i have made a mess to reinstall grub ..need help

[shinmarwan]

my specs are :
mint 20.3 cinnamon 64bit
Intel Core i5 4460
8.00GB Dual-Channel rams
NVIDIA GeForce GT 730
465GB Crucial CT500MX500SSD1 (SATA (SSD)) ( windows 10 is installed here )
931GB Western Digital WDC WD10EZRZ-00Z5HB0 (SATA )
931GB Western Digital WDC WD10EZEX-22BN5A0 (SATA )
111GB Hitachi HS-SSD-C100 120G (SATA (SSD)) ( linux is installed here )
----------------------
so i was trying to fresh install mint 21 through usb and it succeeded . i ran update manager to fully update the system then restarted the system to find out the pc goes directly to linux mint and didnot show the bootloader ( grub ) to choose between mint 21 and windows 10 .
i had a panic attack and tried several grub reinstallation / repair methods but looks like because i am a noob i cant figure this out
this is my bios boot now ( it legacy by the way ) :

any way to clean this bios boot menu ?

[MiZoG]

You have installed your 2 OSes in legacy mode but there are traces of a UEFI installation either obsolete or accidentally created now in your panic to repair grub or whatever. Or just possible boot options you don't need to worry about since your bios obviously supports UEFI.
1. Make sure there is no redundant EFI/ESP in your Linux disk if you insist on keeping the legacy type of installation. I understand you are still able to boot Mint locally or else run a live session. "Disks", "gparted" will accomplish the task either way. Post the output of sudo parted --list here in case you find yourself in need of help.
2. UEFI Bios caches old n unused boot entries. You have to clear NVram. You must clear mohterboard CMOS or flash the BIOS. Look it up in your motherboard documentation. BUT first ensure there is no EFI boot partitions in your disks.

To alter the timeout settings in GRUB's configuration file

sudo xed /etc/default/grub
find the field GRUB_TIMEOUT=10 (that's the value in my system) and change it to the desired timeout, for instance "GRUB_TIMEOUT=5"
Save. Run sudo update-grub.

[shinmarwan]

pardon my ignorance but what is the efi / esp ?

[AndyMH]

Legacy boot, grub lives in the first sector on the drive, so you would select P3 to boot mint, P0 to boot win. UEFI boot, the bootloaders live in a special EFI partition and you see entries in bios like 'ubuntu' and 'windows bootloader'.

To confirm what mode you are booting in, boot mint and in a terminal efibootmgr, get this you are booting legacy:

Code: Select all

andy@T432 ~ $ efibootmgr
EFI variables are not supported on this system.

to check in win10:
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/851 ... -bios.html
If both are booting legacy and P3 is at the top of your boot list, then boot mint and in a terminal sudo update-grub, next time you boot you should get a grub menu giving you the choice.

[shinmarwan]

You have installed your 2 OSes in legacy mode but there are traces of a UEFI installation either obsolete or accidentally created now in your panic to repair grub or whatever. Or just possible boot options you don't need to worry about since your bios obviously supports UEFI.
1. Make sure there is no redundant EFI/ESP in your Linux disk if you insist on keeping the legacy type of installation. I understand you are still able to boot Mint locally or else run a live session. "Disks", "gparted" will accomplish the task either way. Post the output of sudo parted --list here in case you find yourself in need of help.
2. UEFI Bios caches old n unused boot entries. You have to clear NVram. You must clear mohterboard CMOS or flash the BIOS. Look it up in your motherboard documentation. BUT first ensure there is no EFI boot partitions in your disks.

To alter the timeout settings in GRUB's configuration file

sudo xed /etc/default/grub
find the field GRUB_TIMEOUT=10 (that's the value in my system) and change it to the desired timeout, for instance "GRUB_TIMEOUT=5"
Save. Run sudo update-grub.

odel: ATA CT500MX500SSD1 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 450GB 450GB primary ntfs boot


Model: ATA WDC WD10EZRZ-00Z (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 1000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 1000GB 1000GB primary ntfs boot


Model: ATA WDC WD10EZEX-22B (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdc: 1000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1016kB 1000GB 1000GB extended lba
5 1049kB 1000GB 1000GB logical ntfs


Model: ATA HS-SSD-C100 120G (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdd: 120GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 538MB 537MB primary fat32
2 538MB 1076MB 538MB primary fat32 boot, esp
3 1077MB 120GB 119GB extended
5 1077MB 120GB 119GB logical ext4

[shinmarwan]

Legacy boot, grub lives in the first sector on the drive, so you would select P3 to boot mint, P0 to boot win. UEFI boot, the bootloaders live in a special EFI partition and you see entries in bios like 'ubuntu' and 'windows bootloader'.

To confirm what mode you are booting in, boot mint and in a terminal efibootmgr, get this you are booting legacy:

Code: Select all

andy@T432 ~ $ efibootmgr
EFI variables are not supported on this system.

to check in win10:
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/851 ... -bios.html
If both are booting legacy and P3 is at the top of your boot list, then boot mint and in a terminal sudo update-grub, next time you boot you should get a grub menu giving you the choice.

i got EFI variables are not supported on this system
still dont know how to delete the unnecessary bootloaders

[shinmarwan]

i also found this new partition in windows


should i delete this efi ??

[MiZoG]

Examining the SSD with the Mint Installation

1 1049kB 538MB 537MB primary fat32
2 538MB 1076MB 538MB primary fat32 boot, esp
3 1077MB 120GB 119GB extended
5 1077MB 120GB 119GB logical ext4

Both 1 n 2 are superfluous in legacy mode. They just occupy 1GB of your storage and presumably are the cause of the false bios boot-menu entries.
Your Mint is inside the extended partition 3. Somewhat peculiar but it should work if left untouched. I've no idea how easily you can reallocate the free space that will be made available by deleting the 2 fat32 partitions to your Linux partition.
Delete / resize partitions on a live Mint Session.

How was this mess created in the first place? LM21 installer automatically came up with this scheme? Did you choose "erase disk n install"?

[shinmarwan]

Yes I chooses erase disk and reinstall.
There was also that tool called ( boot repair) which I found in some sites but didn't help.
So please can you tell me how to resize that partition step by step?

[MiZoG]

Haven't dealt with this scheme in a while.
Live Session: Open Disks (gparted is a more powerful tool for that kind of operations but it can be done with the pre-installed Disks utility)
Delete fat32partitions. Select one of em, use the icon -. Repeat.
Selected the extended partition. Click on the "wheels" icon. Pick "change size". Use all the free space created "before" the extended partition.
Now this free space will be added to your extended partition as unallocated. You have to resize, the same way, the logical ext4 partition where actually Mint resides.
That's my assumption about this last step and maybe I'm talking crap.

[AndyMH]

Before you delete the un-needed EFI partitions, check if referenced in /etc/fstab. blkid will give you the UUID of your partitions.
Bit of background:
viewtopic.php?f=46&t=326270&p=1855497&h ... y#p1855497

[shinmarwan]

i cant understand a thing

[AndyMH]

Post the output of cat /etc/fstab and the output from blkid.

[shinmarwan]

~$ cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
# / was on /dev/sdd5 during installation
UUID=c72dd9ae-dab0-4132-a745-3ea1a074b64e / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# /boot/efi was on /dev/sdd2 during installation
#UUID=9C6B-660E /boot/efi vfat umask=0077 0 1
/swapfile none swap sw
-------------------------
/dev/sdd2: UUID="9C6B-660E" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="c548d292-02"
/dev/sdd5: UUID="c72dd9ae-dab0-4132-a745-3ea1a074b64e" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="c548d292-05"
/dev/sdd1: UUID="A5F1-73AE" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="c548d292-01"
/dev/sdb1: LABEL="More space" BLOCK_SIZE="512" UUID="A4A824C7A8249A36" TYPE="ntfs" PARTUUID="73e7f36f-01"
/dev/sdc5: LABEL="Games and Others" BLOCK_SIZE="512" UUID="01D86254C31185B0" TYPE="ntfs" PARTUUID="8554cc0a-05"
/dev/sda1: LABEL="NEW SYSTEM" BLOCK_SIZE="512" UUID="01D86247A1B8EA00" TYPE="ntfs" PARTUUID="7a608b0d-01"
------------
here you are .. thanks in advance

[AndyMH]

Looks like you have already deleted the relevant EFI partition, it is not showing up in the output of blkid (this shows you the UUIDs for all the partitions in your system).

The line referencing the EFI partition is already commented out in fstab (any line starting with # is a comment), so nothing to do:

Code: Select all

# /boot/efi was on /dev/sdd2 during installation
#UUID=9C6B-660E /boot/efi vfat umask=0077 0 1

fstab - a file that linux reads on boot, it mounts whatever it finds in there.

[shinmarwan]

I didn't delete any partitions.
They are still appearing in windows 10
2 partitions.. Each one is 512 mb

[AndyMH]

Don't know and don't care about win.

Your blkid output is showing what look like two EFI partitions.

Code: Select all

/dev/sdd2: UUID="9C6B-660E" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="c548d292-02"
/dev/sdd1: UUID="A5F1-73AE" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="c548d292-01"

My mistake, in my earlier post sdd2 was referenced in fstab (UUID=9C6B-660E, but commented out). You could just delete this partition BUT I don't know how win is booting.

I did ask you in an earlier post to check how mint and win were booting - you said mint was legacy, but did not reply on how win boots. You may have managed to install mint in legacy mode and win in UEFI mode. Delete the wrong EFI partition and win may not boot.

Note - posting screenshots of windows 'MyPc' in a linux forum is not helpful. If you want to see how your drive is partitioned, install gparted in mint (install from software manager). This is the standard linux partition editor - more useful than the win equivalent. If you have more than one drive, the drive selector is a 'drop-down' top right.

Screenshots in mint - PrtScn is the whole desktop, Alt + PrtScn gives you the active window. Both ask if you want to save the file, default is in Pictures. A screenshot of the desktop might be too large to upload to the forum (max is 200kb), usually no problem with a screenshot of the active window.

[shinmarwan]

thank you a lot for your patience .
both mint and windows are legacy
each OS is installed on a separate ssd .
here is a printscreen of gparted of the ssd containing mint :

[AndyMH]

With both mint and win installed in legacy mode you should be able to safely delete both EFI partitions. I wouldn't bother, they are not taking up much space.

[shinmarwan]

I see.
Should I use @mizog way to delete the partitions?