the evergreen bootloader problem :D

[monere]

hi

I had Windows Vista and kubuntu installed and dual-booting just fine, then (2 hours ago) I installed Mint 13 Xfce, and an hour ago I also installed Windows 7, at which point I can't see the other OSs (Vista and Mint) show up on the boot screen. At restart the PC will automatically log onto W7, which means I need to fix the bootloader but which also means I don't know how as I am clueless about stuff like this

Please share your mighty knowledge with a mere mortal just trying to get by with its little problems

PS: Yes, each OS was installed on a separate partition (with the Windowses on primary partitions and Mint on a logical one) and yes, I do have LOTS of data that is not backed up and will never be which I intend to keep as is. So I am interested in the safest, fastest, cleanest, easiest solution ever

[eanfrid]

yes, I do have LOTS of data that is not backed up and will never be which I intend to keep as is.

Then kneel and pray for never having any either hardware failure or software mishap

So I am interested in the safest, fastest, cleanest, easiest solution ever

The safest is.. to backup before.

BTW Windows trashes existing bootloaders when you install it. So it is usually recommended to install Windows first and then the others.

[monere]

yes, I do have LOTS of data that is not backed up and will never be which I intend to keep as is.

Then kneel and pray for never having any either hardware failure or software mishap

So I am interested in the safest, fastest, cleanest, easiest solution ever

The safest is.. to backup before.

BTW Windows trashes existing bootloaders when you install it. So it is usually recommended to install Windows first and then the others.

First of all, I've been praying for this not to happen for the last 2 years I will get a new computer this year, just don't know exactly when and praying is all I can do since I don't have the money yet to spend on a backup HDD.

And secondly, I will keep your advice in mind for future re-installations and I even had a feeling that installing Windows first is the way to go. But this time I had to do it the other way around because of partitioning (primary and logical partitioning issues, more specifically) reasons...

But anyway, you didn't tell me how to re-install/repair?? the bootloader. Waiting for a solution

[monere]

any of you guys and gals willing to help me solve this problem? It's almost a week since I posted this and no help so far

[Brahim]

any of you guys and gals willing to help me solve this problem? It's almost a week since I posted this and no help so far

Install Windows first then install Linux Mint!

[Zalbor]

You may be able to use chroot on a mint disc and restore grub to the MBR.
Then you could boot into mint and run update-grub. That way os-prober may find both Windows installations and you could boot into them from grub.
It may not work for both though, because Windows has a very illogical way to multi-boot and you may not be able to use vista unless you find a way to make win7 see it.

If I was you, I'd just backup and then install vista, win7 and mint in that order. If you're afraid of data being copied from an external disk you can secure format it with one of those things that overwrites disks a lot of times.

[grraf]

How about using a live mint(dvd/ usb stick/'take yr pick") to safely access all yr partitions and 'extract' all the data u wish(again use dvds or stiks to store what u need on them) and then simply use the gparted utility to slice and dice yr hdd nice and proper. Oh yeah the advice about installing widows first is perfectly valid(u can always count on a widows OS to screw up all u got; so its only natural it comes first when there isn't a darn thing it can screw ...except itself(not a very uncommon event i may add))
Hope this helps and qualifies as both easy to do(it is for me...) and safe(seriously doubt u can mess up on booting a live mint system and then using copy- paste/burn duo to migrate yr 'data'(yeeah no coment on its nature )

[Hugo Notte]

Google super-grub-disk. Download the super grub 2 disk image and make a bootable usb stick. Boot from the stick, it would find all OSes installed on you pc and you can from there boot into any of them. You can either use that as a permanent solution, the USB boot into super-grub is very fast, or you can boot into your mint from there. Once Mint has booted, use 'grub-install /dev/sda' in the terminal, provided sda is where the bootloader should go. Then run update-grub, it should again find all OSes on your pc and configure grub(2) to make a proper boot menu.