Linux Mint and/or GRUB messing up Windows 7 MBR?

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Daunting

Linux Mint and/or GRUB messing up Windows 7 MBR?

Post by Daunting »

Hail!

I've recently decided to switch from Windows 7 to Linux Mint permanently; mainly because of safety reasons. Besides that, Mint appeals to me more than Windows 7 does.

Because I play World of Wacraft, I thought it would be easier for me to keep Windows 7 present on my laptop.

After installing Linux Mint 9 I was excited: everything worked! At boot I could choose which OS I'd want to boot because of GRUB, Mint booted perfectly and even Windows 7 booted.

There was just a catch...

After booting Windows 7, and thinking everything was fine, I shut down my laptop, to restart it again. Guess what happened?

I got a black screen with a message saying: 'No operating system recognized.'

With some scouting on the internet and the Mint Live CD I managed to delete Mint and restore Windows 7 Master Boot Record. So, everything is back to normal now.

But I am not statisfied, and even more so because I've just seen Mint 9 KDE and it makes me drool.

Though, I am afraid my previous problem happens again when I install Mint 9 KDE. So I am asking any one of you who knows what made booting Windows 7 mess up everything.

I was wondering if the Dell Recovery Partition my Dell Laptop has would cause this problem, or because GRUB and the Windows 7 MBR didn't happily coeëxist, or that I've just made a mistake during installation.

My last resort will be formatting my whole harddisk and do a solo Linux Mint 9 KDE Install. I'll have to try and play World of Warcraft through Wine then, but I am not looking forward to the installation progress.

Thanks in advance!

Yours,

Daunting
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
StanTheMan

Re: Linux Mint and/or GRUB messing up Windows 7 MBR?

Post by StanTheMan »

When setting up a dual-boot with Windows , first you have to reduce the size of Windows C:drive with whatever partitioning tool you are using. I recommend , immediately after this , re-boot Windows and let it do its file checking. Then re-boot and create Logical partitions for Linux of the empty space.
Linux runs fine on Logical partitions and you have lots of flexibility this way.
Aging Technogeek

Re: Linux Mint and/or GRUB messing up Windows 7 MBR?

Post by Aging Technogeek »

I don't think your problem was due to the Dell recovery partition or grub and the Windows bootloader not meshing well. I have dual booted Mint in various editions, using legacy Grub and Grub 2 wit Windows XP Pro, Vista,and 7 on Dell computers with recovery partitions and on other manufacturer's computers with recovery partitions with no problems. you did not supply enough information to allow the formation of a good theory about what went wrong.

Exactly what Dell model were you using? What CPU, haw much ram, what size hard drive? What did you do before and during the installation?

Did you defragment Windows at least twice? If so, did you use the Windows defragmenter or a third party app such as "Smart Defrag"?

Did you run a good disk cleaner?

Did you resize the Windows partition before the installation of Mint? If so, What tool did you use, Gparted, the Windows Disk Management utility, or something else?

All of these things could have a bearing on the outcome of the installation.
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