Boot problem when trying XP+Mint in dualboot...please help

[kelsinni]

Hello to all members of this forum...
i have recently tryied to install Linux Mint 12 LXDE 32-bit on a system with Windows XP Pro previously installed to try to get a dualboot system with both OS with the objective that in boot i can choose wich OS want.

I had read several tutorials arround internet and tryied diferent configurations:

1) Try it by the "automatic" way...that is install Mint alongside Windows XP
and in the arrow drag to the right to choose 10Gb for Linux Mint and the other 150Gb to the Windows XP.
Not worked...after installed and when rebooting
Error: no such partition
grub rescue>

2) Before install i let 10Gb Unlocated space on it HDD. Tryed to choose not install by the automatic way and enter in the partitions option and choose:
On the 10Gb - create new - 10Gb - Primary - Ext4 - Mount point: /

/dev/sda1 ntfs (Windows XP)
/dev/sda2 ext4 /

Not worked too when rebooting
Error: no such partition
grub rescue>

3) Before install i let 10Gb Unlocated space on it HDD. Tryed to choose not install by the automatic way and enter in the partitions option and choose:
On the 10Gb - create new - 100Mb - Primary - Ext2 - Mount point: /boot
- create new - 9900Mb - Primary - Ext4 - Mount point: /
/dev/sda1 ntfs (Windows XP)
/dev/sda2 ext2 /boot
/dev/sda3 ext4 /

No luck too:
Error: unknwon file system
grub rescue>

After that i had tryed to boot from Live CD of Mint and update grub with sme commands on the terminal windows but not worked too

Im a newbie on Linux and this is my first (bad) experience on it...
By this point i really dont know how can put this to work and hope that someone here can give me a hand on this because as i said im a zero with linux...


Thks in advance for all the help i can get

[wayne128]

I assume you can use terminal, because it is easier to chat over with terminal command and post its results.

What you can do is , follow these steps and post terminal output here

1. boot from Mint Live CD
2. open a terminal, type a few commands
3. sudo fdisk -l
4. sudo parted -l print
5. sudo os-prober

lets see what the terminal outputs are. Then other commands shall follow.

[kelsinni]

I assume you can use terminal, because it is easier to chat over with terminal command and post its results.

What you can do is , follow these steps and post terminal output here

1. boot from Mint Live CD
2. open a terminal, type a few commands
3. sudo fdisk -l
4. sudo parted -l print
5. sudo os-prober

lets see what the terminal outputs are. Then other commands shall follow.

Hi wayne128 thks for your quick reply...the result was:



Note: after step 4 i choose "ignore"

[wayne128]

OK, what you do next is,

still on Live CD, on terminal type these commands

1.

Code: Select all

sudo mount /dev/sda2 /mnt


2.

Code: Select all

sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sda

pay attention on syntax, you can actually copy the whole command and paste on your terminal so that you do not have syntax error, like missing space, double dash --

read the terminal output, hopefully you get some message that said 'no error'.

if there is no error, reboot and see what happen.

if there is error, copy those error and post here.

[kelsinni]

OK, what you do next is,

still on Live CD, on terminal type these commands

1.

Code: Select all

sudo mount /dev/sda2 /mnt


2.

Code: Select all

sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sda

pay attention on syntax, you can actually copy the whole command and paste on your terminal so that you do not have syntax error, like missing space, double dash --

read the terminal output, hopefully you get some message that said 'no error'.

if there is no error, reboot and see what happen.

if there is error, copy those error and post here.

done as you said...copy and paste but on the 2nd command it gave me this error:

[wayne128]

first part said errors, final line said no error..

Nevermind, just reboot and see what happen.

[kelsinni]

first part said errors, final line said no error..

Nevermind, just reboot and see what happen.

reboot and choose boot from HDD and no luck:
ERROR: unknown filesystem
grub rescue>

Im realy in a bad mood with this

[mintybits]

How old is your PC?
It seems to me that Grub has been installed ok because after booting you get the "grub rescue" prompt. This means that grub has been installed to the MBR (master boot record) area of your disk and is running ok. The rescue prompt occurs when grub cannot access files it needs inside the linux partition, specifically inside the /boot directory. In older bioses there is a problem that stops grub being able to access files that are located more than 137GB from the start of the disk. This might be the issue.

Fixing this is tricky. Check whether there is a newer version of your bios and upgrade it. Otherwise, you need to start the linux partition closer to the start of the disk. This would require shrinking the XP partition first, say to 100GB. Then reinstall Mint in the remaining 60GB.

[wayne128]

You may have some trouble during installation, it seems sda2 had some corruption on grub..

so you need to be sure that:

1. your iso file is checked with md5sum and be sure that tally with what is in the official website.

2. if step 1 is pass, be sure to burn image with 'slowest speed' so that it has higher chance of burning without error.

3. when you boot computer from CD , there is an option to check the integrity of the media, you can perform that test to see if your media pass the test.

by the way, when you are running Live mode, can you surf internet? can you play youtube ( with sound and video)?.

there are more complicated procedure to repair your grub boot loader, you can refer to the grub2 documentation on this link
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2

[kelsinni]

How old is your PC?
It seems to me that Grub has been installed ok because after booting you get the "grub rescue" prompt. This means that grub has been installed to the MBR (master boot record) area of your disk and is running ok. The rescue prompt occurs when grub cannot access files it needs inside the linux partition, specifically inside the /boot directory. In older bioses there is a problem that stops grub being able to access files that are located more than 137GB from the start of the disk. This might be the issue.

Fixing this is tricky. Check whether there is a newer version of your bios and upgrade it. Otherwise, you need to start the linux partition closer to the start of the disk. This would require shrinking the XP partition first, say to 100GB. Then reinstall Mint in the remaining 60GB.

It is a notebook compaq nc6220 with some years old yes..
I think that it has the latest bios version already but i will confirm it.
So the trick to solve this is boot from XP, with partition magic shrink the XP partition to 100Gb and let 60Gb of unlocatted to the Linux...
Then install linux again automaticly or choose partition table and this config?
/dev/sda1 (ntfs) 100Gb
/dev/sda2 ext4 mount point / with 60Gb

Or i should create a /boot on ext2 with 100mb?

I think i dont need a swap partiton because i habe 2gb or ram...

[kelsinni]

You may have some trouble during installation, it seems sda2 had some corruption on grub..

so you need to be sure that:

1. your iso file is checked with md5sum and be sure that tally with what is in the official website.

2. if step 1 is pass, be sure to burn image with 'slowest speed' so that it has higher chance of burning without error.

3. when you boot computer from CD , there is an option to check the integrity of the media, you can perform that test to see if your media pass the test.

by the way, when you are running Live mode, can you surf internet? can you play youtube ( with sound and video)?.

there are more complicated procedure to repair your grub boot loader, you can refer to the grub2 documentation on this link
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2

I had downloaded the iso file directly from the official website...never checked the integrity of the cd option when booting. I will check and reply. In what concernes on internet i had already tried and could navigate without problem i will try youtube with sounds and video and reply too...

[kelsinni]

Integrity of cd OK...no erros where encountered.
Internet OK - youtube with video and sound ok too...
If is really from the bios then if i install first the Linux mint and then XP would do?

thks again for the help that you guys are giving

[mintybits]

How old is your PC?
It seems to me that Grub has been installed ok because after booting you get the "grub rescue" prompt. This means that grub has been installed to the MBR (master boot record) area of your disk and is running ok. The rescue prompt occurs when grub cannot access files it needs inside the linux partition, specifically inside the /boot directory. In older bioses there is a problem that stops grub being able to access files that are located more than 137GB from the start of the disk. This might be the issue.

Fixing this is tricky. Check whether there is a newer version of your bios and upgrade it. Otherwise, you need to start the linux partition closer to the start of the disk. This would require shrinking the XP partition first, say to 100GB. Then reinstall Mint in the remaining 60GB.

It is a notebook compaq nc6220 with some years old yes..
I think that it has the latest bios version already but i will confirm it.
So the trick to solve this is boot from XP, with partition magic shrink the XP partition to 100Gb and let 60Gb of unlocatted to the Linux...
Then install linux again automaticly or choose partition table and this config?
/dev/sda1 (ntfs) 100Gb
/dev/sda2 ext4 mount point / with 60Gb

Or i should create a /boot on ext2 with 100mb?

I think i dont need a swap partiton because i habe 2gb or ram...

Yes. You can shrink XP using linux but it is generally considered more prudent to use XP to do it. There is a lot of debate about this in the Ubuntu forums. Of course, you cannot boot XP now.
1) Using XP
You either need to boot using your XP installation CD and retsore the mbr (I think there is a utility called fixmbr or something similar) or you can use your Mint CD to restore the MBR:
open a terminal and type (ignore warnings):
sudo apt-get install lilo
sudo lilo -M /dev/sda mbr

Boot into XP and shrink its partition. Anything less than 136GB should be adequate but I like to add plenty of margin, so try 100GB to 120GB.
Then boot off the Mint CD and install it to the area after XP.

2) Using Mint CD
Boot into Mint live session. Open gparted application and use it to shrink XP. See: http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/gparted.html
It may be possible to use the Mint installer to shrink XP but I have not used this myself.
Install Mint to the area after XP.

Doing the second method is much less hassle but some people don't trust linux tools to shrink Windows partitions. If you have backed up your crucial XP data already I'd probably do #2 to save time.

[mintybits]

Integrity of cd OK...no erros where encountered.
Internet OK - youtube with video and sound ok too...
If is really from the bios then if i install first the Linux mint and then XP would do?

thks again for the help that you guys are giving

You are welcome, hope you get it working. Yes, that would work provided the start of XP is within 137GB of the start of the disk.
The issue seems to be that some old bioses use only 28 bits for disk sector addressing.

You do not need a separate /boot partition. But when you install Mint you need the "something else" menu so you can make Mint smaller than 137GB, say 120GB or smaller.

I'd recommend a swap partition - 2GB of RAM is not a huge amount. It depends on how many applications your will run at the same time and how RAM-intensive they are. You will be fine for now without SWAP and you can always add a SWAP partition later.

[monkeyboy]

Do a little search on Google for Netflex removal on Linux machines. If memory serves Netflex was a piece of DRM software that screwed with Linux installs and had to be removed. However I could be wrong and messing around with partition tables and such be risky so check it out first. Good Luck

[kelsinni]

So...finaly something diferent happened

I had resized the partitions like this:
100Gb for XP
60Gb for linux

Had installed again linux mint on the 60Gb like this:



then boot from HDD and appear this:


Now i really dont know what i must do...my objective is appear one option when boot that i can choose for example press 1. to boot from XP or 2. to to boot from Linux Mint...

Any ideas?

Thks

[mintybits]

Good...some progress. The "grub>" prompt shows that Grub can now find the /boot partition but is having some trouble with a file in there, probably grub.cfg. This shows that the 137GB limit was the first problem.

It looks from your 2nd photo that you may have installed Grub to sda2 rather than sda. Is that correct? Grub should always be installed to sda. It may be the original Grub in sda (in the MBR) is trying to find files in /boot that have now been modified for the Grub in sda2 and so don't work properly.

Two methods to try:

1) Try booting manually from the grub> prompt: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2 ... pt_Booting

2) Boot from Mint CD and reinstall Grub: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2 ... veCD_Files

[wayne128]

Read this link, related to FlexNet sector 32 ( shown in your error by grub-probe)

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1661254

try using the BOOT REPAIR method. (second page)

[kelsinni]

Good...some progress. The "grub>" prompt shows that Grub can now find the /boot partition but is having some trouble with a file in there, probably grub.cfg. This shows that the 137GB limit was the first problem.

It looks from your 2nd photo that you may have installed Grub to sda2 rather than sda. Is that correct? Grub should always be installed to sda. It may be the original Grub in sda (in the MBR) is trying to find files in /boot that have now been modified for the Grub in sda2 and so don't work properly.

Two methods to try:

1) Try booting manually from the grub> prompt: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2 ... pt_Booting

2) Boot from Mint CD and reinstall Grub: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2 ... veCD_Files

Yes...i think that is right, i have selected to install the bootmanager in sda2.. i thought that were there the location for that...

im going to to by your 2nd way...but tell me one thing...what i have installed is grub or grub2?
if is grub do you advice to upgrade to grub2?

thks

[mintybits]

Yes...i think that is right, i have selected to install the bootmanager in sda2.. i thought that were there the location for that...

im going to to by your 2nd way...but tell me one thing...what i have installed is grub or grub2?
if is grub do you advice to upgrade to grub2?

thks

You have Grub 2 so you are fine.

v1.99 is actually Grub 2. Why didn't they make it version 2.00 to be consistent? Who knows?

Many, many people get totally confused by Grub and/or the Ubuntu installer and I don't blame them. You are not alone. The installer should, in my opinion, only offer two boot-loader choices: sda (the MBR area) or none at all. The Grub designers do not recommend installing Grub to partitions because it results in an unreliable system for reasons I won't bother explaining. Installing to partitions, like sda2, should be an advanced option only and not be offered by the installer.