Stuck on "Loading Operating System ..." Message when booting any linux distro
 

Background

• The reason I'm asking this on Linux Questions is because this isn't a problem when I boot windows 7, only Linux distros.
  
• I have tried many distros through live USB and many of them worked flawlessly.
  
• Yet whenever I install linux on a Hard drive (Both internal and external) and boot it gets stuck on "Loading Operating System ..."
  (not "Error Loading Operating system")
  
• I noticed that when I boot Windows it also says "Loading Operating System..." but only for half a second, afterwards or proceeds to show the startup animation. When booting linux it gets stuck indefinitely.
  
• I want to switch to linux but I'm stuck on windows because of this annoying bug :(
  
• I've tried installing Debian, Mint, Pinguy OS and Apricity OS all with the same results.

Relevant info:

• Processor:Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2500 CPU @ 3.30GHz
  
• MOBO: GigaByte Z68P-DS3
  
• BIOS: ACRSYS - 42302e31
  
• Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Edition 64-Bit
  
• Graphic Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560ti

Thanks for your help! :)

What computer, maybe UEFI secure boot and did you install GRUB?

wepopew,

Welcome to LQ.

Make yourself a Boot-Repair CD or a live USB drive and then boot from it:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

Carry out the Recommended Repair.

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

I checked and according to this method http://kb.parallels.com/en/115815 I have BIOS

From what I understood, GRUB is installed automatically when I install a new Linux distro, right?

Thanks I'll try it. I'll post results When I'm done



Some more info

I installed Linux on a brand new external Hard drive and booted from there. I initially thought the external hard drive was the problem so I borrowed an internal Hard drive from a friend and installed linux on it and booted it. I also tried partitioning my windows drive and installing linux on a second partition. My computer completely ignored the linux partition and booted straight into windows without asking me anything.

With some of those distros definitely... but, you may run into issue depending on where it gets installed e.g: not default "master boot record" (MBR) on the internal drive?

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1903015

beachboy2 links maybe right on.

Well, I'm quite stumped.

I'm uploading shots from my phone

Image is too big so I'm putting it on a cloud
https://mega.nz/#!H4B2kboS!yT2t7c1uU...-i-2EFnrOnXx8k

You might want to check the BIOS options for "boot virus protection" or similar. That will stop grub installing to the MBR, and even though Linux may install ok, you'll only get to it from a chroot.
Boot up a Linux liveCD/install disk and go here and download and run the script. It'll create a file RESULTS.txt which will show us the boot layout of your system as-is with the internal Linux install (not your data, just the system layout). You'll need to be able to use a terminal in Linux.

I think I solved the problem

I tried installing Ubuntu (even though I don't want Ubuntu) and it really failed installing GRUB. But only with Ubuntu did boot repair actually work. It fixed GRUB.

Now that I knew GRUB was the problem I did some research on GRUB. Turns out that /boot/efi needs its own partition and it has to be in FAT32. Why on earth installers don't do this automatically is beyond me. This fixed Ubuntu but the same technique doesn't work with Debian for some reason.


It's very late and I have to sleep so I'll work on it tomorrow.

Thank you beachboy and jamison for your help!

That may very well be the case!

I'll look into it tomorrow. IDK how to run a script.

I figured it out and ran the script on a live version of Debian

Here's the result http://pastebin.com/8DB8SKg9

The boot repair output shows that you have no bootloader in the MBR of sda which looks like a 1tb drive. Not sure how that boots. There is no EFI partition on that drive but it looks like there might be one on sdc where you tried to install Ubuntu, the 698GB drive. It shows sdc1 as a FAT32 partition and the only reason that would be the case is UEFI. If you install one system UEFI, they all need to be UEFI although I'm not sure that is necessary with multiple drives. If windows had been installed UEFI, you would have an EFI partition on sda which you don't.

I'd delete the partitions on sdc and format them before or during the install with whichever distribution you want and make sure you do not boot in EFI mode so that you can install to the MBR of sdc. Your output also doesn't look complete and the boot files generally shown for any Linux partition do not show.

I've checked setupact, msinfo32 and both methods say that I don't have UEFI http://kb.parallels.com/en/115815

Does this mean I have a rootkit? :(

The terrabyte drive is empty, It's the internal HDD I used for testing (at first I thought the problem happened because I installed linux on an external HDD. Installing it on an internal one didn't make any difference.

As for the 698GB drive, it was my attempt to install Debian. I manually made a partition of /boot/efi in the FAT32 format on the beginning of the disk (Because doing so made Ubuntu and Apricity OS install properly). However on Debian this didn't work at all, after I partitioned and clicked continue on the installer I got an error message (It was late last night, I don't recall what it was) and I had to abort the installation.

So it wasn't the installer which created those files.

Now I tried to install debian again, this time letting the Debian installer partition automatically.
I got the error
"Failed to create file system
The ext4 file system creation in partition #1 of SCSI5 (0,0,0) (sdc) failed."

I'm really worried I have a rootkit or something, is there another explanation?

wepopew,

Your problem is not related to a rootkit.

I suggest that you follow yancek's advice on post #12.

Also have a close look at this article on dual-booting W7 and Linux:

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/d...7-xubuntu.html

I have lost count of the number of posts on LQ about dual-booting.

It is one of the most common requests for help.

Maybe there should be a gigantic "sticky" on dual-booting somewhere?

Maybe there is one already?

Off to search for it.