SOLVED! GRUB/MBR confusion

[mattrixx]

Dual Boot GRUB/MBR confusion

I am trying to recover a Win8 O.S. drive using an Acronis image I made previously of the entire Windows drive from my "Dual Boot" Linux Mint17.1 / Win8.0 Pro system, where each O.S. is on it`s own SSD.
I use Mint`s GRUB as the O.S. "selector" upon each boot up.
I believe the Windows Drive was installed first to it`s SSD, followed by the Linux Mint installation on it`s own separate SSD, and the use of Mint's GRUB bootloader for specific O.S. selection.
This system is a fairly current i-7 4770k Processor and Asus Z87 Sabertooth MB with UEFI.

Here is where my confusion sets in. Has not GRUB removed Windows own bootloader, and / or is
overridden or superseded by Mint`s GRUB? I am confused by Windows"MBR" and GRUB "Bootloader".

I ask this because even though I made the Acronis image backup of the entire Windows drive well AFTER this Dual Boot setup had been successfully running, when I go to actually Acronis RECOVER Windows using my Win8.0 Pro backup image (from an External USB HDD) Acronis asks specifically about each Partition, and more to the point, the location destination of the MBR!
Where is this Windows MBR location in a Dual Boot Mint/Windows system?

Can someone here familiar with Acronis Recovery and/or "Dual Booting" please give me some insight into this confusion of mine before I inadvertently ruin my Mint O.S.?
I can live without my Windows O.S. but NOT my MINT!

Thanks,

[jungle_boy]

"MBR" is the first sector of a hard disk that contains information to start the operating system installed on it. It is not unique to windows or Linux, it's from the hard disk.
Windows 8 uses "BOOTMGR" to start the microsoft system, it is installed in the MBR of the hard disk; the problem is that BOOTMGR not recognize other operating systems like Linux; to do this has to be installed GRUB (Linux boot loader), replacing the BOOTMGR on hard disk MBR partition, because GRUB recognizes multiple operating systems installed on the hard disk.

[gold_finger]

First let me say I don't have Win 8 and have no experience with Acronis -- so can't offer any advise on restoration procedure for that.

Acronis asks specifically about each Partition, and more to the point, the location destination of the MBR!

Your hard drive might be using either MBR or GPT style partitions and we need to know which before answering. Booting for each differs. (MBR uses first sector on drive and that is something that grub would have overwritten. GPT usually uses something called an "EFI System Partition" and grub would add it's boot files there, but wouldn't wipe out the Windows boot files already on it.)

Have both SSDs in the computer the way you normally would. Then either boot into your installed Mint (if you still can), or a live Mint DVD/USB (if you can't boot to installed one). Open a terminal and enter this command:

Code: Select all

sudo parted -l

(Command ends in a lowercase letter "L", not a number 1.)

That will show us your partitions and what type they are.

If you've booted into the installed Mint, also enter these two command. (If in "live" Mint, don't bother with these.)

Code: Select all

lsblk
cat /etc/fstab

Copy output and paste it back here for us to see.

[wayne128]

Can someone here familiar with Acronis Recovery and/or "Dual Booting" please give me some insight into this confusion of mine before I inadvertently ruin my Mint O.S.?
I can live without my Windows O.S. but NOT my MINT!

I do not use Acronic so can't help on that one.

I use free software, Macrium to image WinXP/7/8.


I have always dual or multiboot WinXP/7/8/ with Linux OS.

As far as Win8, there are basically two method of installing:
1. The official UEFI method, when computers have been installed by the original manufacturer.

In this case, there is a FAT32 partition used by Win8 for booting in UEFI mode
Installing Linux OS would then be also in UEFI mode.

For this, MBR has no meaning as it is not even used by Win8 boot loader or Linux boot loader.

Booting to Win8 or Linux OS is by the UEFI firmware reading from the FAT32 partition


2. The old/MBR method
This is done when the user choose to boot Win8 and install into the Hard Disk , which is formatted in msdos/MBR

Linux will then be installed with a boot loader that will overtake MBR, usually grub legacy or grub2 is the Linux boot loader.

The MBR is the first sector of the Hard Disk.


3. accidentally ruin Linux OS.

This is less of the issue, because Linux OS take very short time to reinstall from fresh.
A typical Linux OS can be installed in 10-15 minutes
WinOS might take hours and after that long time to update.

A safe method is the clone Linux OS onto an external hard disk, using any of the free tool available.
Restoring from USB hard disk on 'ruin os' would usually take just 10 minutes to 20 minutes.

[mattrixx]

Thanks for all the replies!

gold_finger

Yes, I can access my MINT 17.1 O.S. using GRUB, and here is the requested output of: sudo parted -l
mojo@Mint-Z87 ~ $ sudo parted -l
[sudo] password for mojo:
Model: ATA Samsung SSD 840 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 128GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 368MB 367MB primary ntfs boot
2 368MB 128GB 128GB primary ntfs


Model: ATA Samsung SSD 840 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 250GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 233GB 233GB primary ext4
2 233GB 250GB 17.1GB extended
5 233GB 250GB 17.1GB logical linux-swap(v1)


Model: ATA WDC WD1003FZEX-0 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdc: 1000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 1000GB 1000GB primary ntfs


Model: ATA WDC WD1002FAEX-0 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdd: 1000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 1000GB 1000GB primary ntfs boot

Below is the terminal output of: lsblk
mojo@Mint-Z87 ~ $ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda 8:0 0 119.2G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 0 350M 0 part
└─sda2 8:2 0 118.9G 0 part
sdb 8:16 0 232.9G 0 disk
├─sdb1 8:17 0 217G 0 part /
├─sdb2 8:18 0 1K 0 part
└─sdb5 8:21 0 16G 0 part [SWAP]
sdc 8:32 0 931.5G 0 disk
└─sdc1 8:33 0 931.5G 0 part
sdd 8:48 0 931.5G 0 disk
└─sdd1 8:49 0 931.5G 0 part
sr0 11:0 1 1024M 0 rom
mojo@Mint-Z87 ~ $

And finally the terminal output of: cat /etc/fstab:
mojo@Mint-Z87 ~ $ cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
# / was on /dev/sdb1 during installation
UUID=7d276700-7cca-4a18-ac2b-c4d159ad0613 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# swap was on /dev/sdb5 during installation
UUID=a45d4d9d-dbaf-4164-aae1-8e3b23229e0f none swap sw 0 0
mojo@Mint-Z87 ~ $

Note: I have 2 additional Fat32 Windows DATA HDDs as well as the 2 O.S. SSDs on this system as you can see in the readout.
Thanks for any further guidance into this confusing (for me) matter.

[mattrixx]

2. The old/MBR method
This is done when the user choose to boot Win8 and install into the Hard Disk , which is formatted in msdos/MBR

Linux will then be installed with a boot loader that will overtake MBR, usually grub legacy or grub2 is the Linux boot loader.

The MBR is the first sector of the Hard Disk..

I am quite confident this (2. The old/MBR method) is the way I first installed Windows to it`s own SSD.
I also believe I have the latest GRUB2 as well, installed along with Linux Mint 17.1 onto it`s own SSD *AFTER* the conventional installation of Windows 8.0

My Acronis backup image was created well *AFTER* this Dual Boot System was successfully established and running great!
What I need to know now is how to "Recover'" my Windows Acronis backup image correctly by means of identifying where the "MBR" should be located according to the Acronis procedure.

[wayne128]

My Acronis backup image was created well *AFTER* this Dual Boot System was successfully established and running great!
What I need to know now is how to "Recover'" my Windows Acronis backup image correctly by means of identifying where the "MBR" should be located according to the Acronis procedure.

Your Win8 was installed in msdos/MBR mode on first hard disk, or /dev/sda

To restore image of Win8, just choose first hard disk.

Leave out MBR thing if you are not sure. you can always reinstall grub2 to boot both Win8 and LinuxOS
Or
Choose MBR of the first hard disk for recovery image

If you are still feeling unsure, one way, or a trick , to handle this uncertainty is:
use hardware method, just unplug the power cables to the three hard disks, leaving only the first hard disk (Win8) working, then restore image from USB drive. Since there is only one MBR for this case, there is no chance of confusion.
When complete, put back all power cables, attempt to boot, if any issue , then boot computer from Live DVD/Live USB and reinstall grub2.



Reinstall grub2 to MBR of 'any hard disk' is quite easy. .. later if you need details.

[gold_finger]

Agree with wayne128 -- easiest thing would be to unplug cables to other three drives and restore to first drive (which is Windows).

What I need to know now is how to "Recover'" my Windows Acronis backup image correctly by means of identifying where the "MBR" should be located according to the Acronis procedure.

The MBR is always the first sector of the drive. I'm guessing that it's asking you that because there is more than one drive to choose from. If only one is connected, then I'd guess it wouldn't need to ask that question. If you keep all drives connected, then you'd point to the first drive (the one Windows is on).

We don't know exactly how you installed the Linux boot loader when you installed Mint, so it's possible that you may need to re-install grub after you do your Windows recovery. There are two things you could have done when installing Mint:

• 1. Direct bootloader install to MBR of Linux drive = /dev/sdb. Then set BIOS to boot from the Linux drive instead of the Windows drive. In that case your Windows drive would still contain Windows boot code on its hard drive's MBR = /dev/sda; but computer would be able to boot both OS's because it's set to boot from Linux drive which has grub choices for both.
  
  Or
  
  2. You also could have installed Linux to second drive, but instructed the installer to put grub on the MBR of the Windows drive. In that case, you would have left the BIOS boot order of drives set to boot from the first drive. If Acronis is planning to put a Windows boot loader on the MBR of Windows drive during restore, then computer will probably only boot into Windows afterwards (because grub will be replaced there).

If computer boots straight to Windows when you're done and doesn't give choice for Mint, then:

• reboot
• go into BIOS settings
• look for boot order of devices and set it so the Linux SDD is first on the list
• save the changes and reboot to see if you can boot into Mint
  • If it boots Mint, run this to update grub to add/refresh it's listing for restored Windows:

    Code: Select all

    sudo update-grub

  • If it won't boot Mint, then you'll need to install grub to the MBR of its drive.
    • Boot from live Mint
    • Open a terminal and enter sudo parted -l again to confirm that the Mint disk is still called /dev/sdb. (If it's not, then change the "b" in code below to match what yours says.)
    • Mount root partition to live environment like this

      Code: Select all

      sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt

    • Install grub

      Code: Select all

      sudo grub-install --boot-directory=/mnt/boot /dev/sdb

    • Unmount root partition

      Code: Select all

      sudo umount /dev/sdb1

    • Reboot without live DVD/USB (make sure BIOS set to boot Linux SSD)
    • If Windows doesn't show up as a boot choice, open terminal and run

      Code: Select all

      sudo update-grub

    • Now all should work.

[mattrixx]

Wow thanks guys! You have gone above and beyond in providing a guiding hand.

A lot (for me) to digest here. Seems like the simplest Acronis restore to try would be the disconnection method of everything but the Windows drive (sda) and let her rip?

We don't know exactly how you installed the Linux boot loader when you installed Mint, so it's possible that you may need to re-install grub after you do your Windows recovery. There are two things you could have done when installing Mint:

1. Direct bootloader install to MBR of Linux drive = /dev/sdb. Then set BIOS to boot from the Linux drive instead of the Windows drive. In that case your Windows drive would still contain Windows boot code on its hard drive's MBR = /dev/sda; but computer would be able to boot both OS's because it's set to boot from Linux drive which has grub choices for both.

Or

2. You also could have installed Linux to second drive, but instructed the installer to put grub on the MBR of the Windows drive. In that case, you would have left the BIOS boot order of drives set to boot from the first drive. If Acronis is planning to put a Windows boot loader on the MBR of Windows drive during restore, then computer will probably only boot into Windows afterwards (because grub will be replaced there).

I believe 1. "Direct bootloader install to MBR of Linux drive = /dev/sdb" was the selection upon the default installation of Mint.

I will for sure now try the Acronis Windows restore and see what happens, and use your knowledgeable post "restore" instructions.... depending upon the post Acronis system situation.

Thanks again for all the insight and guidance.

[phd21]

Dual Boot GRUB/MBR confusion

I am trying to recover a Win8 O.S. drive using an Acronis image I made previously of the entire Windows drive from my "Dual Boot" Linux Mint17.1 / Win8.0 Pro system, where each O.S. is on it`s own SSD.
I use Mint`s GRUB as the O.S. "selector" upon each boot up.
I believe the Windows Drive was installed first to it`s SSD, followed by the Linux Mint installation on it`s own separate SSD, and the use of Mint's GRUB bootloader for specific O.S. selection.
This system is a fairly current i-7 4770k Processor and Asus Z87 Sabertooth MB with UEFI.

Here is where my confusion sets in. Has not GRUB removed Windows own bootloader, and / or is
overridden or superseded by Mint`s GRUB? I am confused by Windows"MBR" and GRUB "Bootloader".

I ask this because even though I made the Acronis image backup of the entire Windows drive well AFTER this Dual Boot setup had been successfully running, when I go to actually Acronis RECOVER Windows using my Win8.0 Pro backup image (from an External USB HDD) Acronis asks specifically about each Partition, and more to the point, the location destination of the MBR!
Where is this Windows MBR location in a Dual Boot Mint/Windows system?

Can someone here familiar with Acronis Recovery and/or "Dual Booting" please give me some insight into this confusion of mine before I inadvertently ruin my Mint O.S.?
I can live without my Windows O.S. but NOT my MINT!

Thanks,

Hi mattrixx,

You received some good replies. Here are my "two cents", or thoughts, on this...

I do have experience with this. If your Linux Mint 17.1 boots up (what version cinnamon, mate, kde, xfce?), then you could bring up "Grub Customizer" or "Grub2 Bootloader" in your Linux system and that will tell you which drives and partitions have which Operating Systems on them. If you don't already have those programs installed, I would do so now from the Synaptic Package Manager (spm). Grub2 Bootloader ends up in your Systems Settings Start-Up section, and Grub Customizer will be in your "settings" and or "system" menues. You can also go into your partition manager, click the left side, look at the right side, and you can tell which drives contain which operating system (Linux will be "ext4", windows will be "ntfs") If you know that you installed windows first, then that's probably drive 1 (sda). If you cannot boot up into your Linux, then see Super Grub2 Boot Loader section below.

First, stop using Acronis after you restore your Windows partition drive and find another backup solution; there are many, including the free "Clonezilla Live" (I use this) which may not have as nice and easy an interface as Acronis, but it works great and can backup Windows, or Linux, or both easily (use partition images vs drive image for flexiblity). I would highly recommend that you backup your current Linux drive / partition using a good multi-operating system backup program, like Clonezilla, fsarchiver, dd, etc... before restoring the Windows. Then, you can use Acronis to restore the Windows, tell it to use the same drive that Windows is on (probably drive1 sda), for the MBR too; and it doesn't matter about the MBR, because as others have stated, you easily recreate MBR and Grub files using the utility programs I'll mention below. After you get everything working well again, backup the Windows partition drive using the same non-Acronis backup program.

Clonezilla BackUp
http://clonezilla.org/clonezilla-live.php

If you don't already have the CD's/DVD's, or usb drives, of the boot repair and Grub utility programs I am going to mention, then I would highly recommend that you download and create these right away and keep them in a safe and handy location. You may have to choose 32 bit or 64 bit depending on your CPU hardware.

If you are having a problem booting up into an operating system (os) partition, like Windows or Linux Mint, then download and create a CD of the wonderful
Super Grub2 Boot Loader - shows all installed operating systems and lets you boot into them, also helps for booting into USB drives on older systems.
Supergrubdisk Info
http://www.supergrubdisk.org/

If you need to repair a boot drive MBR or Grub, then download and create a CD of the awesome program
"boot-repair-disk", A rescue disk that includes the Boot Repair Tool
Info:
http://sourceforge.net/p/boot-repair-cd/home/Home/
Download Files:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/boot-repair-cd/files/

If you cannot boot up into your Windows or Linux Operating Systems after restoring your Acronis backup of Windows, or if you were changing partition sizes, or something like that, don't panic. Boot up to your "boot-repair-disk" via the CD or USB drive, then select the one button repair "recommended repair", let it do its thing, then exit and reboot, and you should be good to go. I found that sometimes, I needed to go into Grub2 Bootloader or Grub customizer in my Linux side to make any customizations I wanted (color and or backgrounds) and or just click save.

Hope this helps ...
Screen Shot of Grub2 bootloader to see what partitions you have click the circled section

LinuxMint_Grub2bootloader_03302015.png

[mattrixx]

Thanks phd21 for your informative reply.
As you now can see I was able to successfully re-establish my working Dual Boot system after disconnecting all drives but the Windows SSD, then "Recovering" by use of my Acronis Windows Backup Image.
During the Acronis procedure, I still had to identify each of 3 Partition locations (including MBR) and put them on the sole drive. This is what I hesitated and originally posted about, unsure of how GRUB played it`s part.
Bottom line is: "All is well"!! Now not only do I have my Windows O.S. back, but more importantly, I can again access the TWO 1TB Fat32 Data HDDs while in Mint!!

As for your suggested use of "Grub Customizer" or Grub2Bootloader" I could NOT find either installed or listed under Synaptic Package Manager ! I am running Mint 17.1 Cinnamon if that matters?

I have downloaded and burned image to disk, the Utilities you mentioned having for possible future use and reference.
Looking at CloneZilla, it does appear daunting after using my (already paid for) Acronis, of which I am familiar with mostly using it on Windows *ONLY* systems.

Again, thanks to ALL who have helped me with this GRUB/MBR "confusion" issue of mine.
I think I have a grasp of it now?

[jimallyn]

You can install GrubCustomizer with the PPA found here:

https://launchpad.net/~danielrichter200 ... customizer

[mattrixx]

You can install GrubCustomizer with the PPA found here:

https://launchpad.net/~danielrichter200 ... customizer

Excellent!! Thanks.

[phd21]

Thanks phd21 for your informative reply.
As you now can see I was able to successfully re-establish my working Dual Boot system after disconnecting all drives but the Windows SSD, then "Recovering" by use of my Acronis Windows Backup Image.
During the Acronis procedure, I still had to identify each of 3 Partition locations (including MBR) and put them on the sole drive. This is what I hesitated and originally posted about, unsure of how GRUB played it`s part.
Bottom line is: "All is well"!! Now not only do I have my Windows O.S. back, but more importantly, I can again access the TWO 1TB Fat32 Data HDDs while in Mint!!

As for your suggested use of "Grub Customizer" or Grub2Bootloader" I could NOT find either installed or listed under Synaptic Package Manager ! I am running Mint 17.1 Cinnamon if that matters?

I have downloaded and burned image to disk, the Utilities you mentioned having for possible future use and reference.
Looking at CloneZilla, it does appear daunting after using my (already paid for) Acronis, of which I am familiar with mostly using it on Windows *ONLY* systems.

Again, thanks to ALL who have helped me with this GRUB/MBR "confusion" issue of mine.
I think I have a grasp of it now?

Hi mattrixx,

I did not think that it was necessary to open the computer and remove the hardware to do this; but, I'm glad to hear that it is working for you, very cool...

The Grub2 bootloader may already be installed in your system if you check your System Settings Start-up section. Mine was in my SPM as "kde-config-grub2", but I use Linux Mint 17.1 KDE. If you go into your SPM, synaptic package manager, and type in "grub2", yours may be "cinnamon-config-grub2"?

As user "jimallyn" just replied recently, you can also install "grub Customizer" using the PPA install method in the link below.

Grub Customizer - very good Grub Program - install from terminal prompt - see link below.
http://www.webupd8.org/2012/09/grub-cus ... eased.html

As for Acronis backup, it is primarily a windows product as I understand it. I have it and used it for a long time until I started using Linux Mint and ran into issues. I then switched to Clonezilla. Clonezilla is a Free multi operating system backup program and it is easy to use and has a graphical (gui) front end, although not as easy as Acronis. But, once you have tried it a couple times, it becomes familiar and reliable.

Quick Clonezilla tutorial. You can pretty much use it's defaults to run Clonezilla:
- Boot to Clonezilla, hit enter, or select a higher video resolution and hit enter, then wait a little...
- It will come up with a couple keyboard questions, hit enter on both...
- It will scan your system and ask where your backup images are located or where you want to store them. If you use an external USB drive, like I do and others, then arrow down to that, hit the spacebar to select the backup drive. (I created a "MyBackups" folder on my usb drive before starting Clonezilla to hold the backups) My system has one drive with 2 partitions and my external drive shows up as "SDB1", yours may be SDC1 or SDD1, probably the last entry.
- then, it will ask you for the directory name for this backup and will have a date already in there. I change mine to something like, "IBM1_LM171kde_03-30-2015_0503pm" If I'm backing up my Linux Mint 17.1 KDE from my IBM1 computer and the date and time, "IBM1_WinXPPro_03-30-2015_0503pm" If I'm backing up my WinXPPro partition, "IBM1_LM17KDE_WinXPPro_03-30-2015_0503pm" If I'm backuping up both partitions, etc...
- then, it will come up and ask what to do? Backup or Restore drives by image or partitions by image, choose backup/save partitions by image because then you can selectively restore partitions by image if you need to.
- It will then present you a list of what partitions to backup, using your arrow keys to navigate, and the spacebar to select which ones you want to backup, then click ok.
*** Obviously, If you have more than one MS Windows partition, like a Data1 and or Data2 partitions, then select those as well. ***
-Answer "Y"es to any questions, Then hit enter on next question, on the next question "Check Image integrity" I tell it to skip that function which saves a lot of time. My clonezilla backups have never failed to work (restore properly).
Then it starts backing up... I can backup an entire 80 gb Linux Mint partition in around an hour or so using about 30gb.

To restore a partition, use the same steps, only when asked for what to do, select restore partition, choose your external drive and the specific backup folder you want to restore... It is quicker restoring than backing up...

Note: Obviously, you will need to delete older backup folders from your backup drive eventually or you will run out of room.

So there is a quick Clonezilla tutorial from memory...

[mattrixx]

I did not think that it was necessary to open the computer and remove the hardware to do this; but, I'm glad to hear that it is working for you, very cool...

I did did NOT actually have to remove any drives, merely pull the SATA data cable temporarily from the 3 non Windows O.S. drives, leaving only the Windows O.S. SSD connected.

Grub Customizer has now been installed to my Mint17.1 system, as user "jimallyn" was so kind to give me this link:

https://launchpad.net/~danielrichter200 ... customizer

As for Acronis backup, it is primarily a windows product as I understand it. I have it and used it for a long time until I started using Linux Mint and ran into issues

Not really true. Acronis itself is a Linux based disk of sorts that works just fine with a Linux install. My problem was not Acronis, but rather MY ignorance in how to use it properly in a Dual Boot situation

I briefly had a "look" at Filezilla but it kinda scared me off when I got "WARNING: if you continue you will lose all data on drive", or some such statement.
I will look at it again, maybe on another system to experiment.

Thanks again

[jtarin]

Acronis is fine....I've been using it for years with no ill effects. Earlier versions of Partition Manager are good too for backups.