Booting Problems with Dual Installation on Mac 13.1

[Fridulix]

Hello world of Linux, here I am again!

I am new in Linux Mint and reported already that I had trouble to switch back to mac OS as the original partition on my iMac13.1. Cinnamon worked great in the start. Just the way back was blocked. I did all installation with a Bluetooth keyboard that was accepted from Cinnamon as well as my wireless mouse. Perhaps the crucial point was the demanded exit via return key that was not working. I switched off and restarted several times via the main On/Off. Getting forth and back to and fro mac OS meanwhile is solved via rEFInd and a wired keyboard. (If of interest: rEFInd displays even a former Windows emulated installation that was erased years ago, but perhaps formatting is still present. The macOS service tool does not see that.)

First I tried the info of hagensieker's post (Sat Oct 17, 2015 10:42 pm) and followed his solution:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y boot-repair && boot-repair.

Was no effect.

Actually with a live stick I can start Cinnamon. I prepared then a stick with downloaded Iannubuntu boot repair iso, that works obviously as a kind of start up system but ends after a while with grub troubles, declaring I am in a "Legacy Modus" , restarting in an EFI seating should activate the missed function - once started - with the live stick, the installed version does not open and the system does not boot repair stick.
I got the following info several times:

Unable to mount Linux Mint 18.1 Cinnamon 64.bit

Error mounting /dev/sdb1 at media/mint/Liux Mint 18.1 Cinnamon 64-bit: Command-line
`mount-t "iso9660"-o
"uhelper=udisks2, nodev,nosuid,uid=999, iocharset=utf8,mode=0400,dmode=0500"
"dev/sdb1" "media/mint/Linux Mint 18.1. Cinnamon 64-bit"' exited with non-zero exit status 32: mount:dev/sdb1 is already mounted or /media/mint/Linux Mint 18.1 Cinnamon 64bit busy.

That's what I have. And here I am kindly asking for advice if there is one who understands these troubles. Is there a chance to solve that story with one of the miracoulous terminal commands or is it now time to better reinstall from the live stick?

Thanks in advance and best,
Fridulix

[fabien85]

Hi,
this thread would better be in the "Installation & Boot" subforum.
Also I dont understand what your problem is. At the beginning you say that it is to boot into macOS, but then you say that it is solved via refind.

So what do you have installed at the moment, what can you boot, what can you not boot, and what do you want to boot ?

If you have refind, you do not need grub, nor boot-repair which is going to make more bad than good.
The windows entry in refind is because the windows bootloader was never erased from the EFI partition. We can fix that later on if you wish.

[Fridulix]

Hi fabien85,

and thank you very much for your reply. I am bit slow at the moment for several reasons.

Good to understand what rEFInd is doing with the erased Windows partition. To repeat my question - I still have to adapt myself to the Mint terminology as well as to the functions in system and forum - about my problem: I found the way back to Mac OS, but cannot mount no more the Linux Mint partition now. Therefore the enclosed mounting error report, which I do not understand. I tried the boot-repair afterwards, did not read about dangerous interferences with grub and others. Actually my question is if there is a chance to save the rather completed installation that not yet contains personal data with an easy replacement of a driver or whatever, or better (I may have damaged something by mixing up sudo commands with rEFInd and the boot-repair) do a re-installation of the whole system.

[fabien85]

Hi,
when you say you "cannot mount no more the Linux Mint partition", on which system are you booted ? On macOS or on the Mint live USB ?
(you wont be able to mount a linux partition from macOS)

Are you trying to mount the partition of the linux installed system or of the live USB ?
How many internal drives do you have ?
Seeing the error message

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Error mounting /dev/sdb1 at media/mint/Liux Mint 18.1 Cinnamon 64-bit: Command-line
`mount-t "iso9660"-o
"uhelper=udisks2, nodev,nosuid,uid=999, iocharset=utf8,mode=0400,dmode=0500"
"dev/sdb1" "media/mint/Linux Mint 18.1. Cinnamon 64-bit"' exited with non-zero exit status 32: mount:dev/sdb1 is already mounted or /media/mint/Linux Mint 18.1 Cinnamon 64bit busy.

It seems you are trying to mount the live USB, while being booted on the live USB. This is obviously not possible : the partition is already mounted as the system.
Please post the output of

Code: Select all

mount

When you issued boot-repair, did it give you a URL link to a boot-info report ? If so, please post it here.

If you dont have any valuable data, reinstalling is the simplest and fastest solution by far.

[asinoro]

Can you post from live usb dvd this?

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 sudo parted -l ; lsblk --sort name --output name,label,partlabel,size,fstype,mountpoint,state 

[Fridulix]

Hi again and thanks for caring,

to repeat the situation. I have (with a wired keyboard only) the option to start via rEFInd either Mac OS or a live Linux cinnamon live stick, the installation from the stick is no more mountable.

From Boot-repair I got a few days ago the following note: "Boot_Info_20180305_1445.txt" if this is number that was looked for.

The suggested terminal combinations I made from the live stick:
1. mint@mint ~ $ mount
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,nosuid,relatime,size=4040828k,nr_inodes=1010207,mode=755)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000)
tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,size=811184k,mode=755)
/dev/sdb on /cdrom type iso9660 (ro,noatime)
/dev/loop0 on /rofs type squashfs (ro,noatime)
/cow on / type overlay (rw,relatime,lowerdir=//filesystem.squashfs,upperdir=/cow/upper,workdir=/cow/work)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
tmpfs on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,size=5120k)
tmpfs on /sys/fs/cgroup type tmpfs (rw,mode=755)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,xattr,release_agent=/lib/systemd/systemd-cgroups-agent,name=systemd)
pstore on /sys/fs/pstore type pstore (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
efivarfs on /sys/firmware/efi/efivars type efivarfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/memory type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,memory)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu,cpuacct type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpu,cpuacct)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/pids type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,pids,release_agent=/run/cgmanager/agents/cgm-release-agent.pids)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpuset,clone_children)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/hugetlb type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,hugetlb,release_agent=/run/cgmanager/agents/cgm-release-agent.hugetlb)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/devices type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,devices)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/net_cls,net_prio type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,net_cls,net_prio)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/blkio type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,blkio)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,freezer)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/perf_event type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,perf_event,release_agent=/run/cgmanager/agents/cgm-release-agent.perf_event)
systemd-1 on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type autofs (rw,relatime,fd=37,pgrp=1,timeout=0,minproto=5,maxproto=5,direct)
mqueue on /dev/mqueue type mqueue (rw,relatime)
debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw,relatime)
hugetlbfs on /dev/hugepages type hugetlbfs (rw,relatime)
tracefs on /sys/kernel/debug/tracing type tracefs (rw,relatime)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw,relatime)

tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,relatime)
cgmfs on /run/cgmanager/fs type tmpfs (rw,relatime,size=100k,mode=755)
tmpfs on /run/user/999 type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,size=811184k,mode=700,uid=999,gid=999)
gvfsd-fuse on /run/user/999/gvfs type fuse.gvfsd-fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=999,group_id=999)
/dev/sdc1 on /media/mint/STOCKY type vfat

2. with the commands shared from asinoro
mint@mint ~ $ sudo parted -l ; lsblk --sort name --output name,label,partlabel,s

Model: ATA APPLE HDD ST1000 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 1000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags:

Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 20.5kB 210MB 210MB fat32 EFI System Partition boot, esp
2 210MB 500GB 500GB hfs+ FRIDU
3 500GB 501GB 650MB hfs+ Recovery HD
5 501GB 742GB 241GB ext4
6 742GB 751GB 8525MB linux-swap(v1)
4 751GB 1000GB 249GB fat32 LINUX MINT msftdata


Warning: Not all of the space available to /dev/sdb appears to be used, you can
fix the GPT to use all of the space (an extra 427392 blocks) or continue with
the current setting?
Fix/Ignore? ^C
Error: Can't have overlapping partitions.
Ignore/Cancel? ^C
Model: USB Stick 2.0 ME (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 2029MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: unknown
Disk Flags:

Model: JetFlash Transcend 8GB (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdc: 7898MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1024B 7898MB 7898MB primary fat32


lsblk: unknown column: s

I would be curious to hear your opinion about it. For me this is a bit Thanks in advance!

[asinoro]

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Can you please run the command how it is,  and the outcome to post like this not to take space and to be readable?

[fabien85]

Indeed, you have cut the last part of the command.
Put the output between code tags with the button looking like </>

There is a problem with the partition table of /dev/sdb , and the error message in your first post was related to its first partition : /dev/sdb1
Can you explain what this drive is physically ?
From the parted output we have "Model: USB Stick 2.0 ME (scsi)". Is that a USB stick or an external hard drive or something else ?
If you do not have any valuable data there, I would just reformat this device.

Also it seems you have linux installed on the main internal hard drive /dev/sda. Is it true ? Is it booting correctly or is it problematic ?
I am still not understanding what your problem is. If it's just a problem of mounting some partition, it is NOT a booting problem.

[Fridulix]

Hi again,

that story seems going to become too complicated for one who is doing his first steps in a new surrounding. I would just underline that I am still convinced that the booting problem started when using the Bluetooth keyboard for the restart of the mac OS partition from Cinnamon. For there seems not to be a really easy solution - and to save your and my time - I am going to simply erase the actual installation and start from the beginning when I have more time. I have a Linux distribution now on a small computer. That should be good for a warm up. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and my best wishes!