Cannot boot after install nVidia driver

[cerebellum]

Greetings..

I have just installed Linux Mint 7 KDE on my desktop. It first ran nicely until I installed my nVidia drivers (restricted). I did a shutdown since it was late at night and decided to check it out the next day.

However, I couldn't get into the session and the screen stops (see attachment) the next day.

IMAGE_632.jpg

I saw something about my Logitech Extreme joystick there so I tried unplugging it but it still didn't work.

Anything that I might have messed up?
Please advice. Thnx.

[Muzer]

Did you do anything with any of your hard drives at the same time? Like, swap them around, or unplug one of them?

[cerebellum]

Actually I did. I have 2 hard drives. A SATA and an IDE. SATA is running Windows. What I did was I unplugged my Vista, plugged in my IDE and install Mint. Then I plugged the Vista back in so that whenever I want Mint, I press F12 and select boot from 2nd hard drive. Is that a problem? I tried unplugged the Vista and the problem seems remain.

Please advice.

[Muzer]

OK, for some reason, when you did that, the hard drives changed identities. When that error appears, type:

ls /dev/hd?? /dev/sd??

And tell me the results. Then type:

grep kernel /boot/grub/menu.lst

And find the part where it says "root=". Tell me what that says (in any lines that come out from the command)

[cerebellum]

okay.. lemme just correct my second problem. when I unplugged my vista and leave Mint as the only connected harddisk, the screen goes blank after loading. There seems to be two different problems.

as for the harddisk problem, lemme try it out.

[cerebellum]

ls /dev/hd?? /dev/sd??
grep kernel /boot/grub/menu.lst

no hd??
sdb6, sdb5, sdb2, sdb1, sda3, sda2, sda1

no such directory /boot

[Muzer]

OK, so you must have installed boot in a differnt partition. Is that correct?

If so, work out which one it is: mount them one at a time (mount /dev/sdxn /mnt; ls /mnt/grub; if there is a no such file or directory error then umount /mnt and mount the next one)

[cerebellum]

I'll try that later when I'm back at home. It's my home PC.
Anyway.. about the video thing, I did boot using recovery mode and selected something sounds like repair video driver and it all worked out already. (with the Vista HDD unplugged of course)

Anyway.. is there an easy way to use linux (dual boot) without modifying any bit in my Windows HDD? so that anytime I want to drop any OS, I'll simply format the partition.

Does this has anything to do with my Linux hard drive is not the first hard drive in the first place?

Please correct me if I'm asking the wrong question.

[Muzer]

Sorry, I'm a bit confused. What probably happened is this:

1) The Linux hard drive is internally the second one and the Windows hard drive the first one
2) When you installed Linux with only the Linux hard drive plugged in, the Linux installer referred to the Linux hard drive as the first hard drive (since there is no first one, even though you have it plugged into the second port)
3) When you plugged in the Windows hard drive, that became the first and the Linux one became the second. Therefore, Linux got confused and tried to boot off the Windows hard drive, failing miserably (obviously).


To fix it, you need to tell Linux to look in the second hard drive for its files.

[cerebellum]

OK, so you must have installed boot in a differnt partition. Is that correct?

I don't know. How do I check it out?

If so, work out which one it is: mount them one at a time (mount /dev/sdxn /mnt; ls /mnt/grub; if there is a no such file or directory error then umount /mnt and mount the next one)

mounting /dev/sda1 on /mnt failed. No such file or directory.
i tried mkdir mnt, but then it says failed too: Invalid argument

[Muzer]

OK, so you must have installed boot in a differnt partition. Is that correct?

I don't know. How do I check it out?

Well, you would have chosen that manually.

If so, work out which one it is: mount them one at a time (mount /dev/sdxn /mnt; ls /mnt/grub; if there is a no such file or directory error then umount /mnt and mount the next one)

mounting /dev/sda1 on /mnt failed. No such file or directory.
i tried mkdir mnt, but then it says failed too: Invalid argument

That's rather odd. Try mkdir /mnt

[cerebellum]

i used largest continuous space.

sorry, i did mkdir, but when mounting all invalid argument. the onli different one is when i try to mount sdb1 to /mnt says.
[ 397.743637] EXT3-fs: unable to read superblock
[ 397.743637] EXT4-fs: unable to read superblock
mount.mounting /dev/sdb1 on /mnt failed: invalid argument

sorry for the wrong spelling, i'm typing in mobile phone.

[cerebellum]

another thing, if i ls /root it shows list of files that is supposed to be my D: drive of vista

[Muzer]

i used largest continuous space.

sorry, i did mkdir, but when mounting all invalid argument. the onli different one is when i try to mount sdb1 to /mnt says.
[ 397.743637] EXT3-fs: unable to read superblock
[ 397.743637] EXT4-fs: unable to read superblock
mount.mounting /dev/sdb1 on /mnt failed: invalid argument

sorry for the wrong spelling, i'm typing in mobile phone.

Oh, now that is quite weird. So you say that happens to all the partitions?


Do you remember what you formatted it as? Or did you just use the automatic "use entire disk" option?

[cerebellum]

Oh, now that is quite weird. So you say that happens to all the partitions?

nope. just sdb1

Do you remember what you formatted it as? Or did you just use the automatic "use entire disk" option?

Before I installed Mint, I deleted a partition 50Gig (that leaves another 100Gig in NTFS, got some video files there) then I chose Guided - use largest continuous free space

What do u say that I reinstall the whole Mint using entire disk?

[Muzer]

No, I'm just wondering what the partition would be formatted as.

If we can't get your partition to mount, though, that could be a problem.

[cerebellum]

okay.. i'm willing to start over.

my current conditions:
one SATA hdd with a Windows Vista and another 2 partitions
one IDE hdd 160gig

what i want:
i don't want each OS to know that other OS exists (that means i don't want linux grub to let me choose Windows for that matters)
default OS to be any one of them (vista or mint); whenever i want to switch, i would press F12 (select boot device) and select hard drive (1 for vista, 2 for mint)
any time i want to unplug my mint, no effect on vista
(optional) any time i want to unplug my vista, no effect on mint

please advice.

[Muzer]

OK then, you will just have to install mint with Vista still inserted, and remove the Vista option manually by editting /boot/grub/menu.lst. Comment out all the lines related to Vista - it will be very near the bottom, if not right at the bottom, and in a clear section. Just put a hash (#) at the beginning of each line to comment it out.

[cerebellum]

umm.. i think i saw something about options in installing grub at sda or sda1
does that mean that sdb, sdb1, sdb2, etc means my vista?

if i install mint with vista still inserted and vista is my firstly boot harddisk, would it be asking me to install grub at sdb as default?
would it be safe to simply selecting sda when asked install grub?

[cerebellum]

Okay.. I reinstalled Mint (again) with vista harddisk plugged in.
The Mint installer recognized my 1TB (vista) as sda, and my 160GB (to be Mint) as sdb,
so I simply selected the 160GB (sdb) and chose "use entire disk".

Before installation, I clicked advanced and the sdb had been selected as where the grub would be installed.

Installation was smooth, default boot was Vista; I had to press F12 to prompt for boot device and selected my 2nd harddisk. I could see grub, but cannot load the Mint. It says:
[Error 17: Cannot mount selected partition

Press any key to continue...]

when any key pressed:

IMAGE_635.jpg

When I select both Mint and recovery mode the Error 17 thingy shows up again.

Please advice. thnx.