Dual-boot, Grub errors, linux mint
 

Hey. I'm trying to dual-boot vista and linux mint 11 together.

My first attempt was the obvious: Install Vista, then use the automated installer for Mint to install it alongside Vista.

When I rebooted, I got the error
followed by a grub rescue prompt.

A little bizarre that that would not work.

I set that hard drive aside and started a new one, this time partitioning the disk manually. I set aside half the disk for Vista and installed a new copy, then booted to my Mint Live CD to install Linux. I made a 3gb swap partition and a third partition (Ext3 primary) with the remaining space for root. This set up has always worked for me in the past without fail.

After installing and rebooting, I get the error again.

Of course the very first thing I do (and what any sane person would do) is immediately start scouring Google for a solution. The majority of hits I get pretty much are the same scenario, "I deleted my linux because I wanted more room for Windows". That's obviously not my issue.

I've tried all sorts of solutions. I've mounted my linux /dev and reinstalled grub. I tried using the rescue console but it was barely functional, at best.

Even more odd is that I receive different results than all other solutions I've followed, even those addressing Linux Mint 11 specifically. It seems as though GRUB cannot recognize any filesystems or can locate a list of partitions for configuration. It's almost as though I'm installing GRUB 2, which then looks at my disk and says, "OK? It's a disk. Good job."

A lot of the commands keep mentioning missing references. Folders that have content on my Live CD are missing in the installation of Mint, such as "proc" and "sys". Also, I have a boot folder INSIDE my boot folder (/boot/grub and /boot/boot/grub) which contains just the splash image for my GRUB. That doesn't seem right, but I don't think it would matter, would it?

I'm at my wits end. I normally never post on forums until I've exhausted all resources. Can anyone help?

First I presume Vista will run flawless when installed by its self. From your Mint live cd terminal

'fdisk -l' (small -L) and post the results.

Yes, Vista has no trouble when installed by itself. Mint has no trouble installing by itself. Vista is a little picky in that it will only install to the first partition on the disk, which is why I install it first. I guess since I already have the space allocated for partitions i could install Vista after Linux, but if my GRUB isn't installing correctly I dont think that would make a difference, right?

But anyways, I don't have the computer nearby, but in the meantime is there a way I can output a log of a terminal session to a text file? That would probably make this whole process a lot easier.

I am using mint 10 so for now all I can point you to is the tutorial that I use for referring to grub2 repairs and mods from live cd. Use section 12

grub2

The only thing I can think of is your /dev/partitions numbers are getting changed for one reason or another. Try booting your installed Mint from the live cd. (the reason for fdisk -l)

Will download Mint 11 tonight.

Yea, I've been using that tutorial and I find it mildly confusing. I had this exact same setup using Mint 7 aged ago without trouble, but that was using Legacy GRUB.

And that's another peculiar thing about this (in my opinion. This is all new to me), my partitions should be windows ntfs, swap, /boot ext4 primary, and root ext4 logical as sda1, sda2, sda3, and sda4 respectively. Or at least that's my latest failed attempt. However, when follow the instructions in that tutorial in grub rescue, the partitions are listed (hd0)(hd0,msdos3)(hd,msdos2)(hd,msdos1). Even stranger is that was how they were displayed before i made the new boot partition. Furthermore, if i follow the tutorial none of them appear to have grub loaded or at least visible to the grub rescue. So either the user or the computer is obviously doing something very wrong.

The key seems to be that GRUB, be it in terminal or in rescue, cant recognize any of the partitions as filesystems that it can read.

I'll get you and official fdisk as soon as I get home

There is a difference between grub2 and legacy but believe me grub2 does all that legacy does plus more.

Make sure and use 'sudo fdisk -l'

Whoa! This is bizarre! This is not what I was getting earlier. I wonder if this is a product of me trying to manually install grub and I messed it up, or if something else is causing this.

sda1 is obviously Vista, which is messed up
sda2 is obviously my swap, which is also messed up
sda3 is my /boot ext4 primary
and I don't know what's going on with sda4 and sda5
One of them is supposed to be my /root (sda5?), but they both start and end at the same block. I never had an sda5 at the time of install. Looking at the installer now, it lists sda1, sda2, sda3 and sda5. Originally it was sda4.

Something I totally overlooked while installing all of this is the "Device for boot loader installation" drop-down menu. Does this make a MAJOR difference? By default it's set to /dev/sda. It doesn't make much sense to me that you can install software to a storage device, but not to any particular partition. Shouldn't I have selected /dev/sda3 (my /boot partition)?

Little side note, if I can just skip the extra partitions for /boot, /home, etc. and just use /root that would be ideal for me. To the best of my knowledge, anyways.

Correct me if I'm wrong but
/dev/sda4 is an extended partition not a real partition
/dev/sda5 is a real logical partition. So I think thats why it start on the same block.

never seen sda1/sda2 do that befor. But you can install your linux system on a root / partition you still would want a swap partition. Basically it should look like this
/dev/sda1 is my windows xp
/dev/sda2 is my 2x ram swap
/dev/sda3 is my root / partition including {home,var} and all that other good stuff is on /dev/sda3.

Yea I had my disk configured just like yours. For some reason I thought adding a boot partition would help.

I did notice that your sda3 is marked as boot. Mine is sda1 as boot. Maybe GRUB was installed on my Windows partition, and its looking at the ntfs file system and expecting a Linux file system, and that's causing the unknown file system error.

So, maybe all I need to do is clean everything, install windows, then install mint and specify my linux partition as the device for boot loader. That would make my disk partition look like yours. Then all I need to so is boot to linux from the hard drive and run the update grub command and I'm done, right?

Using your live mint cd from terminal

Presuming / is /dev/sda3

sudo mount /dev/sda3 /mnt

sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sda

Yea I had done that before to no avail.

I did it again this morning, and got this:

I tweaked it some more and ended up with Error 17 instead.

What I should have done is look for resources for Error 18 / Error 17, but instead completely wiped my hard drive and started again. I installed a different copy of Vista (now I actually have a repair option), then installed Mint. This time I selected my Linux partition as the device for bootlader.

When I rebooted, it started Vista. So at least ONE of my OS's were working. I booted back to the Live CD AGAIN, and did this:

To clarify, sda1 is Vista, sda2 is swap, sda3 is linux.

When I rebooted I got unknown filesystem again.

So, I uninstalled GRUB using this command:

I rebooted just to test, still got the unknown filesystem and grub rescue prompt.

This has completely stopped making any sense.

I think I found part of your problem. When you install your Windows on /dev/sda1 its marked bootable because windows run its bootloader. But when you install linux on /dev/sda3 that partition needs to be marked as bootable since that where the grub files are. Also you are opting to install to MBR right?

jmc1987 has it right. sda4 is your last primary partition which is being used as an Extended partition with which you can create logical partitions. You have your logical partition, sda5 which is your / filesystem and is the same size as the Extended, not a problem just a choice.

Not something you should over look. This tells Grub where to install and if you select sda, it will install Grub to the master boot loader. If you install it to a boot or root partition you will have to have some other bootloader in the master boot record to boot whatever you have on a boot or filesystem partition.

Linux does not need to have its boot or root (/) partition marked as bootable.

You should not be getting a message Grub loading stage 1.5 because that file does not exist with Grub2 which is the default with Linux Mint.

Probably the best thing to do at this point is to download and run the bootinfoscript and post the output here.

http://bootinfoscript.sourceforge.net

I am very confused, where do you all see sda4 or sda5? See post #6.

It is my understanding that most linux distros may be installed in a single partition, primary or logical. I do not recommend this

I do agree his next step is he should run bootinfoscript.

Let me apologize to all, just read all of the fdisk -l, did not see the scroll and the rest of the partitions.

To be clear, when I turn on my PC I want it to boot to linux by default, but maintain the ability to choose Vista in GRUB.
I'm doing what he's saying, so yes.

Also, I rearranged my partitions so the sda4 and sda5 are no longer an issue. sda1, sda2, and sda3 are vista, swap, and mint respectively.

First thing I noticed about this is that GRUB is looking at "sector 1" aka "(hd0,msdos3)" for the GRUB data. Isn't that sda1? That would mean it's looking at Vista, not linux. That's what I had asked earlier and got no response to.

Those in Red don't look right to me. What is your boot errors now after you rearanged your Harddrive?

SSDD.

Still grub error: unknown file system

I don't understand how an automated process that works for just about everyone else fails for me.

So how do I go about correcting that? I'm not supposed to configure that file manually.

I have Ubuntu 10.10 as well as 11.10 on different partitions and they both have that line present and they boot so that isn't the problem.
Also, both of my grub.cfg files have entries similar to below:


I've seen posts of grub.cfg files which have entries similar to the OPs (/dev/sda) so don't know if that matters.
You can edit the grub.cfg file and change the /dev/sda part to: set root='(hd0,msdos3)'. Do this as root, save the file and reboot. Do not run update-grub before rebooting. There are reasons why they don't want you to manually edit the file but that's too long an explanation to get into here, your computer won't explode. Write down what you did so that if it doesn't change, you can put it back to the original.

The information from bootinfoscript looks OK. The only interesting thing I see is that your windows Recovery partition seems to be on a different hard drive. Note the set root line below??

I install my Vista via a USB stick. I also use this to store logs and scripts I need as I'm constantly rebooting to the Live CD. Its possible the drive just happened to be plugged in last time I installed GRUB. There is no recovery partition set up for Vista, although it's starting to sound like a good idea. When I heard Win7 had super-fast installation I thought it was a a useless feature. Now I really wish I had it.

Regardless, this shouldn't have a huge impact on the error at hand, should it? Seeing as how it wasn't plugged in half of the times I installed GRUB and it still got the same error.

Also, I think my partitions are being listed backwards. I think msdos3 is sda1 but I'm not sure.

I'll poke around with the config when I get home. Worst case scenario I won't be able to boot to my hard disk if I mess up, which isn't much of a threat at this point.

That would be my next suggestion is to do a new install and make sure all usb is unplugged with Vista installed and working.

Then if you do come back and let us know if that fixed the problem.

Why would you think that? Your bootinfoscript output clearly shows in several places that sda1 is an ntfs partition and sda3 is ext4.

Can't really think of anything else. Have you tried the suggestion below, got it from ubuntu forums but don't know if it will apply.

If at the grub prompt, type ls and ENTER. If the command does not display all the partitions, reboot and enter your computer's BIOS setup. Ensure the BIOS reports the full disk size.

I've already done that, albeit not intentionally.

Oh yea. Oops!

My BIOS was "stringently locked" by the manufacturer. I would have to send in my motherboard for replacement in order to access the BIOS again. Its something I'm very unhappy about

If your unhappy about that you will be unhappy about this
http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/secure-...stricted-boot/

Maybe you have an early implementation of this new software.

Yea that's something Microsoft has already said that Windows 8 will have that. That doesn't bother be as much as SOPA.

But that's not what I have. There's an option to burn the BIOS password to chip so that it won't be lost by power failure. The only way to have it removed it either know the password or have it reflashed. I know neither.

That's not the issue at hand.

I guess you can't flash it your self with out booting then. OUCH! you might be in trouble.

I have never ran into a restricted bios but have heard of them. If this is the case you might try making a these partitions to bypass

partition 1 primary 20 meg boot
partition 2 primary xx gig vista
partition 4 extended
partition 5 logical 10 gig mint /
partition 6 logical 18 gig mint /home
partition 7 logical xxxxx data

Install grub to a separate partition and try to chainload your distros. You will need to map your menu for vista boot. This should get you around any boot restrictions to boot 1st partition.

I don't know if grub2 has the 128Gig limit, but I've noticed that it's never talked about. If I'm correct then wins should be no more than 126 or 127Gig to place grub within 128 Gig read limit.

I can't even boot to linux! There's NO WAY I'm mucking around with flashing my chipset! It's not an Xbox, it's my COMPUTER!

OOOHHHH GOODD! SO many partitions!

I never knew the BIOS could specify a partition to boot to. I thought it was just by device. I at least have the power to select my boot device, but individual partitions are not on the list. Besides, the Windows installer will only allow me to install to the first partition on the disk. In order to accomplish what you're saying, I would have to install Windows then manually move the files over to another partition. Windows HATES that.

I'm obviously not the expert here, but I know that can't be true. Linux boots just fine when it gets the entire hard drive to itself, and I'm using a 320gb. Unless Linux is totally bypassing GRUB (not likely), then GRUB 2 is working fine on a partition bigger than 128gb.

Did this. Same error. Also tried removing the menu entry for sbd1. Still not working.

I will try what Larry said. Does it ABSOLUTELY have to be a dedicated /boot partition or can I get away with /root? Also, I have no understanding of extended partitions. Doesn't that mean it's "unallocated" space that the previous partition can acquire if needed, or do I really just have no idea what I'm talking about?

I apologize as I didn't make myself clear previous grubs had to be placed within the first 128Gig of the drive or it would be beyond the systems bios to be read.
http://www.mail-archive.com/misc@ope...msg101169.html

Yea, I understand what you mean. I'm just saying it doesn't apply in this case. But thank you.

I did what Larry said, and it worked! No, just kidding. I now have a grub prompt instead of a grub rescue prompt.

...Now what?

update-grub does not work from live cd. It just gives me this error:

Grub-install gives me the same error, but then it says it installed without any errors. I havent even tried it yet because I'm to close to finally fixing it to risk messing it up.

What should I do?

What did you do to get the grub prompt?

I installed windows, moved to sda3, then installed Linux to sda1.

Ok, I managed to use GRUB to manually load the linux kernel, and run update-grub as a user on the sda1 filesysem instead of the Live CD. Now I am presented with the proper grub menu and can boot to Mint normally.

Great progress, except now I can't get into Vista. When I try I get the following error in GRUB:

There was a SINGLE file that didn't copy from sda1 to sda3 when I was moving Windows. Something about a cache file being a special file. I think it had that number attached to it but I'm not sure.

Should I try the Windows "disc" and repair the boot , then reinstall GRUB via Live CD and repeat this process? Or will that just cause headaches?

If you elect to repair vista it'll search for vista & do the repair & then yes you can reinstall your grub.

All ms systems are particular and want to boot and reside on the first partition of the hd. There are steps you can go through to put it on other partitions. It would include having another hd to run as a slave. Here are some details how this man booted 145 using grub1, but the same can be done using grub2. I do not know if you want to go to all this trouble, you may want to consider an usb external hd.

145

Scroll down to Dos and Windows systems.

I just tried to repair Vista via boot disk and the repair tool could not find automatically find my Vista installation. However, using bootrec.exe it found it just fine. I repaired the MBR and rebooted and all I got was "Missing Operating System".

So after an hour of messing with it and restoring GRUB, I'm back to where I started. One OS works but not the other. All I did was make them trade places.

It comes down to Linux will not boot unless it is the OS on partition 1. Windows will not boot OR install/repair unless it is the OS on partition 1. Why?

Why am I the ONLY person in the world who can't do something as simple as dual boot Vista and Linux?

What? Installed windows where? moved what to sda3? Installed windows on sda1 and then moved it to sd3?

The error you report: is looking for a uuid which it can't find it. Boot Mint and run the blkid command and see what the uuid is for the windows partition.If it's not the one above, that's part of your problem.

You got the error missing operating system when trying to boot?? vista? mint? both?
Did you use the repair options on your vista disk to repair the mbr?
I think part of your problem now is that you copied vista from one partition to another, at least I think that's what you did, maybe I'm reading it wrong.

Linux doesn't need to be on the first partition and it doesn't even need to be on a primary partition to boot.
Windows boot files need to be on a primary partition but the OS does not.

I'd check the uuid numbers.

Yes, I installed Windows to sda1, then picked it up and moved it to sda3 as I had said I was going to earlier in the thread.
The UUID's seem to match.

After using bootrec.exe in the Windows recovery tools I turned it on, it went to BIOS, then I got the error. THe automated repair couldn't detect a windows installation, in spite of the fact that bootrec.exe could, and I could browse the Vista filesystem.

If Mint comes with Wubi, you might want to try that (or try it in Ubuntu if Mint doesn't have it). What Wubi does is it installs Linux to your Windows partition in a disk image, then adds an option to the Windows boot menu offering you the ability to boot to Linux on the hard disk image. Before trying if you can, make sure you repair the Windows bootloader.

Doesn't really help. I know this thread has gotten long, but I said earlier I specifically want to use grub to automatically boot linux and give me the option at each startup to boot to Vista instead.

Thanks, though.

If you are booting vista from sda3 you will need to make it is in the first partition.



One other note, sda3 must be a primary partition.

On second thought that will not work because boot can not reside in partition 1, will not work if you have to hide it.

There is nothing wrong with your vista menuentry in the grub.cfg file you posted above.
You have Grub installed in the mbr and can boot Mint so it's not likely the bootloader.
You might check the /etc/fstab and /etc/mtab files to see what entries you have for sda3 or which are ntfs.
If there is no problem there, I expect your boot files on vista got messed up in the copying.

I don't know what I'm looking for...

The fstab and mtab entries don't show anything useful. Do you get the "no such device/disk" error in grub? does it say grub rescue?

Not sure what else to suggest.

When I try to select Vista from the grub menu I get:
Then press any key yada yada...

It then goes back to the grub menu.

I noticed that fstab and mtab dont seem to mention sda3 at all.

Add this entry to /etc/grub.d/40_custom, rerun update-grub and see if it will boot

Results:

Most likely boot.ini didn't get copied If you can boot mint then check it to see if it's there.