Partition problem on Dual Boot Installation

[regodamus]

I searched for a similar story and couldn't locate a solution. I apologize ahead of time if there is another, but if someone could direct me there that would be great.

I currently have an HP Pavillion laptop with Ubuntu 12.04 installed (96 gb partition), and wanted to install Linux Mint 14 on another partition (by shrinking Ubuntu's). After checking the Ubuntu partition, I noticed that it could be shrunk down to 68gb, but at that time did not shrink the partition. So I created a Linux Mint Live CD on a USB drive, restarted and booted to the Linux Mint boot screen. I started Linux Mint, and then began the installation process to put Mint 14 on my system. I was weary about manually partitioning my disks, so I chose the option to "Install Mint alongside Ubuntu 12.04", which brought up the partition manager, showing 2 partitions (74.9gb and 34.6gb), with a sliding divider. I opted to leave the slider as is, assuming (which is never a good thing) that my Ubuntu partition would be shrunk to fit the 74.9gb slider. I completed the installation with no issue.

My problem came about when I restarted the computer, expecting it to boot up and display a boot menu with the option to boot EITHER Ubuntu 12.04 or Mint 14; however it only displayed the Mint boot options. I chose to boot up Mint and it loaded with no issue. On my desktop, there is an 85 GB Volume Displayed (that contains directories from my Ubuntu system), however due to Encryption, I cannot access my home directory (/home/regor).

Is there any way I can boot into Ubuntu again? Or is there at least a way that I can access and move these directories and files into my Mint partition (to eventually grow to the entire drive if Ubuntu boot isn't possible)?

Any help is much appreciated, thanks.

[Fornhamfred]

It looks as though you have broken grub in Ubuntu.

Try this in Ubuntu https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

The other option is to re-install grub in Mint

In a terminal enter the following

Code: Select all

sudo grub-install /dev/sda
sudo update-grub
sudo update-initramfs -u


This assumes that your first disk is sda.

[regodamus]

Thank you for the reply. By first disk, do you mean Partition #1 (Ubuntu 12.04 File System)?

I attempted to experiment a little during restarts to try and see if I could look around the BIOS for a boot order change that I could make. During a restart, I chose the option to select Change Boot Order (F9 I believe), and in doing so, I received the original Linux Mint boot screen, although this time "Boot with Ubuntu 12.04" was a given option! It seemed to boot fine into Ubuntu, a little slower than usual but functionally it seems to be the same. Would running these terminal commands have any negative effect on that partition? I wouldn't mind running them just to be safe, but I figured I would check before hand.

Thanks again

[catweazel]

The slower speed is entirely in your imagination and not real. All that has happened is that the bootloader has been installed on a different drive. You ought to consider changing the boot drive in BIOS and leaving it at that.

[Fornhamfred]

Glad you found a way around.

I am not running 14 but in previous versions there has been a program called Startupmanager. If it is available and installed it allows you to change which distro is the default at startup.