Dual boot issue

[scotty33]

Hi

Been here lurking for a while, now have a problem, maybe some kind soul can shed some light on.

I have an ageing Athlon 3000xp system with a 150 ish gb hdd
I split the hdd into a 50gb partition with xp pro on it, the other 100gb had Linux mint Debian edition. I was using this ok for a few months, then something went wrong, I could no longer boot into windows XP.
I don't know the correct term for the 'option screen' where i would get the choice of which os to boot up, the xp option was no longer there.

I have reinstalled xp pro to the 50gb partition the pc now boots directly into xp

I would like to know how to get the linux option back?

[Spaceboy]

Not sure how you'd do it, but I think it runs something along the lines of re-installing grub to the MBR (master boot record) of the drive.

GRUB would be the linux boot loader that offered the choice of which O/S to boot.

Sorry I can't be of much more help, but hopefully that info should be enough to kick off some google searches :)

Good luck :thumb:

[Lorem-Ipsum]

Load up the mint CD and choose the recovery option. Should fix your mbr back to the GRUB loader.

Sent from my ZTE-BLADE

[scotty33]

Ok will try later, Thanks Guys

[michaelkenward]

Easy BCD might be a useful thing to have around. It can mend broken installations.

If you don't have it, check it out at Download EasyBCD 2.1.2 - NeoSmart Technologies (http://neosmart.net/EasyBCD/).

Note the bit at the bottom "Download free for limited, non-commercial use".

[scotty33]

Load up the mint CD and choose the recovery option. Should fix your mbr back to the GRUB loader.

Sent from my ZTE-BLADE


Sorry, still struggling with this, mint dvd boots ok but there is no direct recovery option.

I get

1 Start Linux mint - brings up a 'fresh' mint desktop with an install linux mint icon, clicking on this does indeed begin the process for installing, I did not come across a 'recovery' option.

2 Start Linux mint (compatibility mode) system starts running the routine tests then stops on what looks to me like a 'command prompt' screen black with white flashing cursor, presumably waiting for a command I don't have

3 DVD integrity check

4 memory test

5 Boot from local drive - gets me straight to XP

Tried Spaceboy's suggestion, found some info about restoring the mbr, but for ubuntu not mint debian edition. I am somewhat clueless with this stuff, so wary of doing more harm than good.

[scotty33]

Easy BCD might be a useful thing to have around. It can mend broken installations.

If you don't have it, check it out at Download EasyBCD 2.1.2 - NeoSmart Technologies (http://neosmart.net/EasyBCD/).

Note the bit at the bottom "Download free for limited, non-commercial use".

Thanks fior the tip, but it appears to be aimed at Vista/Windows 7 machines, I only have XP so not sure it will work?

[michaelkenward]

Thanks fior the tip, but it appears to be aimed at Vista/Windows 7 machines, I only have XP so not sure it will work?

You can use it with XP, I do, but it isn't as easy.

[scotty33]

Ok Thanks Michael, may try that tomorrow, had enough for one day

I found some fairly straightforward instructions on what to do within the terminal, but still no joy following them?

found a thread with directions how to reinstall grub to hopefully make mint bootable again, the thread is here;

viewtopic.php?f=46&t=61066&start=20 (http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=61066&start=20)

the part I followed here:

Re: Boot problem with dual system

Post by lauren on Fri Dec 03, 2010 6:41 am
Hi riki!
You need the same medium you used to install LMDE; if you had burned a CD and don't have it, you must burn a new one.
The suggestion after having checked the download with md5sum and burning an image of LMDE:
1. Boot to the Live Desktop LMDE
2. Open a terminal and type:

Code: Select all
sudo mkdir /mnt/sda1

then:

Code: Select all
sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1

afterwards:

Code: Select all
sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/ /dev/sda


3. Reboot, in the Grub menu choose your Mint Debian
4. Open a terminal and run:

Code: Select all
sudo update-grub


lauren

The result here:

mint@mint ~ $ sudo mkdir /mnt/sda1
mint@mint ~ $ sudo mount /dev/sdal /mnt/sdal
mount: mount point /mnt/sdal does not exist
mint@mint ~ $ sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1
mint@mint ~ $ sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/ /dev/sda
/usr/sbin/grub-probe: error: cannot find a device for /mnt//boot/grub (is /dev mounted?).
mint@mint ~ $ sudo mount
aufs on / type aufs (rw)
tmpfs on /lib/init/rw type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=620)
/dev/sr0 on /live/image type iso9660 (ro,noatime)
tmpfs on /live/cow type tmpfs (rw,noatime,mode=755)
tmpfs on /live type tmpfs (rw,relatime)
tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
cgroup on /dev/cgroup/cpu type cgroup (rw,cpu)
/dev/sda1 on /mnt/sda1 type fuseblk (rw,allow_other,blksize=4096)
mint@mint ~ $ sudo mkdir /mnt/sda2
mint@mint ~ $ sudo mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/sda2
mint@mint ~ $ sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/ /dev/sda
/usr/sbin/grub-probe: error: cannot find a device for /mnt//boot/grub (is /dev mounted?).
mint@mint ~ $ sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/ /dev/sda2
/usr/sbin/grub-probe: error: cannot find a device for /mnt//boot/grub (is /dev mounted?).

You can see I discovered my mint is actually on sda2, but no joy when typing this in..

please help?!

[Lorem-Ipsum]

There is a post here that may be of use: http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/245

I tend to avoid grub-install as it can be unpredictable and prefer to manually use the grub shell to fix it. However linux mint and ubuntu are both very much in favour of grub-install.


EDIT: Your last attempt above was right until the last step that went wrong. You should have typed:

sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/sda2 /dev/sda

as /mnt/sda2/ was where your partition was mounted.



If that works you will be able to boot into Mint again. You then run:

sudo update-grub

to fix grub and hopefully add the xp setting.

[scotty33]

Copied and pasted the instructions from this tutorial : http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/245 into terminal substituted sda2 and sda where necessary, now have mint back, so Thank You all for your patience and understanding.
I now need to figure out how to restore the XP boot into grub? will post back if I find something, Thanks Again

Andrew

[scotty33]

sudo update-grub

to fix grub and hopefully add the xp setting.

I'd forgotten about this bit, and it was not part of the tutorial. Some of the other threads I saw did include it, but did not say that it would fix the XP boot. I ran it and it did, so all working fine now
all thanks to you guys (and some help on the Linux forum)

Only tip I can add, for anybody new to terminal, the instructions you type need to be accurate to the character, easiest way is to copy and paste instructions you come across in threads/tutorials. problem is keyboard shortcuts like ctrl-v do not work in terminal, you have to use the 'edit' function at the top of the window, then select copy or paste from the menu that drops down

[Lorem-Ipsum]

I'd forgotten about this bit, and it was not part of the tutorial. Some of the other threads I saw did include it, but did not say that it would fix the XP boot. I ran it and it did, so all working fine now
all thanks to you guys (and some help on the Linux forum)

Only tip I can add, for anybody new to terminal, the instructions you type need to be accurate to the character, easiest way is to copy and paste instructions you come across in threads/tutorials. problem is keyboard shortcuts like ctrl-v do not work in terminal, you have to use the 'edit' function at the top of the window, then select copy or paste from the menu that drops down

If you have used ctrl+c to copy then ctrl+shift+v works as paste in quite a few terminals. Others you can highlight what you want to copy and use the mouse center button (or click the mousewheel) to paste.