Dual Boot Linux Mint / Vista

[domesnturf]

Was looking for some help regarding an issue that just started up with dual booting between linux mint and Vista.

Linux Mint was installed on seperate partion (x:\) and vista on (c:\). Long story short the x:\ drive was reformatted to NTFS and upon reboot the following error occurs.

GRUB Loadibng stage1.5.
GRUB loading, please wait
Error 17

I've downloaded, UBCD and have been able to go through the menu using Super Grub from the boot management tools and have Vista load to my desktop. What I would like to do is set the mbr back to the default as if Vista was the only OS installed.

Can anyone provide a little guidance on how I can restore the mbr for vista? It appears you can make default through Super GRUB but it didn't have Vista as an option, so I wasn't sure if Windows 2000, XP and 2003 would provide the same functionality and fix it.

thanks,

[StopSpazzing]

Was looking for some help regarding an issue that just started up with dual booting between linux mint and Vista.

Linux Mint was installed on seperate partion (x:\) and vista on (c:\). Long story short the x:\ drive was reformatted to NTFS and upon reboot the following error occurs.

GRUB Loadibng stage1.5.
GRUB loading, please wait
Error 17

I've downloaded, UBCD and have been able to go through the menu using Super Grub from the boot management tools and have Vista load to my desktop. What I would like to do is set the mbr back to the default as if Vista was the only OS installed.

Can anyone provide a little guidance on how I can restore the mbr for vista? It appears you can make default through Super GRUB but it didn't have Vista as an option, so I wasn't sure if Windows 2000, XP and 2003 would provide the same functionality and fix it.

thanks,

I actually boot Linux Mint 64bit AND Windows 7 64bit. So you're in luck. EDIT: You may want to take a look at this too (regarding the error 17): http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=708374

You will have to use the vista installation dvd to repair the mbr. You boot from it and select REPAIR as the option, and then it gives you options to repair your system, one of them being reinstall Vista MBR.

After Vista boots, if you are still interested in Linux Mint, then depending on the version you have installed, you have to run the grub install command to reinstall grub so you can dual boot. You will have to boot from the live CD of the version of linux mint you are using.

Linux Mint 9(latest as of this post and the version I am using): This will work for Grub2

* Boot your live CD
* Open a terminal - Applications, Accessories, Terminal.
* Determine your normal system partition - `sudo fdisk -l` (That is a lowercase L)
* If you aren't sure, run `df -Th`. Look for the correct disk size and ext3 or ext4 format.
* Mount your normal system partition:

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sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt

- Example: sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
- Note: substitue the correct partition: sda1, sdb5, etc.
- Note: GRUB 2 counts the first drive (X) as "0", but the first partition (Y) as "1"

* >>Only if you have a separate boot partition:

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sudo mount /dev/sdXY /mnt/boot

- with sdXY being your /boot partition designation.

* Reinstall GRUB 2:

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sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sdX

- Example: sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sda
- Note: Substitute the correct device - sda, sdb, etc. Do ''not'' specify a partition number.

* Unmount the partition:

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sudo umount /mnt

* Reboot.


Linux Mint 8 and below: Open Terminal and type these commands out (I am going to give you the commands and then I will explain them later):

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sudo grub
find /boot/grub/stage1
boot (hdX,X)
setup (hdX)
quit

The find command will find the "hdX,X" numbers you are looking for and you will use that and fill in the X's accordingly.

Example this is what Mine used to look like when I have Linux Mint 8 (linux being installed on same drive as windows and linux is first partition, windows was second):

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sudo grub
boot (hd0,1)
setup (hd0)
quit

[Icecube]

You can also write a new MBR with testdisk.