Mint5 don´t installs GRUB in MBR

[bikerpeter]

Hi

following system:
ASUS with AMD 64, 2 GB RAM, Sata 500 GB and ATI Graphic

partitions: the 1 is active with WIN and several logical partitions at the 500 GB

My 1. Try with 2 Linux and WIN at the same HDD:
Kubunutu 7.10 and Mint5 (from 12.6.08) on separated partitions at the logical partitions area
Mint5 don´t installs any notes in menu.lst of Kubunutu 7.10

So I tried manually adding Mint5 in menu.lst of Kubunutu 7.10
- Mint starts at first than it´s coming up with Kubunutu GUI

I am deleting MBR with WIN98 bootdisk and fdisk / mbr

=> new installation of MINT5 - by using the former /home from Kubunutu
and a separate /boot partition ( 353 MB ) beside / (as root) and swap

but Mint5 don´t install GRUB in MBR - so WIN is directly starting

what´s to do ( since I am not from an English speaking country please don´t get it in a to short / difficult description ) ?

thanks
Kind regards Peter

[hans123]

Peter, I had the same problem. Solved by formatting as ext2 (not ext3). Maybe this works for you too.

[bikerpeter]

Dear Hans

I will try it this evening

Thanks for posting of your idea !

Peter

[bikerpeter]

Dear Hans

no
ext2 was not the reason

Mint5 don´t installs GRUB into the MBR of the only SATA HDD which are at the system
( earlier installation no menu.lst file could be founded )

I deleted the /boot partition and installed MINT new
=> Mint5 don´t installs GRUB into the MBR

I installed MINT new without a separate /boot partition - I deleted this partition
and installed so MINT new with / in 1 partition
but Mint5 don´t installs GRUB into the MBR

Every reboot WIN is starting without a GRUB selcting screen at the boot sequenz

Any idea ?

Peter

[Nessa]

Peter, how is your hard drive partitioned/divided?

[McLovin]

Another question, how many hard drives do you have?

[bikerpeter]

Dear Nessa
and dear McLovin

there is only 1 HDD in the system
Samsung LJ 501 => Sata 500 GB

partitioned as follows:
===================
sda 1 - vfat32 win boot
sda 5 - vfat32 win data
sda 6 - vfat32 win data
free space
sda 7 -ext3 from Kubuntu 710 /home shared use with MINt5
sda 8 - SWAP 1510 MB
sda 9 - ext3 Kubuntu 710 /
sda 10 - ntfs win
sda 11 - now ext2 MINt5 /
sda 12 - ext2 MINt5 /boot <= by another installation deleted, so boot is part of sda11

But as I wrote
I could not find a menu.lst at sda11 or Linux-GRUP select menu in MBR

Thanks for any help
Peter

[rbanavara]

While installation, in the last but one step, there is a button called advanced, which determines where grub has to be installed. Assuming you have tried this & still no grub, and if you manage to get back the kubuntu boot loader, then you can try chain loading the mint partition like:

root (hd0,10)
chainloader +1
boot

(This you can do from grub command prompt by pressing c from grub screen. Its better you press esc, just in case if you are in graphic boot menu)

If this wont work, then you can try directly booting mint by specifying kernel & initrd details from grub prompt (for this you have to check the menu.lst on mint boot dir)

Also its possible to install grub manually though I never tried it & always the installs would install grub for me.

[bikerpeter]

Dear Rbanavara

thanks for your ideas

I copied the 3 entries in menu.lst of Kubuntu into new lines and changed it to Mint (hd0,....)
Mint was starting - at first - than the login of Kubuntu came on the top of the screen

Since this older Kubuntu was not important for me
I used from WIN 98 bootdisk => fdisk /mbr
and I startet again installing MINT 5 - twice ( once: separat /boot Partition and lat least /boot as part of /root in 1 partition )

But no Grub was installed and no menu.lst file was at the HDD

So I have no new idea and the former GRUB was deleted by fdisk

Another Idea ?

Thank´s Peter

[rbanavara]

I seriously think this to be an issue with incorrectly specifying the partition numbers while copyiing the entries from mint menu.lst. You have to make sur the numbers are correct at 2 places (highlighted in red):

title Linux Mint, kernel 2.6.22-14-generic (on /dev/sda13)
root (hd0,10)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-14-generic root=/dev/sda11 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.22-14-generic

The above is just an example, you may have to later accordingly. Even I was facing this issue and I was going crazy wondering why my mint install is loading ubuntu.

[bikerpeter]

Dear Rbanavara

surely

I have not exchanged the 2. part => sda..
the mistake came that I tried to edit menu.lst of Kubuntu manually
But - I deleted grub at the mbr with fdisk / mbr

So you helped me really to find the problem -1-

It would be great to find out
1. why has not MINT edited menu.lst of Kubuntu
( see above: the mistake came that I tried to edit menu.lst of Kubuntu manually )

2. why did not Mint ( at sda 11 ) install GRUB into the MBR ?

Kind regards
Peter

[rbanavara]

As mentioned earlier by me, the installation of GRUB is determined by values set in the advanced screen in the penultimate step of installation. Not sure what were the settings on that screen when you installed mint. That would help to identify is it really an issue or just the selection of how GRUB was installed.

As a matter of fact, you can load mint from xp boot loader as well...! provided you have the GRUB installed on the root partition.

You may also try re-installing mint, this time noting the settings on the advanced screen.

[jhouse59]

bikerpeter have you tried Super Grub Disk? I've got WinXP and Mint installed on the same computer. I had Celena and Daryna installed. I was going to wipe the hard drive that Celena was on. Instead I wiped Daryna out. When I done this I couldn't get nothing to boot. So I downloaded Super Grub Disk. It took care of my problems. Just follow this link if you want to try it http://www.supergrubdisk.org/. Hope this helps.

[jhouse59]

bikerpeter have you tried Super Grub Disk? I've got WinXP and Mint installed on the same computer. I had Celena and Daryna installed. I was going to wipe the hard drive that Celena was on. Instead I wiped Daryna out. When I done this I couldn't get nothing to boot. So I downloaded Super Grub Disk. It took care of my problems. Just follow this link if you want to try it http://www.supergrubdisk.org/. Hope this helps.

I couldn't get Super Grub Disk to work. I installed Elyssa on a different hard drive. When I rebooted it went into Windows. I used the Grub disk I made. But, just keep getting this error messages:

Root (hd1, 0)
Filesystem type unkown, Partition type 0x7
Kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-generic Root=/dev/hdf2 ro Quiet splash
Error 17: cannot Mount selected partition
Press any Key to continue...

But, the disk did let me get back into Windows.

[ukstar]

I'm no expert here, but this is how I do it, why re-invent the wheel.
As I understand it you have Windows and two linux distros.
When you install linux go to advanced and put grub on the first sector boot partition. I don't think you can do this with Ubuntu, could be wrong.
OK. When you have finished installing and reboot obviously Windows is the only one you will see. Now download and install Bootpart from http://www.winimage.com/bootpart.htm
Make sure bootpart.exe is on the root in Windows, i.e. C:\
Now go to command line in Windows and run Bootpart. You should see your linux distro there, should be marked 83*
Determine what number that is, then type
bootpart 2, (or whatever your 83 is) linux.lnx yourdistroname
Example:
bootpart 2 mint.lnx Mint 5
Press enter and reboot. Now you have a choice of Windows or Mint.
Works for me everytime. This won't mess up your Windows MBR and of course you can choose what is your primary system thru Windows.
Hope I have explained this OK, but there is more information on the winimage site.

If you have two hard drives even easier, I have Windows on the first drive and Mint+Fedora on the second. Both boot from Windows using the above method.

[bikerpeter]

Dear jhouse59

thanks for the SG Link
Yes, I know SG

and I tried both
SG and testdisk 6.8

but both did not help

So I can only use WIN at this HDD

I have no another idea

kind regards
Peter

[rbanavara]

Peter, refer this post: viewtopic.php?f=46&t=13811#p86329

[bikerpeter]

Dear Rbanavara

I met at the weekend an Ubuntu Developer
He told me that short time ago there was a change in Ubuntu:

If you touch the file menu.lst
Ubuntu registered that and don´t touch the file by the system
since Ubunutu will not change your editing of menu.lst

Therefore I got no entries in that file which was installed from Kubuntu and I change the Line / number of the OS which has to be started automatically

So we figured out one of the probs.

Thanks for the link
I will try it soonest

Kind regards Peter