Having some trouble dual booting

[ignign0kt]

Right now I have Vista installed on a SATA drive. I made a new partition on the same drive to install Mint onto. So I formatted the new partition, made it primary and installed Mint on it. I reboot and Vista compains about there being a problem and recommends me to repair it. So I repair the MBR and Vista boots fine. I figured GRUB wasn't installed properly, so I boot into the Mint Live CD. I go into grub, and use the following commands:

sudo grub
find /boot/grub/stage1 (this returns (hd1,1)
root (hd1,1)
setup (hd1)
quit

I reboot, I am greeted by Grub, but I cannot boot into any of the options. When I choose Mint, I get an Error 27 No Such Partition. So I fix the MBR again, boot into Vista, and try EasyBCD. I add an entry for Mint and select the correct partition. I reboot, and STILL.. I am unable to boot into any of the options.
I'm lost here.. I don't know much about Linux. Is it because I'm using a SATA drive? If so how would I fix it?
Any ideas?

[Fred]

You were doing good right up to the point you made the new partition the active partition.

Windows should be on the first partition of the first hard drive. This first partition should be made active. This would be a primary partition. You can have 4 primary partitions on one physical drive, but only one of those partitions can be made active.

Go back and fix windows so it is booting correctly off of the first partition which should be set back to active.

Then install Mint 4 to the second partition but don't make it active. Install the boot loader into the mbr on the mint install.

If all goes well you should have a working dual boot. I have heard that Vista doesn't want to cooperate, on some computers, but there are work arounds if this is the case. But first try what I suggested.

Fred

[ignign0kt]

Well I never made it the active partition, I just made it a primary partition. The Windows partition was still the only active one.

[Fred]

ok,

So you have Windows on the first partition of the first hard drive? And you have Mint 4 on the second partition of the first hard drive? And you have not changed the active partition so it should still be the first partition. Is that correct?

If that is correct fix windows back so it boots correctly.

Then go download and burn Supergrub iso. You can find it by Googling. You will find this program very handy to have around.

Use that iso to boot into mint. Open a terminal and type:

sudo grub

root (hd0,1)

setup (hd0)

quit

Then reboot and you should have a working system. At least lets try that first.

Fred

[ignign0kt]

I got it working. Thanks for the help.
Also, instead of making new thread, can I ask how I can switch refresh rates on my monitor? When I go into the Screens and Graphics setup, only 50 51 51 hz are options. My monitor is only supposed to support 60 and 75hz. Right now my xorg.conf has this for my monitor:

Section "Monitor"
Indentifier "Generic Monitor"
HorizSync 30.0 - 70.0
VertRefresh 50.0 - 160.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection


Right now it's set at 50 and would like to change it to 60. Can I simple just change the first VertRefresh number to 60? What are the other numbers? I wanted to clarify before I went I changed settings.
Thanks

[Fred]

I would suggest you start a new thread. You will get more through advice if everything doesn't go smoothly. I could tell you how to change it but wouldn't want to be relied upon if you have problems. There are others better qualified to resolve those difficulties in Mint.

I am glad you got the boot working ok.

Fred