Dual boot xp and mint loading straight into windows <SOLVED>

[josh_sheffield]

Hi

I've been using mint for a while as a dual boot alongside windows 7 and have just been trying to set up a dual boot on a laptop which had xp already installed. I installed mint in the same way as I did for my dual boot for windows 7 ( partitioned and installed as shown in this tutorial: http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2012/06/06/how-to-dual-boot-linux-mint-13-cinnamonmate-and-windows-7/2/) but after install I realised that I could not use EasyBCD in xp to give me the option of which os to use on startup. Now when I startup I can only boot into windows xp.

Any help would be appreciated.

Josh

[741cc]

You don't need EasyBCD, or anything else, to set up a dual boot system as Mint will install its own bootloader (grub) and give you a menu on boot-up to choose from. My guess is you have installed grub to a partition and not the MBR of the disc.
On your link, on the first s/shot, see where it says "Device for boot loader installation", did you change that to the partition that Mint was installed on? If so, you simply need to re-install grub to Mint (google is your friend here), and then run sudo update-grub in a terminal. Or even re-install the whole system if you fancy trying again! hth

[wagb278]

@741 - I don't have a solution for you, but will follow your post because I have a similar problem. I installed Linux Mint 13 MATE on a Windows XP computer and selected the first option in the Installation Type (install Mint along side Windows). That got me a functioning Linux Mint, but if I select Windows XP (on /dev/sda1) in Grub all I get is a "Disk read error" message. I can no longer boot into Windows, but inspecting the Windows partition from Mint everything seems to be there. Inspecting partitions with GParted everything looks as I expect, except Mint and its Swap are within an Extended partition - not a problem, just not what I expected. I hopefully just need to figure out how to get the Windows boot to work again. I didn't see the article you reference until after I discovered I had a problem. I just thought setting up the dual boot was going to be automatic, making whatever adjustments are necessary to setup dual booting. Good Luck to us both.

Jim

[mintybits]

Hi

I've been using mint for a while as a dual boot alongside windows 7 and have just been trying to set up a dual boot on a laptop which had xp already installed. I installed mint in the same way as I did for my dual boot for windows 7 ( partitioned and installed as shown in this tutorial: http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2012/06/06/how-to-dual-boot-linux-mint-13-cinnamonmate-and-windows-7/2/) but after install I realised that I could not use EasyBCD in xp to give me the option of which os to use on startup. Now when I startup I can only boot into windows xp.

Any help would be appreciated.

Josh

Hi. You need to add a copy of the boot partition's 1st sector to your C:\ folder and then add a line to boot.ini to tell Windows to execute the file. This is fairly easy.

First, boot your linux CD and open a terminal.
If your boot partition is sda3 (like in the article) type:

Code: Select all

sudo dd if=/dev/sda3 bs=512 count=1 > mintMBR.bin

Then copy the mintMBR.bin file to your C:\ directory.

Next, boot into XP and add a reference to mintMBR.bin to the end of boot.ini. See: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/289022
You need to add something like:

Code: Select all

C:\mintMBR.bin="Mint"

to the end of boot.ini

[mintybits]

@741 - I don't have a solution for you, but will follow your post because I have a similar problem. I installed Linux Mint 13 MATE on a Windows XP computer and selected the first option in the Installation Type (install Mint along side Windows). That got me a functioning Linux Mint, but if I select Windows XP (on /dev/sda1) in Grub all I get is a "Disk read error" message. I can no longer boot into Windows, but inspecting the Windows partition from Mint everything seems to be there. Inspecting partitions with GParted everything looks as I expect, except Mint and its Swap are within an Extended partition - not a problem, just not what I expected. I hopefully just need to figure out how to get the Windows boot to work again. I didn't see the article you reference until after I discovered I had a problem. I just thought setting up the dual boot was going to be automatic, making whatever adjustments are necessary to setup dual booting. Good Luck to us both.

Jim

Hi Jim. This is quite a different problem. Try running "sudo update-grub" in a terminal. If that doesn't work it will need more detailed investigation and you should start a separate thread, really.

[wagb278]

@471cc - Have you tried the "Boot-Repair-Disk" utility? That helped me once before, but my problem was a little different. It is certainly worth a try. Download the tool (ISO file) and burn an image CD. Then boot from that CD. The tool is a good one to add to your bag of utilities in any event. Download it from here: http://sourceforge.net/p/boot-repair-cd/home/Home/
Jim

[wagb278]

@ mintybits - Jim here - I agree my symptom is quite different. Just the same two OS's. I will start a new Thread.

[josh_sheffield]

@mintybits
That worked great thanks a lot. I'd been googleing for ages trying to find a solution.
Cheers

Josh

[TRZALICA]

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