Win7 Mint10 Win98 grub MBR

[krustybaguette]

Hello all
I have a complex problem involving all the items mentioned in thread title. Start with system details:

Lenovo X60 (not tablet) with X6 dock; 3GB RAM; 500GB hdd partitioned for dual boot; BIOS permits USB boot of hdd, CD, as well as a second hdd in an adapter which replaces the DVD RAM in dock.

I have been running a dual boot Win7-32bit Mint10 system for a month or so and obtained the adapter for second hard drive with the goal of installing Win98SE on it. The drive is a 6GB IBM drive that already had a previous install of Win98SE on it, but because it had been done on a different laptop there were some problems so I decided to do a fresh install of Win98 using a USB CD and putting the 6 GB drive via adapter in the optical drive bay of the dock. This seems to be where my problems begin. I say "seems to be" because:

Around the same time I tried to run the MINT update and had lots of problems due to the "fix broken files" issue. Well I finally worked around that (I think) and finished the updates. Now when I do a fresh boot I am presented with "extra" entries (Linux Mint 10 2.6.35-28-generic and Linux Mint10 2.6.35-22 generic) two memtest options, and finally Windows 7 (loader). Am I correct in guessing that the extra Linux Mint10 entry is because my kernel was automatically updated during the Mint Update process? If so is there any reason to keep listing the older version?

So far I have not succeeded in installing Win98SE onto the 6GB drive. Apparently the Lenovo laptop does not recognize my USB CD drive. It's an older Plextor CDRW. I also have available a Sony Optiarc DVD drive but haven't tried to use it yet. The 6GB hard drive is an IDE drive so I cannot put it in the main drive bay (SATA) and use the internal DVD drive to install. I've tried using the internal DVD to install to the 6GB drive via an external USB adapter to no avail as well. I suspect this may have been what caused my Windows 7 startup problem described next.

Up to this point I still have a working Linux Mint10 system but when I tried to boot into Windows7 recently I ran into the dreaded BSOD. (I love how they put about twelve lines of text on the screen and give you about 7 second to try to read and digest the content). Anyway it eventually went into an automated attempt to fix the startup setup which failed. After two or three more attempts I went to the advanced options which included trying to use the system restore points. I went back to two or three different restore points and all failed to correct the startup problem. So it seems my Windows 7 installation is toast. I have all data stored on a shared NTFS partition (LinWin storage) as well as on two separate hard disks so I'm not worried about losing data.

What I AM worried about is: If I boot from my Windows7 install CD and attempt to do a 'repair install' or whatever MS calls it will my Linux installation be affected? When I installed Windows 7 on the 500GB drive as a fresh install followed by installing Linux Mint10 I ended up with the Mint boot setup (grub???) by default. Mint is the default OS which is what I wanted so I made no attempt to try to "restore" the Windows boot loader and I am wondering if the "repair-install" might wipe out my grub setup??? If so I'll be back asking about fixing grub

Since my laptop has a built in SD card reader I wonder if perhaps I should be considering it as the place to install Win98SE?
My only reason for wanting Win98SE is to run my old Logitech Pagescan Color parallel port scanner. I hate to dump "old" technology that still serves its purpose. I had the scanner running on a PIII Toshiba Portege that I was using a few months ago. I picked up this Lenovo because it had the parallel port in the dock but had no idea it would be so hard to get Win98SE up and running again?

Any suggestions on solving any of the above issues????

krusty

[casey972oo]

Hi there ! ...

nice roman you have writen there ! ... and what is your Question ? ...
that's the Question ? ...

what is your problem ? ... specific ! ...

casey972oo

.

[mychance]

My response will not be highly technical as I am far to be knowledgeable in the field, but just in case it may help.

If you want Grub to update Grub entries you can open terninal and type:

sudo update-grub

If you are like me and don't like line codes to custom fit your Grub entries, you can get Grub Customizer http://www.tux-planet.fr/grub-customizer/ and do it in a more click and click fashion.

I have a XP/Mint10 /Win98 triple boot PC at home. The way I made the Win98 bootable was to save an image of the W98 installation, create an equal partition on the boot hard drive (thus slightly reduce the size of it) and save it there. Updating Grub would do the rest.

Good luck

[lmintnewb]

Read through some of the links in this other post.

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 68#p416768

No your Mint install should be fine after you repair Win 7 mbr/bootloader etc. It'll still be there. Though you'll no doubt end up reinstalling grub2. Or you could look over that link about using easybcd or whatever described in one of those links.

No worries about the other kernel. As long as it's booting fine and your system is running like it's supposed to. Eventually you'll probably want to get rid of the older one and mark em for complete removal in synaptic.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/17787/cl ... boot-menu/

If you run uname -a in terminal it'll show ya which kernel you're using btw. Ok good luck ... If something breaks ... just remember. That's whatcha get for listening to casey.

... Just messing round and being a dork.

[Roken]

I suspect that part of your Win98 problem may be WIn 98 rather than your laptop. USB support in Win 98 was notoriuosly sketchy and prone to fail without warning. If you have the option to mount an internal CD drive, here's what I would do:

Mount an internal drive and disconnect your other HD (i.e. - leave only the HD that you intend to install 98 too). Altertnative to disconnecting is to disable the other drive in BIOS, whichever floats your boat.

Once done boot to your new Win 98 and do any updates, driver installation etc. to ensure that it is a complete and up to date system.

Shutdown and re-connect the other HD (or re-enable it), remove the temporary CD and ensure that your BIOS is set to boot from the original HD (the one with grub); boot to your linux distro.

In a terminal run sudo update-grub.

With luck this will add Win98 to your grub configuration, making it an option at boot time along with your other OSes.

The Windows 7 problem may be caused by installing SP1. There is a problem with SP1 that means that it expects to find Windows 7 on partition 1 of drive 1. If this does not match your current configuration then don't install SP1. There are also known problems installing SP1 at the same time as other updates, and you should ensure that SP1 is fully installed (and rebooted) before installing additional updates. If this is the case there are possible fixes here: http://www.edutech.me.uk/microsoft/wind ... -tutorial/ and here: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/wind ... pack-1-sp1

[krustybaguette]

My response will not be highly technical as I am far to be knowledgeable in the field, but just in case it may help.
If you want Grub to update Grub entries you can open terninal and type:
sudo update-grub

Good luck

This will be helpful once I get all OS's up and running.

I have a XP/Mint10 /Win98 triple boot PC at home. The way I made the Win98 bootable was to save an image of the W98 installation, create an equal partition on the boot hard drive (thus slightly reduce the size of it) and save it there. Updating Grub would do the rest.

I don't have Win98SE running (except in Virtual Box and there's no USB support via additions in VBox for Win98 installations)
I have a full install CD of Win98SE and the easiest thing in the world would be to install from my internal DVD directly to my hard drive but I have been operating under the assumption that I couldn't have a FAT32 partition along with my others (see screenshot of my current partitioning arrangerment)



Based on what you see here is there a partition that could be shrunk by 5 or 6 GB. Then with the unallocated space could GParted format that as FAT32 for a WIN98SE installation? After which, would sudo update-grub fix everything so I would
have Mint, Win7, and Win98 as boot options?

krusty

Thanks to all the other posters, I have a lot of options to consider but the above would be the easiest if it can be done.

[krustybaguette]

I suspect that part of your Win98 problem may be WIn 98 rather than your laptop. USB support in Win 98 was notoriuosly sketchy and prone to fail without warning. If you have the option to mount an internal CD drive, here's what I would do:

Last night I did a reinstall of Windows and of course now my Windows bootloader has taken control so I'm trying to restore grub so I can use my Mint install. Found your reply to another similar thread and pasted it below:

Re: update-grub

Postby Roken on Mon Apr 18, 2011 12:26 pm
The link appears to be overkill, IMO. This will do it:

I looked that link over and after my eyes stopped rolling decided to try something else. Your suggestion seemed a bit more straightforward. I'm running under the LinuxMint Live CD right now and trying to replicate the list of mount commands in your post.

Boot the live CD, mount your linux partition and open a terminal. The mount point if you do it via nautilus will be /media/UUIDofDisk

In the terminal:

Here's what I got after several attempts where I had apparently not left spaces. I started the process in nautilus then used "open in terminal".

For many more details, say man 8 mount .
mint@mint /media/29b98c44-02ac-4fce-b46a-4e8599145521 $ sudo mount --bind /sys /media/29b98c44-02ac-4fce-b46a-4e8599145521/sys
mount: mount point /media/29b98c44-02ac-4fce-b46a-4e8599145521/sys does not exist
mint@mint /media/29b98c44-02ac-4fce-b46a-4e8599145521 $

sudo mount --bind /sys /media/UUID/sys
sudo mount --bind /proc /media/UUID/proc
sudo mount -bind /dev /media/UUID/dev
sudo chroot /media/UUID
apt-get remove grub-pc grub-common
apt-get install grub-pc grub-common
update-grub

Then reboot. This has worked for me every time I've had to reinstall grub2 with no problems. It also retains any grub customisations that you've made (BG pic, screen resolution, savedefault etc.

After that I'm stuck as I'm guessing I'd get the same "does not exist" message for the others. As for the suggestions quoted below I've put Win98SE on hold until I get my dual boot back to normal. I have tried any number of installation methods up to now including using both the internal DVD and an external Plextor CDRW with the 6GB drive installed in the optical drive bay, and via USB hdd. I remember reading on a Lenovo forum that the USB CD BOOT option only works with a limited number of drives so perhaps the Plextor is not on the list. I have another Optiarc/Sony that I can try later.

Code: Select all

Mount an internal drive and disconnect your other HD (i.e. - leave only the HD that you intend to install 98 too). Altertnative to disconnecting is to disable the other drive in BIOS, whichever floats your boat.

Once done boot to your new Win 98 and do any updates, driver installation etc. to ensure that it is a complete and up to date system.

Shutdown and re-connect the other HD (or re-enable it), remove the temporary CD and ensure that your BIOS is set to boot from the original HD (the one with grub); boot to your linux distro.

In a terminal run sudo update-grub.

With luck this will add Win98 to your grub configuration, making it an option at boot time along with your other OSes.

The Windows 7 problem may be caused by installing SP1. There is a problem with SP1 that means that it expects to find Windows 7 on partition 1 of drive 1. If this does not match your current configuration then don't install SP1. There are also known problems installing SP1 at the same time as other updates, and you should ensure that SP1 is fully installed (and rebooted) before installing additional updates. If this is the case there are possible fixes here: http://www.edutech.me.uk/microsoft/windows-7-service-pack-1-error-fix-tutorial/ and here: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/why-am-i-receiving-error-0xc0000034-after-installing-windows-7-service-pack-1-sp1[/quote]

[mychance]

Restoring Grub after wiping out the MBR with Windows installation is piece of cake:

1. Download Supergrug disk iso : http://developer.berlios.de/project/sho ... p_id=10921

2. Boot with it. It will find your Mint partition and boot it.

3. Once in Mint, go in Synaptics and reinstall Grub. When you restart, you should see the Grub menu again, provided that everything was left intact after the Windows installation.

Now, concerning your previous post, having a FAT32 is no problem at all. The restriction comes rather from the fact that a hard drive can't have more than 4 primary partitions, or 3 primary partitions plus some 24 logical (extended) partitions. You can use logical partitions for files storage of even swap exchange but if you want to boot from it, it has to be a primary partition. Looking at the gparted snapshot you provided, it looks like you already have a full hand there. Personnally, I had to get rid of the hidden system restoration partition in order to have 3 booting primary partitions. There should be some other ways besides using USB or SD boots but I don't know the matter well enough to know.

[krustybaguette]

Restoring Grub after wiping out the MBR with Windows installation is piece of cake:

1. Download Supergrug disk iso : http://developer.berlios.de/project/sho ... p_id=10921

I tried this. I burned the .iso onto a CD and booted. The screen says "Welcome to GRUB" or some such and then there's a menu with about 8-10 options. I tried several including the one about looping and all I got was a flashing cursor in the upper left corner of my screen and some hard disk activity but nothing else. I waited several minutes before rebooting again and getting the same result with other scan options. I also downloaded and installed the Windows version which installs on the hard drive and becomes active upon reboot. This gave me more results but none could find my active Linux installation.

2. Boot with it. It will find your Mint partition and boot it.

Unfortunately for me, not this time. In trying Roken's suggestion I wonder if I discovered the problem is in my partitioning scheme as /grub is in a different UUID than /sys /dev and /proc. This is leading me in the direction of wiping out all my partitions except the sda1 and sda2 windows7 partitions. I am copying all the data from LinWin Storage into Win7 so I will have to check in Windows to be sure the files are accessible before taking the plunge and reinstalling LM10. I wish this situation would have happened in a couple of weeks from now when LM11 will be out . Well I'll just have to do the install/upgrade like everyone else, or maybe wait til LM12?

3. Once in Mint, go in Synaptics and reinstall Grub. When you restart, you should see the Grub menu again, provided that everything was left intact after the Windows installation.

This is moot once I finish my reinstallation and updating of LinuxMint.

Now, concerning your previous post, having a FAT32 is no problem at all. The restriction comes rather from the fact that a hard drive can't have more than 4 primary partitions, or 3 primary partitions plus some 24 logical (extended) partitions. You can use logical partitions for files storage of even swap exchange but if you want to boot from it, it has to be a primary partition. Looking at the gparted snapshot you provided, it looks like you already have a full hand there.

I guess I didn't pay close enough attention to my partitioning scheme when I installed Mint before. After I post this message I am going to copy my /home directory and a few other items like my Thunderbird email profile into the LinWin partition. When I reformat I am going with a little simpler setup that will let me have a FAT32 partition for Win98. Actually for as little as I use Windows since I've got two of my most key Windows apps running well in WINE I may just expand the Windows partition and create a logical partition for LinWin. (memo to self: Primary, Extended, Logical.....)

Personnally, I had to get rid of the hidden system restoration partition in order to have 3 booting primary partitions. There should be some other ways besides using USB or SD boots but I don't know the matter well enough to know.

My Lenovo had some of those hidden partitions originally but when I put the new 500GB drive in there I just went with clean installs of Windows and Linux. I have the factory CD's from IBM/Lenovo but am unlikely to use them as they would only install Windows XP Pro.

Final note to Roken, mychance, lmintnewb and even Casey . (aside to Casey: The question was at the very end of that long "roman"

Any suggestions on solving any of the above issues????

Thanks for the help. I didn't fix the problem, but I think I've got it solved and will eventually end up with the system I wanted in the first place.

krusty

[StanTheMan]

As for the boot loaders display list at start up , Mint and any Grub2 install has a file /etc/grub.d which constructs the boot list when " update-grub " is run. This is run near the end of the install. It can also be run manually later at any time - - Terminal -- sudo update-grub . This crates the actual boot list at /boot/grub/grub.cfg .
This constructed list alwas shows one line for the main Mint boot , annother line for "safe recovery ", and a line for memtest.
Also Windows menu entry includes a line " chainloader +1 " which looks for the Windows partition with its own boot flag (on the drive that BIOS is set to look for, normally the Masterr drive.)
Also, if there is a Windows system recovery partition , this will show up in a line in the boot list (don't boot that one unless you want to format C: ).
There is a way to edit grub2 to hide these unnecessary listings, but the editing process is complicated.

[mychance]

I tried this. I burned the .iso onto a CD and booted. The screen says "Welcome to GRUB" or some such and then there's a menu with about 8-10 options. I tried several including the one about looping and all I got was a flashing cursor in the upper left corner of my screen and some hard disk activity but nothing else. I waited several minutes before rebooting again and getting the same result with other scan options. I also downloaded and installed the Windows version which installs on the hard drive and becomes active upon reboot. This gave me more results but none could find my active Linux installation.

Well, it looks like the piece of cake is harder to swallow than I expected I downloaded the iso myself, booted with it and could do what I wanted... It appears I must have used something else that Supergrub without knowing it, even if I have labelled it so on the my rescue CD. Here is what I see when I boot with it:

Grub.png

I simply choose the first entry (Ubuntu - on which Mint is based) and Mint starts up with more verbose than usual but ends up on both feet. I have tried to upload the iso but even though the file is very small (1.4 mgs), it would not allow me to do so. I will make some search in order to see where I could find it again. I often mess up with my mbr with the frequent installations I make on my computers and this small utility has been a life saver on MANY occasions

[AlbertP]

The upload is limited to some file types, Clem has to add ISO to this if you want to upload them.

[lmintnewb]

For one thing.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/17787/cl ... boot-menu/

For another, read through some of those links I posted. One/some of them are about fixing the win 7 mbr. If it's messed up you have to fix it. Reinstalling grub won't magically repair your win 7 boatloader +mbr

[krustybaguette]

For one thing.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/17787/cl ... boot-menu/

For another, read through some of those links I posted. One/some of them are about fixing the win 7 mbr. If it's messed up you have to fix it. Reinstalling grub won't magically repair your win 7 boatloader +mbr

My issue seems to be solved now. Supergrub didn't work, sorry mychance, and other suggestions had to do with configuring grub not getting it to appear upon boot. I had wondered whether I could use the Windows bootloader and add LM to it. Didn't explore that option. I ended up wiping out all my partitions except Win7 and the Win bootloader. I created a small FAT32 at /dev/sda3. I left /dev/sda4 (extended) alone and installed LM10 into a 75GB logical partition there. Presto, changeo when I rebooted I had grub back. Last night's reinstall left me without grub so I re-reinstalled this AM and used advanced partitioning during the install whereas last night I used gparted to pre-configure several partitions. This time I simply allocated 75 GB of the unallocated space for the new install and it worked.

Now I have to get all my Linux stuff back. I need to find the repositories that include later versions that what is currently on Software Update for WINE, Thunderbird, and some others. Perhaps I'll just wait until LM11 is released any day now. I assume there would be later versions of these programs in the upgraded repositories

[AlbertP]

I had wondered whether I could use the Windows bootloader and add LM to it.

You can install Grub into a partition's boot sector and instruct the BCD bootloader to load Grub, but it's not quite easy and I don't know how. Plus, you can't load Win 7 through Grub anymore: Grub loads BCD again to load Windows, but BCD loads Grub again.

[lmintnewb]

It's covered in one of the links I posted. So is how to repair the win 7 bootloader/mbr I think. Was one of the reasons I took da time to post it for him.

Oh well ... appears he sorted thangs out. So all's well that ends well I guess. That link above explains how to clean up old kernels and get rid of their entries in the grub menu. Those old entries/kernels aren't a bad idea to keep around for awhile imo. In case the new kernel causes problems. Couldn't hurt to make sure everything is running well with the new before you nix the older one. etc.

Know beyond doubt it works. Actually used it meself.

[krustybaguette]

Hello all
I have a complex problem involving all the items mentioned in thread title. Start with system details:

Lenovo X60 (not tablet) with X6 dock; 3GB RAM; 500GB hdd partitioned for dual boot; BIOS permits USB boot of hdd, CD, as well as a second hdd in an adapter which replaces the DVD RAM in dock.

I have been running a dual boot Win7-32bit Mint10 system for a month or so and obtained the adapter for second hard during the Mint Update process? If so is there any reason to keep listing the older version?
--snipped for clarity--
Up to this point I still have a working Linux Mint10 system but when I tried to boot into Windows7 recently I ran into the dreaded BSOD. (I love how they put about twelve lines of text on the screen and give you about 7 second to try to read --more snipping--
What I AM worried about is: If I boot from my Windows7 install CD and attempt to do a 'repair install' or whatever MS calls it will my Linux installation be affected? When I installed Windows 7 on the 500GB drive as a fresh install followed
--more snipping--
krusty

@lmintnewb

I noted your followup post after I had done all my reinstalls, which was after trying for a couple of days to fix the broken setup. Your links in your original posts were not helpful but that was because my post was misleading! Between the time I made that original post and when I saw your reply I had done a reinstall of Windows7. The result was I could only boot into Windows. As I understand it the reinstall overwrote grub???? not 100% sure about that as I thought I had a separate /boot partition that was only for Linux.
Anyway, my fear about damaging my LM10 installation was realized as I no longer could boot into it and apply the suggestions in the links you sent
Eventually I ended up doing a fresh install of LM10 which I'm using right now. When I got to the part about where I wanted to place the install I was a bit confused by the options but used the advanced options to create a new logical partition for LM10 and chose the first partition on the drive /dev/sda for installing grub. Do I correctly (now) understand that to be where Windows would install its bootloader...the one I couldn't fix before? And that depending upon which OS was last installed the resulting bootloader would reside in that same place?

It would seem so since the I deleted the /dev/sda3 partition with boot point /boot that I had originally intended to be for Linux. Apparently it was just sitting there doing nothing except using up one of my four primary partitions
I've been playing with various Linux distributions on and off (mostly off) since around 1997 but am finally due to some successes with WINE 1.3 able to make a 95% leap away from Windows so this "relearning experience" has been really valuable for me.
Thanks again.
kriusty

[lmintnewb]

I clarified that for other people who may find this or have similar probs. Didn't read all your most recent post. But yes, reinstalling win 7 will nix grub ... Thus you'd have to reinstall grub. Many, many, many ways to accomplish that.

Though as mentioned in those links and by other people here. Win 7 apparently has a tendency to trash grub ( presumably any other bootloader too ) on occasion. Thus why the links I posted and others suggesting using easybcd or an alternative method to handle the bootup of your comp.

Win 7 ... like most of M$'s craptasticness. Is not designed to be linux ... dual boot friendly. In fact seems like they've gone to great lengths in a bunch of their junk OS's to make it as tough as poss for people wanting to install and try out other OS's.

They might be worried once people know they can get software for free that blows the doors off of anything M$ sells. That people might start using it perhaps ? lol ...

I believe those links I posted cover anything and everything you could need to know about resolving your issues though. Regardless of what got installed first, what order and which mbr or bootloaders got trashed.

Though didn't memorize all of it. I don't have win 7, have played with it a few times. Now that I'm addicted to linux and linux Mint. Will probably never have to worry about M$ nonsense again. Yay !

Random/pointless elaboration: This situation me thinks. Emphasizes the lesson that the time to learn about multi-bootin a comp is ... BEFORE you do it, lol.

( massive face palm )*

[AlbertP]

Just to make clear. Windows 7's system partition should always be the first (primary, NTFS) partition of the disk: service pack 1 fails to install if that's not the case. I recommend to make Win 98's partition the second and format it as FAT32. Windows 98 also should be in a primary partition: DOS-based systems may fail to boot from a logical one, even with Grub as bootloader. Linux can be in every partition, primary/logical does not matter. Grub can also be everywhere on the disk, even in logical partitions but if you make its partition primary, Grub is easier to recover when it fails or is destroyed by Win7.

[Roken]

To answer your question regarding where the bootloaders are installed, you assume correctly that the Windows MBR would have been installed on /dev/sda, and this would have been overwritten by grub when you installed Linux. This is one of the reasons that general advice is to install Windows first and Linux second, since grub will usually set up the Windows boot without difficulty, whilst BCD does not reciprocate.

For future reference, if you have a similar situation where grub becomes damaged, my instructions in the other thread should work without a problem with your current set up.