Linux Mint Forums

Hello everyone!

This is my situation:

I have three HDs on my desktop. The first one (primary master) with Windows 7 Pro with only the two partitions created automatically by Windows installation (first one very small and the second NTFS with the rest of HD's size. Well, you know the routine...)
The second one (primary slave) ext4 with Mint 9 fresh new installation with only two partitions: / and swap.
And the third (via USB) with only one partition NTFS for files.

Windows is installed and working for a long time as BIOS primary boot device on first HD. When I set the BIOS to boot from windows hd it loads just fine.

This afternoon, before I started installing Mint 9, I unplugged the NTFS hd's and let plugged just the one which would received Mint. The installation went OK. I'm writing this under Mint 9 now.
After the installation complete, I turned my pc off, replugged all hd's, set my BIOS to boot from Mint 9 hd, selected Mint on GRUB. Under root #update-grub2, to put my windows into grub.cfg file.
After a reboot, when selecting Windows on GRUB, it returns me an error: no such device [a lot of numbers, like hexadecimal]; and invalid signature
press any key to continue...
Returning to GRUB selection.

Here is my fdisk -l:

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x8d9d8e19

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 13 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 13 9730 78046208 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.

WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sdb'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted.


Disk /dev/sdb: 40.1 GB, 40060403712 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4870 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xea587ca4

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 4871 39121487+ ee GPT

Disk /dev/sdc: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xd8e7d8e7
_______________________________________________________________________________________

Here is my grub.cfg Windows section:

menuentry "Windows 7 (loader) (on /dev/sda1)" {
insmod ntfs
set root='(hd1,1)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set d81c59151c58efcc
chainloader +1
________________________________________________________________________________________

Here is my device.map:

(hd0) /dev/sdb
(hd1) /dev/sda
(hd2) /dev/sdc

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Can anyone help me, please!?
I really want to continue using Mint.

Thanks

With SATA there are no master/slave drives. It's a free-for-all. When you unplugged SDA, your adventures began.

Here is a link - Grub2 in all its glory - http://members.iinet.net/~herman546/p20.html.

There is also a sticky by Fred at the top of this section.

It is always beneficial to preplan for the bootloader in a multi-OS install.