Hi Guys
I just installed mint 17.1 after a long holiday from linux.
Windows is on sda1 with mint intalled on sdb1. I have had much trouble getting grub to install properly, but I think I'm getting closer. Now when I boot, the grub menu won't display, but will when I have the windows cd in the drive and let it go past the point where it asks "to boot from cd press any key" If I take the win disk out of the drive I just get a blank screen.
Dual Boot with Win 7
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pfd27
Dual Boot with Win 7
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
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Mark Phelps
- Level 7
- Posts: 1869
- Joined: Mon Jun 10, 2013 4:39 pm
Re: Dual Boot with Win 7
I've found through long experience that, when you have multiple drives, it is best to have each OS, with its own boot loader, installed separately on each of the drives, such as:
1) drive 1 -- Windows with its boot loader
2) drive 2 -- Linux with its boot loader
If you installed Mint after you installed Win7 and you had the Win7 drive still connected, you likely forced the installation of GRUB to the Win7 drive -- which can, many times, stop Win7 from booting.
So, the first thing to do is disconnect the Mint drive and see if you can boot from the Win7 driver directly into Win7. If that does not work, then, with only the Win7 drive connected, reboot using the Win7 CD and run Startup Repair three times -- that's right, three times. Then, confirm you can boot directly into Win7 with only the Win7 drive connected.
The next thing to do is disconnect the Win7 drive, reconnect the Mint drive, and see if you can then boot into Mint. If you can't, you need to reinstall GRUB from the Mint install media. Instructions (although they are for Ubuntu, the process is the same for Mint) are in the link: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=224351
When that is done, remove the Mint install media and confirm you can then boot into Mint.
Now, reconnect the Win7 drive -- but CONTINUE to boot from the Mint drive. When you get to the Mint desktop, open a terminal and enter "sudo update-grub". This will regenerate the GRUB configuration file and create a new menu.
When you now reboot, you should see a GRUB menu with entries for Mint and for the Windows Loader.
1) drive 1 -- Windows with its boot loader
2) drive 2 -- Linux with its boot loader
If you installed Mint after you installed Win7 and you had the Win7 drive still connected, you likely forced the installation of GRUB to the Win7 drive -- which can, many times, stop Win7 from booting.
So, the first thing to do is disconnect the Mint drive and see if you can boot from the Win7 driver directly into Win7. If that does not work, then, with only the Win7 drive connected, reboot using the Win7 CD and run Startup Repair three times -- that's right, three times. Then, confirm you can boot directly into Win7 with only the Win7 drive connected.
The next thing to do is disconnect the Win7 drive, reconnect the Mint drive, and see if you can then boot into Mint. If you can't, you need to reinstall GRUB from the Mint install media. Instructions (although they are for Ubuntu, the process is the same for Mint) are in the link: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=224351
When that is done, remove the Mint install media and confirm you can then boot into Mint.
Now, reconnect the Win7 drive -- but CONTINUE to boot from the Mint drive. When you get to the Mint desktop, open a terminal and enter "sudo update-grub". This will regenerate the GRUB configuration file and create a new menu.
When you now reboot, you should see a GRUB menu with entries for Mint and for the Windows Loader.
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pfd27
Re: Dual Boot with Win 7
Thanks Mark
I did get it working by running boot repair, but I'll definetly try your way next time.
Rob
I did get it working by running boot repair, but I'll definetly try your way next time.
Rob