Grub 2 with OS on 2 Hard drives?

[Palladini]

I have Windows 7 Pro and Linux Mint 19, each residing on a different Hard drive in my computer. On the Linux Mint side I have downloaded Grub 2, but when I start my Computer and as it starts up, I press my delete key to get to BIOS and choose he drive Linux Mint sits on, there is no sign of grub 2. What do I need to do to fix this? Better yet, how do I get Grub 2 to be the thing that shows up after pressing start and it goes through the BIOS screens then Grub 2?

[catweazel]

I have Windows 7 Pro and Linux Mint 19, each residing on a different Hard drive in my computer. On the Linux Mint side I have downloaded Grub 2, but when I start my Computer and as it starts up, I press my delete key to get to BIOS and choose he drive Linux Mint sits on, there is no sign of grub 2. What do I need to do to fix this? Better yet, how do I get Grub 2 to be the thing that shows up after pressing start and it goes through the BIOS screens then Grub 2?

I have two questions:

What do you mean when you say "I have downloaded Grub 2"?

Does Linux Mint boot without displaying the GrUB menu? If so, hold down the shift key after selecting the boot drive.

[Sir Charles]

When booted into Mint, open a terminal and run:

Code: Select all

sudo update-grub

When it is done, reboot and see if you get the Grub menu.

[Palladini]

I have Windows 7 Pro and Linux Mint 19, each residing on a different Hard drive in my computer. On the Linux Mint side I have downloaded Grub 2, but when I start my Computer and as it starts up, I press my delete key to get to BIOS and choose he drive Linux Mint sits on, there is no sign of grub 2. What do I need to do to fix this? Better yet, how do I get Grub 2 to be the thing that shows up after pressing start and it goes through the BIOS screens then Grub 2?

I have two questions:

What do you mean when you say "I have downloaded Grub 2"?

Does Linux Mint boot without displaying the GrUB menu? If so, hold down the shift key after selecting the boot drive.

When I start the Computer and press delete key to get to BIOS and choose the Hard Drive Linux Mint 19 resides on, nothing shows for about 15--20 seconds, then the Linux mint screen appears. No sign of grub 1 As per questio one, I opened my Software manager and installed it that way.
You see they way it got this way, I tried to install Linux Mint 19 on the same Hard drive as my Windows 7 Pro OS, but this install destroyed my Windows 7 installation. so I installed Windows on that drive and since my Computer has space for several hard drives, I installed Linux Mint 19 as a OEM installl by disconnecting the drive windows sits on.Go read this forum post to see how I got to here - viewtopic.php?f=46&t=271922&p=1486683#p1486683

And I held the Shift key down from the moment I selected the Linux mint hard Drive and nothing happened!

[Palladini]

When booted into Mint, open a terminal and run:

Code: Select all

sudo update-grub

When it is done, reboot and see if you get the Grub menu.

I did that and grub did not appear when I restarted the computer, it went right to the OS

[Sir Charles]

Would you mind posting back the output from the following command which can be helpful for forum members who can assist you on this.

Code: Select all

sudo parted -l

[Palladini]

Generating grub configuration file ...
Found theme: /boot/grub/themes/breeze/theme.txt
Warning: Setting GRUB_TIMEOUT to a non-zero value when GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT is set is no longer supported.
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.15.0-24-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-4.15.0-24-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.15.0-23-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-4.15.0-23-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.15.0-20-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-4.15.0-20-generic
Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.elf
Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.bin
done
palladini@Video-Editing-Beast:~$ sudo parted -l

The last part that Generating grub configuration file ...
Found theme: /boot/grub/themes/breeze/theme.txt
Warning: Setting GRUB_TIMEOUT to a non-zero value when GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT is set is no longer supported.
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.15.0-24-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-4.15.0-24-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.15.0-23-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-4.15.0-23-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.15.0-20-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-4.15.0-20-generic
Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.elf
Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.bin
done
palladini@Video-Editing-Beast:~$ sudo parted -l delivered nothing back

[all41]

Each system resides on it's own hd?
Why would you want a grub?
imho the holy grail is to use only bios to choose systems.
This keeps the systems completely separated, and Win does not even know linux exists and will not overwrite the boot sectors.
on the other hand linux can always read the win partitions though.

[Sgthawker]

Each system resides on it's own hd?
Why would you want a grub?
imho the holy grail is to use only bios to choose systems.
This keeps the systems completely separated, and Win does not even know linux exists and will not overwrite the boot sectors.
on the other hand linux can always read the win partitions though.

I find grub an easier way to select. In my Asus laptop to get to the boot manager I have to hold down the F2 key as soon as I see the boot logo all the way through until I see the UEFI. Once I am in the UEFI I can hit F8 to see the boot manager. There is no way to access the boot manager directly.

I have a SATA SSD and a M.2 nvme SSD with Win 10 on the SATA and 5 distros on the nvme, having installed Win 10 with the other drive out of the computer and the linux distros are installed without the SATA drive installed. After installs are done, I insert both and run sudo update-grub. Still keeps win separate from linux, so I could uninstall either drive and still boot.

[pilot-f4]

Experiencing the same problem, still not found a solution.
Using separate drives for Windowa 7 Pro, Windows 10 Pro, and now Mint 19 MATE / Cinnamon
Installed Win 7 Pro, Win 10 Pro, Mint 18 in past by connecting singe separate 1 drive at a time to make clean independent OS installs and using "Boot Menu" F8 selection on older Asus motherboard MA378-EM legacy BIOS non EFI

This worked fine for Mint 17 & 18
Now with Mint 19 using simple install with only one clean drive connected (stand alone using whole drive) the install works for a limited time after the initial install. After connecting the Win 7 Pro, Win 10 Pro, Mint 19 drives I can select F8 during boot and each OS works fine on start up and reboot.
After power down of PC for a day or more Win 7 and Win 10 boot, but Mint 19 fails boot to a blank screen failed to find OS
Tried to use the Ubuntu Linux Boot repair disk and it installs a version of grub2 and notes that the boot files are located too far from the partition start mount point (interesting since this is where the mint 19 installed on the clean drive to start with) and it will boot only 1 time after the "mint disk repair"
Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Is there some feature or function with Mint 19 that make this type of install not workable now?
I would really like to keep the IOS installs on separate drives and prefer to do manual Boot F8 bios selection and not use GRUB if possible

Thanks
Matt

[all41]

Of coarse to see a grub screen the drive containing grub must either be at the top of the bios boot order or manually selected.
You can find which drives contain a grub config by copy/paste the following into a terminal window:

Code: Select all

sudo fdisk -l 2>/dev/null | egrep "Disk /|/dev/" | sed "s#^/dev/#Part /dev/#" | awk '{print $2}' | sed 's/://' | xargs -n1 -IX sudo sh -c "hexdump -v -s 0x80 -n  2 -e '2/1 \"%x\" \"\\n\"' X | xargs -n1 -IY sh -c \"case  \"Y\" in '48b4') echo X: GRUB 2 v1.96 ;; 'aa75' | '5272') echo X: GRUB Legacy ;; '7c3c') echo X: GRUB 2 v1.97 or v1.98 ;; '020') echo X: GRUB 2 v1.99 ;; *) echo X: No GRUB Y ;; esac\""

[JOPETA]

@Palladini
You said nothing about your computer or MOBO maker and model (or I missed this).

To get GRUB menu keep on trying with keys (left or right SHIFT key,.. but not DEL or function keys) and change the way you press those keys. Press left SHIFT key rapidly (repeatedly tap not holding down) as soon as you switch on the computer. If it does not work in a few seconds (2-5 seconds max) try pressing Esc key (a single tap in this case).

In order to see GRUB menu always you will need to edit and change /etc/default/grub file. It looks like you were following a tutorial for customizing GRUB and maybe you will need to revert some change.

Please copy and paste following codes in a terminal and post back results using </> code option (look here if you don't know how to).
cat /etc/default/grub

[pilot-f4]

Hi Thanks for the reply
My computer MB was mentioned in post above: Asus motherboard AMD / CPU MA378-EM legacy BIOS non EFI
The windows drives have been in use with no issues or changes to OS / Boot since installed as single drive installs
in service for several years.
I use the F8 key to view the bios boot menu and then manual select the OS I need to use on the individual drive.

When all drives are connected after a fresh Mint 19 install I press F8 on bios bootup and select Drive 0 = Mint 19
Mint will then display Grub Menu / Mint 19 only as it was installed as single drive and loads and runs normal as expected.
If I power down the system and restart after selecting F8 - Mint19 drive then no grub menu starts and goes to a command promt
that no system was found. The Win 10 & Win 7 drives when selected on F8 bios boot up work perfectly as they have in the past.
The only way I can get Mint19 working again is to use a "boot repair" cd disk noted by other mint and ubuntu users online
The Windows drives boot at all times even when Mint 19 fails to boot


Hardware Drives
4 Drives total
0= Mint 19 (Grub2) (installed as single drive) (Mint 17.3 was working no issues previous to Mint 19 installed also as a single drive)
1 = Win 10 Pro (installed standard single drive)
2= Win 7 Pro (installed standard single drive)
3= Data drive no OS

Here are the results for the command line info
sudo fdisk -l 2>/dev/null | egrep "Disk /|/dev/" | sed "s#^/dev/#Part /dev/#" | awk '{print $2}' | sed 's/://' | xargs -n1 -IX sudo sh -c "hexdump -v -s 0x80 -n 2 -e '2/1 \"%x\" \"\\n\"' X | xargs -n1 -IY sh -c \"case \"Y\" in '48b4') echo X: GRUB 2 v1.96 ;; 'aa75' | '5272') echo X: GRUB Legacy ;; '7c3c') echo X: GRUB 2 v1.97 or v1.98 ;; '020') echo X: GRUB 2 v1.99 ;; *) echo X: No GRUB Y ;; esac\""


/dev/sda: GRUB 2 v1.99
/dev/sda1: No GRUB 00
/dev/sdb: No GRUB 9f83
/dev/sdb1: No GRUB 55aa
/dev/sdb2: No GRUB 55aa
/dev/sdb3: No GRUB 55aa
/dev/sdc: No GRUB 00
/dev/sdc1: No GRUB acd2
/dev/sdc2: No GRUB a08d
/dev/sdc3: No GRUB d78e
/dev/sdc4: No GRUB bc80
/dev/sdc5: No GRUB 8cd
/dev/sdd: No GRUB 9f83
/dev/sdd1: No GRUB 55aa
/dev/sde: No GRUB 105b
/dev/sde1: No GRUB 745

cat /etc/default/grub


# If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update
# /boot/grub/grub.cfg.
# For full documentation of the options in this file, see:
# info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration'

GRUB_DEFAULT="0"
#GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT="0"
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET="true"
GRUB_TIMEOUT="15"
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR="`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

# Uncomment to enable BadRAM filtering, modify to suit your needs
# This works with Linux (no patch required) and with any kernel that obtains
# the memory map information from GRUB (GNU Mach, kernel of FreeBSD ...)
#GRUB_BADRAM="0x01234567,0xfefefefe,0x89abcdef,0xefefefef"

# Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only)
#GRUB_TERMINAL="console"

# The resolution used on graphical terminal
# note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE
# you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo'
#GRUB_GFXMODE="640x480"

# Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux
#GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID="true"

# Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entries
#GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY="true"

# Uncomment to get a beep at grub start
#GRUB_INIT_TUNE="480 440 1"

GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER="true"

[pilot-f4]

When the boot up to Mint 19 fails with or without Grub menu this is displayed

Busybox v1.27.2 (ubuntu 1:1.27.2-Zubuntu3) built in shell (ash)
Enter help for list of built in commands
(initramfs)

[Palladini]

@Palladini
You said nothing about your computer or MOBO maker and model (or I missed this).

To get GRUB menu keep on trying with keys (left or right SHIFT key,.. but not DEL or function keys) and change the way you press those keys. Press left SHIFT key rapidly (repeatedly tap not holding down) as soon as you switch on the computer. If it does not work in a few seconds (2-5 seconds max) try pressing Esc key (a single tap in this case).

In order to see GRUB menu always you will need to edit and change /etc/default/grub file. It looks like you were following a tutorial for customizing GRUB and maybe you will need to revert some change.

Please copy and paste following codes in a terminal and post back results using </> code option (look here if you don't know how to).
cat /etc/default/grub

Sorry, My computer is ans Dell XPS chrome case, and ASUS P8p67 pro MB, Intel I7 Skylake CPU with 32 gb RAM and 2 1TB Hard Drives.1 360 GB and 1 500 GB drive. I have dual 30 inch monitors and 2 keyboards

[JOPETA]

You can confirm Windows is detected with sudo os-prober. If so

1)Edit /etc/default/grub as root (from a terminal sudo nano /etc/default/grub

2)put a the mark at the beginning of the last line (GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER="true" must be #GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER="true")

3)Then save changes (Ctrl+C), press Enter to confirm, and close editor (Ctrl+X).

4)Last update grub (sudo update-grub) and reboot (sudo reboot).

[lewtwo]

I am going to offer an alternate solution I have been using. I have a system with three drives.
Windows 7 and Linux Mint 19 are installed on the first drive (SSD) in their own dedicated partitions (/dev/sda).
The second drive is a NTFS formatted drive dedicated to user data visible to both those OSs (/dev/sdb).
The third drive (spinning rust) is dedicated to backups but it has a Ubuntu Mate 18.10 minimal install OS as well (/dev/sdc).
That third minimal OS is used for making 'dd' disk image backups of the partitions for the other operating system.

I installed Grub Customizer on that third OS as well. I use it to customize the grub menu and write the results to the MBR of /dev/sda.
I left the original MBR for the Ubuntu Mate install on /dev/sdc just in case I nee to boot that OS to fix the grub menu when Windows overwrties it.

This has worked extremely well because I have been trying various options with Windows 7 and Windows 10 and have reinstalled each of them several times. Each time all I have to do is boot the third OS and go into Grub Customizer to repair the damage Microsoft has done.

I suspect that you can accomplish the same thing by installing Grub Customizer on your copy of Linux Mint.

https://launchpad.net/~danielrichter200 ... customizer

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:danielrichter2007/grub-customizer
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install grub-customizer

[JOPETA]

Maybe it is not the place and the time to make such recommendation if, as I suspect , Palladini, is trying to solve problems caused by a tool like that. Any way, you are not telling Pallidini how to configure GCustomizer in order to get back os-prober results in GRUB menu.

Think only for a moment. If Palladini did not create the last line in /etc/default/grub following a tutorial as I said before, who/what did it?.

(Notice I do reserve my opinon about that tool)

[lewtwo]

Maybe it is not the place and the time to make such recommendation if, as I suspect , Palladini, is trying to solve problems caused by a tool like that. Any way, you are not telling Pallidini how to configure GCustomizer in order to get back os-prober results in GRUB menu.

Think only for a moment. If Palladini did not create the last line in /etc/default/grub following a tutorial as I said before, who/what did it?.

(Notice I do reserve my opinon about that tool)

Apologies .... No offence intended.

Grub Customizer is a point an shoot GUI front end alternative to the tedious tasks of editing and installing the grub2 system.
Examples:
.. adding or removing "OS prober" is simple check box.
.. writing the MRB to a specific drive is done by selecting that option from the file menu

... having added that detail, I will butt out.