Can't boot into linux mint [SOLVED]

[bzzzzz]

Hi hope someone on here can help.

This is my favourite linux distro and it breaks my heart that I haven't been able to access it for a few weeks.

I tried to upgrade my Jaunty distro to Karmic recently, but I could never get the sound to work. I tried most of the things that people were saying and decided to opt for a clean install. I deleted the partition which contained Jaunty and then tried to install Karmic onto that section.

Problem was it couldn't boot at all. I managed to use super grub disk to find and boot xp (on hd0,0) and hardy (on hd0,1) but all my other distro's that I had on an extended partition where lost as well. I didn't mind too much about the others (fedora and debian) as i didn't really use them. I was a bit narked about losing linux mint, which I use quite a bit. I also can't boot into Karmic Koala.

Can anybody help?

[reaZon]

why doesn't mint boot for you?.any errors?.more info please .

[bzzzzz]

When I turn on my computer I get a list of distributions to boot up.

When I try to boot up linux mint I get Error 18: Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOS.

I'm pretty sure that this list (which I know is found in boot/grub/menu.lst) is directing to the wrong location. But I don't know how to correct this. I'm hoping someone will be able to walk me through this.

Thanks

[efflandt]

It would help if you copy and paste the output of sudo fdisk -l (or sudo fdisk -l > filename.txt to dump that to a file) and indicate which partitions are / or other path for which distro. Actually it is always a good idea to do that "before" making any changes.

One possible issue is that Jaunty 9.04 (even updated to Karmic 9.10) and Mint 7 use grub. But a fresh install of Karmic uses grub2.

But I am not a grub expert and also have no idea what you did to your extended partition (if you accidentally deleted an overwrote something). I never let any OS auto partition anything if I can help it. I create any partitions in advance, and point an installation to use specific partitions(s). Both a beta version of WinXP64 and Linux have tried to change the partition geometry of my desktop PC (from 240 heads to 255 with less cylinders) which made WinXP64 beta even unable to boot itself, until I fixed the partition table back to the way it was (with some guessing from memory and trial and error until it worked).

[bzzzzz]

Thanks for helping. These are my results

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000bb2e7

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 2550 20482843+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 2551 5482 23551290 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 5483 19457 112254187+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 18884 19457 4610623+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 12566 15240 21486906 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 15241 15253 104391 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 17166 18883 13799803+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda9 15254 17165 15358108+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda10 * 5483 8928 27679932 83 Linux
/dev/sda11 8929 12409 27961101 83 Linux
/dev/sda12 12410 12565 1253038+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Partition table entries are not in disk order

sda1 is xp
sda2 is lts hardy heron
one of the others is linux mint (sda 6 i think)
two will be failed attempts to install koala and the rest is junk

[bzzzzz]

Ok I've managed to fix it.

I'll just go through what I did so that it may help someone else. I do have a question at the end that I would like someone to answer.

Anyway I deleted all partitions other than linux mint and the xp and hardy heron.

I used a gparted live disk to then move the distributions so that they were adjacent to one another.

I then installed linux mint "into the next available free space"

Trying to install linux mint into a specific part of my hard drive meant that the distribution would not boot.

I then managed to copy the boot menu into my original linux mint distribution - then I changed the name of the /boot/grub/menu.lst so that it looked in the correct address for the distribution.

I don't know why I couldn't install the distribution to a specific part of the hard drive.