After Installing Mint, Older Ubuntu Partition Won't Boot

[bunnyfly]

Hello - I had just Ubuntu and XP, running lovely together, then I installed Mint into sda6. It re-setup grub and identified XP, but ignored Ubuntu. I had saved the grub configuration before the boot, but to my surprise, the new command to load Mint is the same old command as Ubuntu. The Ubuntu partition is still there with all its files, but I can't figure out how to get it to boot!

I have a hard drive that's set up with these partitions:
sda1-grub
sda2-ubuntu 7.10
sda3-windows xp
sda4-
sda5-swap
sda6-mint 4.0 (new)


Here is what I had:

title Ubuntu 7.10
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.22-14-generic root=UUID=cf73a502-5119-4602-aadd-5ea406b2b5f6 ro quiet splash
initrd /initrd.img-2.6.22-14-generic
quiet

title Windows XP
map (hd0,0) (hd0,2)
map (hd0,2) (hd0,0)
rootnoverify (hd0,2)
makeactive
chainloader +1

Now, Mint just replaced the Ubuntu title with Mint...so, among other things, I've tried:
(?=tried 0, 1, 2, and 3 in most every combination, but I think it should be hd0,0 and sda2 or hd0,1 and sda2):

root (hd0,?)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.22-14-generic root=/dev/sda? ro quiet splash
initrd /initrd.img-2.6.22-14-generic
quiet

and:

rootnoverify (hd0,1)
makeactive
chainloader +1

Neither work. I tried searching the Mint forums, Ubuntu forums, and Google for grub info, but it didn't turn anything up that helped me. Any help's greatly appreciated! Thanks,
[bunnyfly]

[Husse]

I think this is the first time I see this problem
Mint has not changed the title I think.
How much do you know about grub?
You see, when you install Mint "the normal" way it's the grub, and thus menu.lst, of Mint that is in control - no matter what you do to the grub of Ubuntu - no change.
As you can boot check the content of menu.lst in Mint
It should have valid entries for both XP and Ubuntu
To me it seems that you've been looking in the menu.lst of Ubuntu
If that's not it....
The entry for ubuntu should be as you have it, but replace the UUID with /dev/sda2
the entry for Mint should be

title Linux Mint, kernel 2.6.22-14-generic
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-14-generic root=/dev/sda6 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.22-14-generic
boot

As you see the same except that Mint has exchanged UUID for /dev due to the massive amount of problems with UUID

[Fred]

bunnyfly,

Mint boots fine. You have Mint grub installed to the mbr. Are both of those statements correct? If they are true then go back to Ubuntu /boot/grub/menu.lst and put it back like it was before you changed it and it was booting ok. Also go to Mint /boot/grub/menu.lst and undo any changes you made there.

If you don't have Mint grub installed to the mbr and you want the nice Mint boot screen, open a terminal in Mint 4 and type:

sudo grub

root (hd0,5)

setup (hd0)

quit

This will install Mint 4 grub to the mbr. Then open Mint 4 boot/grub/menu.lst and add these lines either just before or just after your Windows chainloader lines.

title Ubuntu Gutsy 7.10
root (hd0,1)
makeactive
chainloader +1

Then open a terminal in Mint 4 again and type:

sudo grub

root (hd0,5)

setup (hd0,1)

quit

Reboot and you should have a working triple boot. If it were me I would have a boot disk handy, just in case one of us made/makes a mistake editing. Supergrub works good for this purpose.

If you want your Ubuntu install to be able to see and work with the Mint 4 partition you will probably have to go into Ubuntu /etc/fstab and correct the UUID for sda6.

Bye-the-way, what is the extra grub partition for? How big is it. If you do what I suggested above you won't be using sda1. If you want to boot everything from this one grub/boot partition with the nice, clean graphics of mint you can do that too. Just takes a little more work and rearranging.

Enjoy,

Fred

[Husse]

Damn it, I did not notice this

sda1-grub

Is that a boot partition?
Then it's a different story and I'll have to get a few more facts
Did you select a boot partition when you installed?
Was that the same as you used for Ubuntu?
Did you format it?

[bunnyfly]

First off, thank you both VERY MUCH for you help...

Fred
Well first, I do not have a separate menu.lst for Ubuntu and Mint - they were supposed to share the one in /boot/grub which is on sda1, it's own boot partition. But that doesn't seem to have worked.

sudo grub...setup (hd0,1) gives me a missing file error. Two files something like "/boot/grub/....... is missing or invalid" or something like that...which makes sense because the boot folder is in it's own partition hd0,0, not in Ubuntu's hd0,1

I've tried chainloading too - it gives me something like "hd0,1 filesystem loaded, reiserfs" then "error 13 - invalid or unsupported executable format"

Husse
Yes - I put grub into it's own little 500mb spot at sda1. I had heard suggestions to use ext3 for booting, since it's less likely to get messed up on a mistaken reboot or something like that (I use NTFS for XP and ReiserFS for everything else). And I knew I would be switching between a couple distros and WindowsXP and thought it would be easier to have grub in just one spot to call up the various OSes. Guess I probably shouldn't have.

So it is a boot partition, which I did use for Ubuntu, and during the Mint install, I selected it to mount to /boot and to format it (thinking it would autodetect my Ubuntu)

As for replacing UUID with /dev/sda2, it starts up Mint's splash screen then freezes and I reset. Without quiet/splash, it says it's mounting sda2, reiserfs, it begins flying through a list of stuff it's loading, then spits out five identical lines saying "request_module: runaway loop modprobe binfmt-464c" and freezes.

Now I'm thinking that perhaps /boot has OS specific stuff in it and isn't just an OS booter?
Thanks again for helping! I will be a very happy girl if I can get this working!
[bunnyfly]

[Fred]

bunnyfly,

I was afraid that was the case. You can't, or shouldn't, try to use the same /boot for two distos. You could use it for two copies of the same distro, but even then you could have problems, but not different distros. /boot not only contains grub but the kernel and other distro specific files. Mint 4 is based on Ubuntu but the code is not identical.

If you want a common grub partition I can show you how to do that, but you will still need a /boot file for each distro. The /boots can either be in their own partitions or in / (roots).

Your use of reiserf could be problematic. Many problems have cropped up with this file system and most distros don't recommend using it now. There are additional know issues with using it in the partition /boot is in. If you are using separate /boot partitions I would suggest using ext2 for them.

Let me know what you want to do and I will try to help you.

Fred

PS: Happy girls are a joy to behold! I have three daughters, and keeping them all happy all the time is a task which no man can expect success.

[Husse]

This is very hard to solve
When you installed Mint it destroyed your Ubuntu boot and the /boot partition is now Mint only
Restore menu.lst so Mint boots and hopefully that's all you changed
Then move the /boot partition into Mint's partition without any mentioning of Ubuntu
Check again that Mint and XP boots
Now you're stuck with ReiserFS but hopefully it's OK
This leaves Ubuntu in distress, without a /boot folder
I'm in really deep water here but check if you can install just /boot (Note boot not grub)
If not I'm afraid the solution is a new install - but first save home to a separate partition.
You could probably use a common /home for both Mint and Ubuntu - you risk loosing some eye candy but that's all.
You move home from another distro so it should be straight forward copying after you created the partition - for both this and the copying of /boot study the wiki so you use the right copy command
http://www.linuxmint.com/wiki/index.php ... _partition