Triple boot with Windows, Mint and PCLinuxOS (solved)

[larryO61]

Hello:
I've been using Linux Mint for a month now and absolutely love it. Of course, not content to leave well enough alone, I decided to install PCLinuxOS on my external hard drive. Installed the legacy Grub bootloader on a formated partition on the external hard drive.

Now Linux Mint stalls and is not accessible. I know Linux Mint uses Grub2 and I tried the "update-grub" on the command line (grub>) and it doesn't work. I tried Linux Mint recovery mode, too.

I want to rescue my Linux Mint installation and, then, if needed, manually add the PCLinuxOS entry. PCLinuxOS uses Grub legacy and I did install that bootloader on the dev/sdb1/boot menu (I wish PCLinuxOS had the option of not installing a bootloader at all). What I don't want to do is have to re-install Linux Mint and lose all my programs.

By the way, Windows Vista loads with no problem.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[dawgdoc]

If I am not mistaken you will have to reinstall Grub2. The default file system for the last 3 or 4 releases of Mint is ext4 and this is not supported by Grub legacy. I think this is why you lost it when you installed PCLOS. See http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 5&#p297226 for links to Grub2 tutorial which address reinstall or recovering grub2. I have used method 2 from the Ubuntu Grub2 tutorial.

[vrkalak]

dawgdoc could be right about the re-install, but . . .

Use the original LinuxMint CD and use it as a LiveCD.
From inside the LM LiveCD you can still do a sudo update-grub and that should restore your LM on the internal harddrive.

Since both Mint and PCLOS are using a different version of Grub (Legacy and Grub2) ... I'm sure there is a way to remedy that, but I do not know how.

[dawgdoc]

Yes, when I "used method 2 from the Ubuntu Grub2 tutorial" I used the Mint LiveCD, I did not use an Ubuntu CD.

I was working from memory so I checked just now and am not quiet sure about Grub Legacy's file systems support. It supports, among others, ext2 (+ext3 with journaling support, +ext4 extents), I do not know what ext4 with extents is, unless it means extensions. Since there are qualifications about ext4 support, I guess it will still be most reliable to have Grub2 controlling the bootloading

I did this under different circumstances than Larry. I was going from a triple boot setup with LM 9, LM 7, and WinXP to a setup with LM 9, LMDE, and WinXP. Doing this, I deleted some partitions, resized some and moved free space. This changed UUIDs of partitions and completely broke Grub. I Restored Grub using the Mint CD, did a sudo update-grub under LM 9, installed LMDE without installing Grub, and then another sudo update-grub under LM 9.

[larryO61]

Thanks for the suggestions. In usng the Mint Live CD, do I have to mount the Linux Mint partition in terminal before I do sudo update-grub?

[dawgdoc]

sudo update-grub applies to both Grub Legacy and Grub2. In fact in Grub2 it is a script that runs another script called grub-mkconfig . So you will definitely have to point to Mint's Grub2, yes you will have to mount the partition. Go ahead and try it, but I think you will have to first restore Grub2 as indicated in the tutorial above. When you installed PCLOS I expect the part of Grub2 in the MBR would have been overwritten.

To confirm where Grub and Grub2 are and what is controlling the system see this post: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 9&#p298135 It gives a link to download Boot Info Script and has instructions on how to use it. You could post the results here if you have doubts about what they mean.
download link http://sourceforge.net/projects/bootinfoscript/
instructions http://bootinfoscript.sourceforge.net/