Grubb

[ancient11]

If this has been posted before please accept my apology but I have done searches and cannot find anything directly related to this problem

I have installed Linux Mint but when I remove the CD and reboot there is no Grubb it just boots into Windows as it normally does. I have tried "sudo os-prober and also sudo update-grub" and get rather lengthy error messages.

I am 76 years old and I am completely computer illiterate. My great-grandson built me this computer right before going to Pakistan. It has three hard drive's but only two are connected "drive C – 1 terabyte running at 7800 RPMs with 64 MB of cache with Windows 7 home premium edition 64" "drive D – two terabyte hard drive running at 7800 RPMs with 64 MB of cache – – 1 TB lor Windows extra files and videos – 1 TB Linux Mint.

If anyone has a rather simple solution to this problem I would really appreciate it if you would help me out. I realize there is a steep learning curve when changing to Linux and there is a lot of research to be done. I am willing to do that but I would like to be in Linux with a icon on the desktop for Firefox, after that it is mostly up to me and how much time I am willing to put into it.
Thank you very much

written by Dragon NaturallySpeaking

[mintybits]

Hi. Windows does not recognize disks that have been formatted by linux. This is probably why you only see a C and D drive in Windows.

Each of your disks has a small space at its start that can contain boot code. Your bios is configured to choose which to run at boot time. It may be that the linux boot code (called Grub) is on the linux disk but the bios is not configured to choose the linux disk.

You can change which disk the bios chooses by entering the bios settings menu during boot. This typically requires pressing the esc key or one of the function keys such as F10 when you first see text on the screen. The screen text should tell you what to press but doesnt stay there for long so you have to be quick.

It might also be that Grub was not installed to the start of the linux disk. In this case you would need to boot the live CD/USB and reinstall it to the linux disk. You do this by mounting the linux root partition to the live filesystem and then run grub install. For example, if the linux disk is called sdc and the root partition sdc1,

Code: Select all

sudo mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt
sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sdc

You can identify the name of the linux disk by,

Code: Select all

sudo fdisk -lu

[wayne128]

I have installed Linux Mint but when I remove the CD and reboot there is no Grubb it just boots into Windows as it normally does. I have tried "sudo os-prober and also sudo update-grub" and get rather lengthy error messages.

If anyone has a rather simple solution to this problem I would really appreciate it if you would help me out. I realize there is a steep learning curve when changing to Linux and there is a lot of research to be done. I am willing to do that but I would like to be in Linux with a icon on the desktop for Firefox, after that it is mostly up to me and how much time I am willing to put into it.
Thank you very much

written by Dragon NaturallySpeaking
Im old and slow but I somehow get there eventually

I think since your Win7 is in working condition,
I would prefer you do not sweat on using terminal, blah blah blah.

What I would suggest is.
Boot your computer,
Run windows7
go to NeoSmart website, get yourself a free copy of EasyBCD
Install EasyBCD.
then add entry of grub2 to it, you may just spend some time reading up from their website on tutorial, it is all click click click .
at the end, when grub2 entry is added ,
reboot computer, the windows7 boot menu( as you are familiar with on winOS) would show two lines, first line is WinOS, second line is your NeoSmart linux, choose second line, and it would boot your Linux OS..

Hope it helps.

[ancient11]

I did the terminal thing and this is what I got-smile
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xe686f016

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 63 64259 32098+ de Dell Utility
/dev/sda2 * 64260 1953520064 976727902+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

Disk /dev/sdb: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, total 3907029168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x06dbcb11

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 16126 2163908607 1081946241 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
Partition 1 does not start on physical sector boundary.
/dev/sdb2 * 2163908608 3907028991 871560192 83 Linux
/dev/sdb5 16128 2147210291 1073597082 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb6 2147211264 2163908607 8348672 82 Linux swap / Solaris
mint@mint ~ $
I am a little confused as to how to proceed
thank you
ancient

[wayne128]

if you like to use terminal, then this is what you can do

1. boot and run from Live DVD
2. open terminal, type

sudo os-prober

look for the line that says Mint.. you should get /dev/sdbX. X is the number, guess it is 2.
but post your terminal output first.

3. to install grub, the simpler way is, assuming os prober give you /dev/sdb2 on Mint partition

sudo mount /dev/sdb2 /mnt
sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sda

[ancient11]

This is my termanal output
mint@mint ~ $ sudo os-prober
/dev/sda1:Dell Utility Partition:DellUtility:chain
/dev/sda2:Windows 7 (loader):Windows:chain
/dev/sdb2:Linux Mint 13 Maya (13):LinuxMint:linux
mint@mint ~ $ sudo mount /dev/sdb2/mnt
mount: can't find /dev/sdb2/mnt in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab
By the way I hate the termanal window because I havent had time to learn the commands yet--smile
thanks

[wayne128]

mint@mint ~ $ sudo mount /dev/sdb2/mnt

This command is not correct, there is a missing space betwwen
/dev/sdb2 and /mnt

There is a space between mount and /dev/sdb2 which you got it right.

The correct one is

Code: Select all

sudo mount /dev/sdb2 /mnt

By the way you can copy from the above command and paste to your terminal.

[ancient11]

I hope you will fogive the delay but into each life a little rain must fall. It's pouring buckets in my life, I rebooted to find no windows and no Linux. I went to reinstall windows and it says my key is invalid, I call microsoft and I got someone who spoke poor pigeon English and could not understand one word. Rain, rain and more rain----smile.

I am now downloading files on the instalation of Mint. We will see!
I want to thank you so much for your kindness
ancient

[ancient11]

Well I now have Linux Mint on my computer but with shutdown errors but I can now search and I hope work my way to at least being able to use it every day
thanks so much for the help now it is up to me.

[mintybits]

There should be no need to reinstall Windows
The issue is with booting it.

What changes have you made to your system since your first post?

[ancient11]

There should be no need to reinstall Windows
The issue is with booting it.

What changes have you made to your system since your first post?

I have attached one more hard drive that broke down and I had it repaired, they recovered the data and said it was ready to install! It is a 160 GB hard drive (one of the first Sata drives to come out and has a perfectly good copy that is activated of windows 7.

When troubleshooting hit, they hit hard. It seems that my ISP has chosen this time to sell out to another ISP provider and i am losing my Internet connection sometimes for hours and sometimes for days. It is these time that make you really appreciate the peaceful time's .

I am sitting here pondering what to do next! I find myself a bit over my head and have a lack of understanding in which way to proceed. I guess in a way it's a miracle I have gotten this far.

I have three hard drives and the computer only shows one until you go into "Devices" and there it shows my 1 TB as well, which has Linux on it. I am now using the 2 TB which has Windows 7 on it. The third hard drive has a perfectly good copy of Windows 7 on it and I may need it later because I am having problem's activating the current copy of Windows 7 – I can't get anybody that speaks fluent English and I have used over 200 hours of my cell phone trying to get it activated. Another problem is that my bios only shows the current disk and my CD.

When you look at it all, it seems daunting but I am going to attack it one thing at a time, I just need to line things up as to which is first, second and third!

I would appreciate some advice here as to which way to attack this problem – oh yes I have downloaded Easy BCD 2.1.2 in the hopes that it may make my life a little easier . Sadly it only show's one hard drive also.

I find myself really missing Linux mint.

Thank you so much
ancient

[mintybits]

I would keep it simple and keep what's working safe while you try to get linux running. I would suggest physically disconnecting (or remove power cables) from the two Windows disks before you tackle Mint. That way, you cannot possibly harm them.

With only the Mint disk connected, try to boot. If it doesn't it is probably because the Grub bootloader has not been installed to that disk properly.
Either, reinstall Mint from scratch or reinstall Grub.

To reinstall Grub, boot the Mint live CD/USB and open a terminal.
Find out the name of the Mint hard disk
sudo fdisk -lu
It is probably sda but might be sdb or sdc. Look for the name of the root partition, it is probably sda1. I'll assume sda and sda1 in these instructions but change to suit.

Then reinstall grub. First mount the root partition at /mnt
sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
Then install grub to the MBR of the disk
sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sda
Then update grub's configuration file
sudo update-grub

If no errors occured, reboot and try booting the Mint hard disk.

[wayne128]

delete.

[ancient11]

I would keep it simple and keep what's working safe while you try to get linux running. I would suggest physically disconnecting (or remove power cables) from the two Windows disks before you tackle Mint. That way, you cannot possibly harm them.

With only the Mint disk connected, try to boot. If it doesn't it is probably because the Grub bootloader has not been installed to that disk properly.
Either, reinstall Mint from scratch or reinstall Grub.

To reinstall Grub, boot the Mint live CD/USB and open a terminal.
Find out the name of the Mint hard disk
sudo fdisk -lu
It is probably sda but might be sdb or sdc. Look for the name of the root partition, it is probably sda1. I'll assume sda and sda1 in these instructions but change to suit.

Then reinstall grub. First mount the root partition at /mnt
sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
Then install grub to the MBR of the disk
sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sda
Then update grub's configuration file
sudo update-grub

If no errors occured, reboot and try booting the Mint hard disk.

I unpluged the other 2 harddrives and it booted up just fine, now how do we tie them togather?

[mintybits]

Each disk can be booted. Your motherboard software, called the BIOS (Basic Input Output System), chooses which one to boot.

You have to tell the BIOS which one to boot.

You access the BIOS setup screen by pressing a key, typically F10 or "delete", just after you power-up and see text on the screen. The initial text will say which key to press but it doesn't stay displayed very long.


That's it, really.
So connect all 3 disks. Set the BIOS to boot the linux disk first.
When it has booted into linux, open a terminal and type
sudo update-grub
To add Windows entries to the Grub boot menu.

[ancient11]

Each disk can be booted. Your motherboard software, called the BIOS (Basic Input Output Software), chooses which one to boot.

You have to tell the BIOS which one to boot.

You access the BIOS setup screen by pressing a key, typically F10 or "delete", just after you power-up and see text on the screen. The initial text will say which key to press but it doesn't stay displayed very long.


That's it, really.
So connect all 3 disks. Set the BIOS to boot the linux disk first.
When it has booted into linux, open a terminal and type
sudo update-grub
To add Windows entries to the Grub boot menu.

Snicker--- Hip, Hip, hoorah
mintybits
I want to thank you very much for your patience and help, it really made my day!
Now i have a lot of research to do .
Thanks so much
ancient

[mintybits]

Pleasure. Glad you got it working.