Problem with Mint 12

[webb]

Hi

I have a HP Laptop with Windows XP on it. Recently I downloaded Linux mint 12 and put it on a USB to install the os. Before installation, I used EASEUS Partition Master to shrink my C: drive from 85 Gig to 75 Gig just so I can use the 10 Gig for Mint. When I was about to install, I mistakenly chose "Install Linux along with other OS" rather than "Something else" option. Because of that, Mint has created two logical partition out of that 10 Gig one with 7.5 and other with 2.5 -- really annoying to see two partition with file system neither NTFS nor FAT.

The installation went successfull but when I restarted in Mint (the boot loader was GRUB and not Windows), I logged into my user and the system gets stuck as soon as desktop loads. This has happend for 4-5 times now and now I wanted to uninstall Mint and probably reinstall with "something else" option. So,

a. How to uninstall Mint 12?
b. How to make the boot loader to Windows bootloader rather than GRUB?
c. Should I merge these 2 partitions? I would have to format it in NTFS or FAT to merge it; doing so, will erase Mint which I feel is may not the right way to uninstall.

I am a Newbie. Please help me...

Webb.

[K7plus1]

first backup your data.
boot into windows use EasyBCD(http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/OS- ... yBCD.shtml) to reinstall windows bootloader. restart and see if you are able to boot into windows. then you can just format the partition containing mint and do the installation again

[webb]

AFter installing EasyBCD, When I clicked on view settings, there are no entries listed in bootloader.

Should I choose the option: Updating the MBR and Bootsector from Boot depployment option or should I choose "change the boot partition"

Please see the link for literature on the same:

http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/U ... Bootsector

[webb]

I hope its not too silly of a question to ask as I see not many care to respond to my question.

[K7plus1]

goto 'BCD Deployment' in easybcd and select 'Install Windows bootloader to MBR'(choose the windows version appropriate to your case) and then ask it to 'Write MBR'. As i remember it, at the bottom status bar it would say something like 'bootloader installed'. then restart your system to check if it boots directly to windows. before doing any of this backup your system

[webb]

Thanks for your response but please find the attached screenshots that would describe my problem better.

[karlchen]

Hello, webb.

When you allowed Mint 12 to install alongside Windows, what has happened - very likely - are two things:

• As one step of the installation, GParted will have divided the 10 GB area into 2 partitions: first partition of 7.5 GB for the Mint 12 operating system and the software and second partition of 2.5 GB as the Linux swap area.
  This is perfectly all right. Every Linux installation will need a swap partition. The size of the swap partition depends on the size of the RAM.
  The first partition holding Mint 12 and the software which comes with Mint 12 will be an Ext4 filesystem very likely. Again, this is perfectly all right. Linux can use NTFS and FAT32 filesystems, but it is no good idea to try and install Linux itself on a non-Linux filesystem. So Ext4 is perfectly all right.
• As you simply allowed Mint 12 to install alongside Windows without having a look at the details of what it was going to do during the installation, Mint 12 will have written its bootloader Grub2 into the master boot record of your disk. This is not really what should have happened, because Grub2 will have overwritten the Windows XP bootloader this way. - Yet, this is a solvable problem. So do not despair, yet.

About uninstalling Mint 12 (or any other operating system):

As a rule, there is no need to uninstall an operating system. You boot the machine using a live DVD (Windows or Linux) and simply delete exactly those partitions used by the OS that you wish to get rid off.

About repairing the existing Windows installation:

I may have missed the statement, yet, as far as I understand you can currently not boot into Windows XP. If this is true, then this supports my assumption that the Windows bootloader has been replaced by the Mint 12 bootloader Grub2.

In case you have got the original Windows XP installation DVD, you should be able to boot from this DVD and run a command prompt and at the command prompt execute the commandline "fixmbr". fixmbr should restore the original Windows bootloader.
Afterwards you should be able to boot to Windows XP, but no longer to Mint 12, because fixmbr will have removed Grub from the MBR. In your case this is no real problem, because you are going to remove and reinstall Mint 12 from the scratch anyway.

In case you do not have the full Windows XP installation DVD - quite common vice today, selling Windows pre-installed without providing the original installation medium to the customer - you might also use a self-created Windows rescue DVD/CD provided you have created one. The manuals strongly recommend to do so. Yet, I am afraid hardly anybody cares to do so.

About using EasyBCD to repair the existing Windows installation:

So, in case you do not have the original Windows XP installation DVD or a Windows XP rescue CD/DVD, there might be a chance of repairing the exisiting Windows installation with the help of EasyBCD, as has been recommended by K7plus1.
Yet, I cannot offer any help on the exact steps: I am sitting at my Windows 7 / Ubuntu 10.04 dual-boot netbook. No external media which could be used for booting and testing anything available here at the time of writing this. And I do not know EasyBCD well enough to offer advice on its usage without trying myself beforehand.
So it may be wise to wait for K7plus1 and hope he can help with the EasyBCD usage problem.

Kind regards,
Karl
--
P.S.:
About your complaint that not too many people had bothered to offer their help in your thread: Well, this is a general problem in a lot of forums, and this forum sadly is affected by this problem as well. There are more users seeking help than there are users who can offer help.
--
P.S. 2:
Modified some phrases after having noticed that you have got Windows XP, not Window 7.

[webb]

Hey Karl, thanks for responding. Appreciate your response.

Well, you summed up pretty much whats has happened so far and right now, I have to wait for k7plus1 to see his response on EasyBCD. I will have to create a Windows XP CD to keep as back up.

[karlchen]

Hello, webb.

It is sad that you cannot really boot and use your Mint 12, because if you could, it ought to be possible to make Grub2 offer Windows XP in its boot menu as well.
Here on Ubuntu 10.04 Grub2 offers to boot Ubuntu 10.04 normally, Ubuntu 10.04 in recovery mode and as the last item in the list it offers the option of booting "Windows 7 (loader) (on /dev/sda2)".

The corresponding Grub2 script code here is

Code: Select all

menuentry "Windows 7 (loader) (on /dev/sda2)" {
   insmod ntfs
   set root='(hd0,2)'
   search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set D62E55E92E55C363
   chainloader +1

The details of this code depend on the setup of the machine. So simply copying it to another machine will not work.

Provided you could boot Mint 12 and logon, you could open a terminal and run the command

Code: Select all

sudo update-grub

. Under normal circumstances, this tells Grub2 to check and recreate the list of items in its boot menu. While doing so Grub2 will check and normally detect other bootable operating systems as well. In your case it should detect and add "Windows XP on /dev/sdaX" to its list, whereby /dev/sdaX will be the Linux device name of the partition where Windows XP lives and where the file ntldr can be found.

Yet, as your system gets stuck right after logging in there will be little chance of telling Grub2 to add Windows XP to its boot menu. Too bad. This would be a good way of re-gaining access to Windows XP.

I wonder if it might still be feasible to download a genuine Windows XP installation CD/DVD as an ISO file from Digitialrivers, who are an official distributor of Microsoft products. If this were feasible, you could burn the ISO image to a CD/DVD, boot your HP machine and run "fixmbr" from there. - I started wondering whether "fixmbr" should be followed by "fixboot". I am really not sure whether both commands are needed or whether "fixmbr" alone will do.

So in case K7plus1 should not reply in the near future and no-one else who knows how to solve the EasyBCD handling problem, getting hold of a genuine Windows XP installation CD/DVD might be the next step.

Kind regards,
Karl

[webb]

Hey Karl, nice to hear from you again.

I did exactly what you mentioned earlier, download XP (from torrent, actually) , created a bootable USB disk (Burner didnt work properly) and restarted the system with USB disk inserted. I did get into Windows Installation where I clicked 'R' for repair and got into command prompt. Then, I typed 'fixmbr' for which the system responded with an warning saying it might cause inconsistency to HDD and whether I wanted to continue fixing master boot record. I typed 'y' and pressed Enter. Then I got a message saying MBR is successfully loaded.

When I restarted the system, I still got the same GRUB2 menu saying which OS would i like to run (the same old screen as if MBR was never installed at all.)

I guess that fixmbr should either be preceeded or followed by some more set of commands, just like you suggested in your recent post. I will try to research and see what are the exact set of commands required.

In the mean time, if I use a partition manager to completely format the Mint OS partition and Linux swap partition in Ext4 into NTFS file system, am I risking that Windows might not load the next time because there is no bootloader at all?

[karlchen]

Hello, webb.

Exactly. As long as the WinXP bootloader has not been restored replacing the Grub2 bootloader, Windows XP will not be able to boot.

Found this thread in the Canonical Ubuntu forum: Dual Boot unable to boot XP.The situation there is similar to yours. The difference is that the thread starter wanted to be able to boot XP and to keep his Ubuntu installation. You want to be able to boot XP again, then nuke the current Mint 12 installation and do a fresh installation.
The first steps for repairing Windows XP will be the same in both cases.
Telling from that thread, I gave you the two commands needed, but in the wrong order: You have to run "fixboot" first and "fixmbr" next. Afterwards XP should boot fine again.
Will try to look up whether "fixboot" and "fixmbr" need to be passed any commandline arguments on the Microsoft pages and post back.
--
Looks as if it is simply running

Code: Select all

fixboot
fixmbr

without any arguments. XP should be able to boot afterwards.
In case it does not, further steps depend on the error message that you receive.

Karl

[karlchen]

Hello, webb.

Asking our especially dear friend Google to undig some threads on how to "recover Windows XP bootloader" yields a never ending list of similar threads holding almost the same pieces of advice in the end.

The confusing thing is that not always exactly the same steps are given.

Some people seem to have experienced that the best way of repairing the XP bootloader is by running

Code: Select all

fdisk /mbr

inside the recovery console. Cf. e.g. [HOW TO] Get back your Windows XP Bootloader

Others seem to have been successful by executing this

Code: Select all

bootcfg /rebuild
fixboot
fixmbr

inside the recovery console. Cf. e.g. Reinstalling or Repairing the Windows XP Bootloader using the Recovery Console

Hope you will find out which of the two ways works without causing any further hassle.

Karl