HELP please : things got even worse :(

[qarni]

Hello

I am very new to the whole Linux world.
I installed mint 14 on my laptop on the partition D (51g) along side of Windows 7.
Everything seems to be working fine until I received an error msg that bootloader failed !
First, what does bootloader do ?
How to install it ?
Why cannot I get to choose which OS to start ?
My laptop just started with windows without asking me to choose !

One more thing, during the instillation, I did not choose swap area and was prompted by the wizard to do so, therefore, I did choose the same partition D for that ?
Could anyone please give a detailed step-by-step solution ?

Oh! just noticed that partition D does not appear anymore in my computer when running Windows, is it normal ?

Appreciate it

[xtreme]

Hi there. You need to choose swap partition for installing Linux Mint. I would suggest doing a re-install with correct configuration. This is a good tutorial for dual-booting - http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2012/06/06/ho ... windows-7/

You can install the boot loader using this command:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get --reinstall install grub-pc

Hope this helps.

[qarni]

Thanks for the reply.
I have tried to use the command you suggested and I got an error message saying couldn't find a canonical path for /cow.
Then I tried to reinstall mint again and I chose partition D for the system and another partion 100 mega for the swap area. I then got the same problem.
Then restarted my laptop but another problem showed up where I saw a black screen with very weird and unreadable characters and I cannot use my windows again.
I tried to use the repair cd but nothing changed and did a full system restore from an external hard drive but the same screen showed up after successful restore.
It is very frustrating and I am afraid that there a serious damage in my laptop.

Please help

[qarni]

If I were to use the whole hard drive to install mint which will format everything, would it be possible to restore windows again ?
I am thinking to install mint only and then do a full restore to the laptop using the Windows 7 repair disk and the backup I have on the external hard drive. Is this possible ?

[DrHu]

Err no,. kinda obvious if there is no space allowed for anything else that nothing else can be installed

If you need windows running, you may prefer a wubi install (mint4win) which allows Linux to run alongside windows, it is a VM (virtual machine, partial that is), that runs Linux from a file on the hosts file system..
http://www.thegeeksclub.com/install-ubu ... imint4win/

If you don't do that, it is a standard multi-boot install, windows in the C: drive (1st drive/1st partition) and Linux in the second partition on that drive
--it is best, I think to use primary partitions (4 are available) as it keeps partitioning simple to use and simple to fix, since they are essentially separate from each other windows/Linux/some other OS and one spare partitions