[SOLVED] Problem with EasyBCD (Win7-LM13)

[westitaly]

Hi all,
I've installed on my PC Windows7 64bit and LinuxMintMaya 64bit, now I'm trying to create a multiboot with EasyBCD but something is going wrong.
I've installed Linux on a new partition(logical) of 100GB and I've made another partition on 4GB for the swap. When, during the installation, it asked me where to put the boot loader so I selected the partition of Linux (the one of 100GB).

So with EasyBCD I've created the multiboot with the linux option, but when I select it something goes wrong. It shows a error message.

How do I fix this problem?

[Orbmiser]

Confused of your setup?

As when I created the root partion is / and also i decided to have a separate /home and then swap partition.
During the install choose something else so can setup my partitions and point where to install grub boot loader.

In my case during the install my root / was sda5 /home sda6 and swap was sda7
So make sure during that you actually assigned the partitions in my case assign sda5 as Ext4 and select / from the drop down menu.
At the bottom I made sure boot loader was also pointing to sda5.

Then booted up Win7 ran EasyBCD and selected add entry and found sda5 and added it and saved. Now linux shows up as boot option in the Win 7 loader menu.

"I've installed Linux on a new partition(logical) of 100GB and I've made another partition on 4GB for the swap. When, during the installation, it asked me where to put the boot loader so I selected the partition of Linux (the one of 100GB)."

Is confusing as you didn't specify a device partition like sda and number. You need to see that / "root" is assigned to sda? and point EasyBCD to it. Unless you got confused and didn't install right.
.

[westitaly]

You're right, I didn't explain well.

When I've installed Linux I set sdb5 (I think it was sdb, I need to check) as / in format ext4 with journalising (or something like that), and sdb6 as swap (no format). Then i set the boot(grub) on the sdb5. I did it twice for checking again if the installation was correct.

Reading your explaination I think I did it correct. I wanted too to make another partition with /home, but since I had some troble during the installation I prefered to keep it simple.

So, once finished the installation I've restarted the PC, logged in Windows and opened EasyBCD. I've added a new entry for Linux and set the drive on the sdb5.
Once again I've restarted the computer and it opened a menu with Windows7 option and Linux option as I setted with EasyBCD, but when I select Linux it open a black screen with a errore message. It seems that it can't find any bootloader in the partition and it prints some code numbers.

I've checked again, again and again the istruction on internet, but I didn't find the mistake

[Orbmiser]

Nope sounds like you did it right.

But did you boot with live CD to verify graphics and everything boot up normal? Just checking.
And I didn't use journalizing? just straight ext4 for me.

And yep install grub on sdb5 where root is the way I did it.
Did you select format partition or it was checked?

I'll boot back to win7 and take a look and copy what mine is and post here.
Maybe that will help?
.

[Orbmiser]

Ok here are the entry sections on mine.

EasyBCD Boot List.jpg (57.65 KiB) Viewed 406 times

And the technical of Debug list

EasyBCD Boot debug mode.jpg (11.28 KiB) Viewed 406 times

And can always recover the plain Windows7 MBR clicking on BCD Deployment if you ever need it.

EasyBCD Repair MBR.jpg (21.43 KiB) Viewed 406 times

Hope something there can help.
.

[wayne128]

I remember some time ago , I too have seen such issue of EasyBCD not able to boot Linux partitions.

Then, it was found that when I added grub2 entry, it found and used the 'first available grub2' in my multiboot machine, and that 'first available grub2' had some trouble by itself, so I reinstal that 'first available grub2' to resolve that issue.

Here is just my guess::
Your description might be similar, but I do not know.
You can probe a bit, in order to figure out whether you have another 'first grub2' in your system, because your target grub2 is on /dev/sdb5...

May be you could experiment these steps

1. boot and run Linux DVD in Live mode
2. on terminal, type a few commands and check partitions as well as other possible grub2 installation:

sudo fdisk -l

sudo parted -l

sudo os-prober

[westitaly]

1. boot and run Linux DVD in Live mode
2. on terminal, type a few commands and check partitions as well as other possible grub2 installation:

sudo fdisk -l

sudo parted -l

sudo os-prober

For sudo fdisk -l it results
Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 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: 0x3848b8ff

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 2048 32770047 16384000 27 Hidden NTFS WinRE
/dev/sda2 * 32770048 32974847 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3 32974848 512328973 239677063 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda4 512328974 976768064 232219545+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 512328976 711583109 99627067 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda6 711583173 968382134 128399481 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 968382198 976768064 4192933+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

For sudo parted -l it's
Model: ATA Hitachi HTS54505 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 16.8GB 16.8GB primary ntfs diag
2 16.8GB 16.9GB 105MB primary ntfs boot
3 16.9GB 262GB 245GB primary ntfs
4 262GB 500GB 238GB extended lba
5 262GB 364GB 102GB logical ntfs
6 364GB 496GB 131GB logical ext4
7 496GB 500GB 4294MB logical linux-swap(v1)


Warning: Unable to open /dev/sr0 read-write (Read-only file system). /dev/sr0
has been opened read-only.
Error: Invalid partition table - recursive partition on /dev/sr0.
Ignore/Cancel? ignore
Model: Optiarc DVD RW AD-7585H (scsi)
Disk /dev/sr0: 4700MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 2048B/2048B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags

for sudo os-prober
/dev/sda1:Windows Recovery Environment (loader):Windows:chain
/dev/sda2:Windows 7 (loader):Windows1:chain
/dev/sda6:Linux Mint 13 Maya (13):LinuxMint:linux
mint@mint ~ $

I do not understand anything about it, but there is a partition that on windows is invisible (the sda5)... and also during the installation what it was sda5 now it is sda6. Bah, I am getting really confused

[wayne128]

You said you install to sdb5, but your fdisk showed only ONE hard disk /dev/sda.

There is No second hard disk /dev/sdb does not exist..

Nevermind, now the os-prober is telling
1. your windows OS is on /dev/sda2
2. your Mint 13 is on /dev/sda6
3. sda5 is 100M and is NTFS, sorry I do not think you can install Linux on NTFS partition.


If /dev/sda6 is really the Mint 13 root partition,
and
if EasyBCD somehow cannot work,


then I suggest you do these steps

1. Boot and run from Mint 13 DVD in Live mode
2. open a terminal , type these codes
3.

Code: Select all

sudo mount /dev/sda6 /mnt

4.

Code: Select all

sudo grub-install --force --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sda6

Hopefully it reports no error.
5. reboot, run Windows OS
6. run EasyBCD, delete the old Grub2 entry.
7. Add a new grub2 entry, this should add /dev/sda6.
8 reboot, select grub2, and hope for the best to boot Mint.

[westitaly]

Didn't worked.

When I asked to mount in mnt it printed that the disk was already mounted, with the second istruction it didn't report any error.

But when i rebooted, entered in windows, created again the second entry and restart it shows the same problem. I tried 2 times.

[wayne128]

If that is the case, use boot repair disk

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

[westitaly]

HEEEEEEEEEEEL YEAH! Now I have both Windows7 and Linux!

But one more thing, at the grub menu i have 2 windows7 loader, one on sda2 wich load windows7 automatically and one on sda3 where loads the EasyBCD menu instead. How do I delete the sda3 loader from the grub menu?