Unable to open /dev/sr0 read-write (Read-only file system). /dev/sr0
has been opened read-only.
Error: Invalid partition table - recursive partition on /dev/sr0.
Ignore/Cancel?

Okay -- output shows two things.

1. Only one Linux install is currently on there -- don't know which one.

2. That Linux was installed in BIOS/Legacy mode; but needed to be installed in UEFI-mode.

Since Windows is using UEFI-mode and GPT partitions, you must install Linux in the same mode and the version you install must be a 64-bit version. During power-up of computer you'll need to play around with UEFI Settings/Startup menu and/or the Boot Menu -- both of which are activated by hitting different special keys upon power-up. (You'll have to consult computer's user manual for info on which keys do that.)

It's possible that you might be able to convert the Linux install that you have on there now to UEFI-mode; so try that first before resorting to a re-installation.

Before proceeding on any of this -- repair or re-install attempt -- be sure to have backups of anything important on the drive and make Win8 recovery disks if you haven't already done so.

To attempt conversion, use the live DVD of the Linux that you know is installed currently (probably which ever one you installed last) and boot it in UEFI/EFI-mode. Confirm that it is booted in UEFI-mode by entering this in a terminal and look for "efi" as one of the things listed:

Code:

ls /sys/firmware

If "efi" is not listed, then you're still booted in Legacy-mode. Change UEFI boot settings and try again.

Once UEFI-boot confirmed, install Boot-Repair utility with intructions here, but DO NOT proceed with those instructions once Boot-Repair is started up: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair. When Boot-Repair starts, use these instructions for converting the current install to UEFI-mode: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UE...or_Legacy_mode.

You'll want to set:
* The "OS to boot by default" to /dev/sda9
* Check box for "Separate /boot/efi partition" and set that to /dev/sda1
* Hit "Apply" when done.

Reboot and see if it worked.

If that didn't solve problem, then might be easiest to delete Linux partitions and start all over. See if this tutorial will give you a better idea on how to do the install: Guideline for Installing Mint on a Windows 8/8.1 Computer.