Hi
I've been using mint for a while as a dual boot alongside windows 7 and have just been trying to set up a dual boot on a laptop which had xp already installed. I installed mint in the same way as I did for my dual boot for windows 7 ( partitioned and installed as shown in this tutorial: http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2012/06/06/ho ... ndows-7/2/) but after install I realised that I could not use EasyBCD in xp to give me the option of which os to use on startup. Now when I startup I can only boot into windows xp.
Any help would be appreciated.
Josh
Dual boot xp and mint loading straight into windows <SOLVED>
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Dual boot xp and mint loading straight into windows <SOLVED>
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
Re: Dual boot xp and mint
You don't need EasyBCD, or anything else, to set up a dual boot system as Mint will install its own bootloader (grub) and give you a menu on boot-up to choose from. My guess is you have installed grub to a partition and not the MBR of the disc.
On your link, on the first s/shot, see where it says "Device for boot loader installation", did you change that to the partition that Mint was installed on? If so, you simply need to re-install grub to Mint (google is your friend here), and then run sudo update-grub in a terminal. Or even re-install the whole system if you fancy trying again! hth
On your link, on the first s/shot, see where it says "Device for boot loader installation", did you change that to the partition that Mint was installed on? If so, you simply need to re-install grub to Mint (google is your friend here), and then run sudo update-grub in a terminal. Or even re-install the whole system if you fancy trying again! hth
Re: Dual boot xp and mint
@741 - I don't have a solution for you, but will follow your post because I have a similar problem. I installed Linux Mint 13 MATE on a Windows XP computer and selected the first option in the Installation Type (install Mint along side Windows). That got me a functioning Linux Mint, but if I select Windows XP (on /dev/sda1) in Grub all I get is a "Disk read error" message. I can no longer boot into Windows, but inspecting the Windows partition from Mint everything seems to be there. Inspecting partitions with GParted everything looks as I expect, except Mint and its Swap are within an Extended partition - not a problem, just not what I expected. I hopefully just need to figure out how to get the Windows boot to work again. I didn't see the article you reference until after I discovered I had a problem. I just thought setting up the dual boot was going to be automatic, making whatever adjustments are necessary to setup dual booting. Good Luck to us both.
Jim
Jim
Re: Dual boot xp and mint
Hi. You need to add a copy of the boot partition's 1st sector to your C:\ folder and then add a line to boot.ini to tell Windows to execute the file. This is fairly easy.josh_sheffield wrote:Hi
I've been using mint for a while as a dual boot alongside windows 7 and have just been trying to set up a dual boot on a laptop which had xp already installed. I installed mint in the same way as I did for my dual boot for windows 7 ( partitioned and installed as shown in this tutorial: http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2012/06/06/ho ... ndows-7/2/) but after install I realised that I could not use EasyBCD in xp to give me the option of which os to use on startup. Now when I startup I can only boot into windows xp.
Any help would be appreciated.
Josh
First, boot your linux CD and open a terminal.
If your boot partition is sda3 (like in the article) type:
Code: Select all
sudo dd if=/dev/sda3 bs=512 count=1 > mintMBR.bin
Next, boot into XP and add a reference to mintMBR.bin to the end of boot.ini. See: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/289022
You need to add something like:
Code: Select all
C:\mintMBR.bin="Mint"
Last edited by mintybits on Wed Nov 28, 2012 2:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Dual boot xp and mint
Hi Jim. This is quite a different problem. Try running "sudo update-grub" in a terminal. If that doesn't work it will need more detailed investigation and you should start a separate thread, really.wagb278 wrote:@741 - I don't have a solution for you, but will follow your post because I have a similar problem. I installed Linux Mint 13 MATE on a Windows XP computer and selected the first option in the Installation Type (install Mint along side Windows). That got me a functioning Linux Mint, but if I select Windows XP (on /dev/sda1) in Grub all I get is a "Disk read error" message. I can no longer boot into Windows, but inspecting the Windows partition from Mint everything seems to be there. Inspecting partitions with GParted everything looks as I expect, except Mint and its Swap are within an Extended partition - not a problem, just not what I expected. I hopefully just need to figure out how to get the Windows boot to work again. I didn't see the article you reference until after I discovered I had a problem. I just thought setting up the dual boot was going to be automatic, making whatever adjustments are necessary to setup dual booting. Good Luck to us both.
Jim
Re: Dual boot xp and mint
@471cc - Have you tried the "Boot-Repair-Disk" utility? That helped me once before, but my problem was a little different. It is certainly worth a try. Download the tool (ISO file) and burn an image CD. Then boot from that CD. The tool is a good one to add to your bag of utilities in any event. Download it from here: http://sourceforge.net/p/boot-repair-cd/home/Home/
Jim
Jim
Re: Dual boot xp and mint
@ mintybits - Jim here - I agree my symptom is quite different. Just the same two OS's. I will start a new Thread.
Re: Dual boot xp and mint
@mintybits
That worked great thanks a lot. I'd been googleing for ages trying to find a solution.
Cheers
Josh
That worked great thanks a lot. I'd been googleing for ages trying to find a solution.
Cheers
Josh
Re: Dual boot xp and mint loading straight into windows <SOL
I posted tutorial about this theme here: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 71#p683771