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Old 11-15-2007, 01:07 PM   #1
Meads
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Registered: May 2005
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I messed my system up trying to dual boot.


Ok so i tried to install Mint Linux alongside my current install of XP Home, im not that new to linux, i have dual booted many times before on other systems using different distros.

What happened was the setup finished (finished copying files) then nothing happened for a long time so i thought that was it and restarted then i get an error message saying error loading operating system. It looks like the setup did not finish properly so didnt get a chance to install grub.

I tried to install Mint on a seperate partition on my 500gb SATA drive, the drive was partitioned into 5 100gb partitions and i chose to set up mint on the last partition if that helps.

my Windows partition is still there and intact it just wont boot it, i have deleted the 2 partitions that mint created and run the windows installation cd and tried repairing things by doing the usual FIXBOOT and FIXMBR but they dont seem to be working.

When i try and boot now i just get Intel Boot Agent GE come up and give me the mac address of my router and then Intel Boot Agent GE tells me to choose a proper boot device in my bios, which i have checked and everything is fine.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thankyou

Last edited by Meads; 11-15-2007 at 01:10 PM.
 
Old 11-15-2007, 01:20 PM   #2
hal8000b
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I'm not familiar with Mint so dont know if it works as a live CD.

What you need is a live CD, knoppix 5 or similar. Boot with the CD in your CDROM, once you arrive at the desktop you will see if any partitions have been mounted.

Fixboot or fixmbr from the windows ERC normally work, so not sure whats wrong but providing you ca install grub you may be able to get windows and mint booting again.
From a terminal as root (password is root in knoppix use grub-install to install grub)

http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/man...-natively.html

The ablove link should help
 
Old 11-15-2007, 01:24 PM   #3
Meads
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hal8000b View Post
I'm not familiar with Mint so dont know if it works as a live CD.

What you need is a live CD, knoppix 5 or similar. Boot with the CD in your CDROM, once you arrive at the desktop you will see if any partitions have been mounted.

Fixboot or fixmbr from the windows ERC normally work, so not sure whats wrong but providing you ca install grub you may be able to get windows and mint booting again.
From a terminal as root (password is root in knoppix use grub-install to install grub)

http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/man...-natively.html

The ablove link should help
I have some old knoppix cd's lying about i will give them a try, i tried the fixboot and fixmbr and i got nothing, it does not work.
 
Old 11-15-2007, 01:57 PM   #4
fschmeisser
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Registered: Jun 2006
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I dual-boot Linux Mint 3.0 with PCLinuxOS on my first hard drive. The Linux Mint live cd will find any existing OS on your system and include it in the menu.lst file (/boot/grub/). The key is to let the installation complete until it prompts you to reboot to ensure the install creates grub.
I'd suggest reinstalling LM and wait until it prompts you to reboot. That should fix the problem. If the installation still hangs during the reinstall please verify the md5 sum of your LM .iso file as the download may have been corrupted.
 
Old 11-15-2007, 02:11 PM   #5
strunal
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Have you tried booting with the windows install disk, this will give you option of deleting any partition and re-installing windows desktop, then you can re-install any linux desktop after and create new sectors.
 
Old 11-15-2007, 03:16 PM   #6
Meads
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Originally Posted by fschmeisser View Post
I dual-boot Linux Mint 3.0 with PCLinuxOS on my first hard drive. The Linux Mint live cd will find any existing OS on your system and include it in the menu.lst file (/boot/grub/). The key is to let the installation complete until it prompts you to reboot to ensure the install creates grub.
I'd suggest reinstalling LM and wait until it prompts you to reboot. That should fix the problem. If the installation still hangs during the reinstall please verify the md5 sum of your LM .iso file as the download may have been corrupted.
Going to run through the installation of LM again, fingers crossed it goes well this time. I managed to get back into windows, i had to run gparted in LM and for some reason in the flag options the boot flag was unticked, this must have been why Intel Boot Agent was telling me to choose a proper boot device in my bios settings. Simply ticking boot solved my problems of not being able to boot windows again.

Thanks for the input guys, really appreciate it.
 
Old 11-15-2007, 03:46 PM   #7
syg00
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Some BIOS's check this flag, same as M$soft do in their boot-loaders.
Stupid idea.

More stupid is Linux distros (Mint amongst them apparently) that set/reset this flag. Linux loaders don't even check it - the installers should just leave it the hell alone.
 
Old 11-15-2007, 04:07 PM   #8
Meads
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Originally Posted by syg00 View Post
Some BIOS's check this flag, same as M$soft do in their boot-loaders.
Stupid idea.

More stupid is Linux distros (Mint amongst them apparently) that set/reset this flag. Linux loaders don't even check it - the installers should just leave it the hell alone.
Agree with you totally here, it had me stumped for atleast 2 hours i didnt have a clue what was happening, thought my hd was hosed.
 
  


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