Linux Mint Forums

I am at my wits end.

I have:

Athalon AMD 64x2 Dual Core 5600+ processor running at 2.9Ghz
4GB memory
1TB Seagate SATA drive
160GB IDE drive

First, I am trying to install Helena on the 1TB drive and then copy the files off of a couple of 80GB IDE drives I have.

What I have tried:
First I tried installing to the 180 gb drive (Idont care about anything on it) It seemed to install but would never boot after shtting down the machine.
Second I tried installing to the 1TB drive. Again it appeared to install but would never boot after shutting down.
Yes, I did reset the boot sequence correctly but I would never get the boot selection screen.
Then I tried something just by accident, I decided to stick the two 80 GB IDE drives in instead of the 160GB (they were a bootable pair with the boot sequence so entangled that I could not separate them and I couldnt figure out what was wrong with the sequence) They would not boot at all!! The computer would not recognize them in the boot sequence, but did display them as being there. Doing this required the replacement of the data cable as the other data cable only had one drive connector. After it failed to boot that way I removed the two 80gb drives and put the 160GB drive back in but did not put the old cable back in. Amazing, it booted...but not to the 160gb drive, but to the 1TB drive!!! On the "computer" screen it didnt even show the 160 gb drive. But by trial and error I found that the 160gb drive had to be there AND it MUST have the "Master" jumper installed or the 1TB drive wont boot.

This is a workable system, the 160gb drive can remain there unused, but on the cable...except that I dont have any way to get the files off of the two 80 GB drives with the 160gbn drive installed. I did try to put one of the 80 gb drives on the second connector but I did not "have access" to the root folder and was not offered the chance to get access. Is there a way to regain access to these folders?

Somehow the boot sequence of the 1TB drive is linked to the 160GB drive being there even though the computer doesnt know its there.

Possible problem? Could it be that BOTH IDE and SATA drives cannot be intermixed on this motherboard but must be used one way or the other?

Any help would be appreciated.

I just did more experimenting.

Replacing the old "one connector" cable, it still boots so it was not the cable. The boot menu offers either the 160 gb drive or the 1TB drive. Both will boot, but if I remove the 160gb drive the 1 TB drive will NOT boot.

A proper partitioning is needed. An example you can install /boot to HD sda, / root to HD sdb, /home to HD sdc, ... etc.

It should be easy if you choose "advanced" (manual partitioning).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem ... y_Standard

I have it working after a fashion, but if I could find menu.lst I think I could fix the need for the second drive that I dont need. But I have searched both drives and cannot find it. I expected to find it at root/grub/menu.lst but its not there. Does Mint use some other file for that function?

By default Mint 8, Helena, uses Grub2 as a bootloader. HERE is the Configuring Grub 2 section of Ubuntu's Grub2 tutorial.

THIS post gives a solution for trouble dual booting XP on a SATA hdd and Mint on a IDE hdd. Not sure if it will work. The original poster was asking about Mint 7, the reply was about Grub 2, like Mint 8 uses.

Great. I was using old technology. Thanks for the referral to Grub2. That solved MOST of my problems. Now I only have to figure out how to get the 1TB drive to be the default boot. But I think Grub2 will lead me there.