(SOLVED) A Crazy install, Fix needed!!

I have an unusual problem:
First, I`m a Newbee when it comes to Linux. I have been using different Linux distros for the past 8 months. I am presently using a Zorin OS 6, dual boot with windows 7. When I went to install Zorin, I believe it put grub on my secondary hard drive. And I don`t know why it didn`t recognize my primary drive. In the install, it didn`t show the primary hard drive so I just installed it on the drive it suggested (the secondary drive). The thing is, when I would boot up the computer, it would only boot up windows and grub didn`t even pop up. I then opened up the BIOS and found out that I could choose to boot from the secondary drive. Then grub would pop up, then I could choose to boot into Zorin. Doing this worked for a little while, but after configuring the Zorin OS (which to me a couple of days), the Zorin OS now won`t boot past the login screen. It just kind of hangs and does nothing. I am running a Dell Studio 9100 with Windows & 64 bit A brand new PC. I did install the 64 bit version of Zorin OS. Do you have any thoughts on how I can fix this? I would prefer to keep windows, only because it was installed on the machine when I bought it. But I really do like the customization Linux distros(in this case Zorn). Any thoughts would be helpful... I really don`t know what`s going on. Thanks!!

Hi,

try using "Boot Repair" to sort out your problem, make sure that it installs the Grub menu to your first partition:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1895

Regards Wolfman

I did the reinstall with "Boot Repair", and now it boots from the primary drive. But when I select Zorin and try to login, it still hangs (or just does nothing). I tried to reinstall Zorin by choosing the `other` option. But so far the only thing I know is what partition to put the OS on and where to put the MBR or grub. But I am unsure what to do from this point. Do I delete the partition then install the OS on that? or is there something else I need to do to? My system is configured for raid and I installed the secondary internal hard drive as a data drive. I really don`t want to mess this up so, any help would be good. Thanks!

Hi,

did you take a look here:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2601

This might give you a better idea of how your partitions should look. Take your time reading through it!!.

Let us know if you have further questions.

Regards Wolfman

I did take a look over the whole tutorial you poated, but what I want to do is keep windows and re install Zorin. Right now the system boots into grub and I can select either Zorin or windows. My main issue is that when I select Zorin and login it just stops. I can still navigate around the interface and activate some of the icons, it just doesn`t log me in. It just says "Loging In" and does nothing. Now I was looking around the forum last night and seen something that might suggest that my video card might have something to do with it. I did type some code in the terminal, then rebooted and was able to login to Zorin, but that was only once. Also the code, I be leave was suppose to go into some text file, not just entered in the terminal.
When I read your tutorial, I think it said somethine about reinstalling the OS from /home. That by doing that it would save all the settings. How do I go about re installing it from /home??
Sorry for being such a pain.

As I said in my notes above, I did replace a secondary drive that was purchased with my computer with another drive of the same size, but of a different model. This may be causing a problem with the RAID Array. My computer is a new Dell Studio 9100 and when I bought it it had a pre-installed secondary hard drive, which I replaced with a Western Digital 500GB hard drive. How can I diagnose/fix/repair the RAID Array? When I first install Zorin I used the installer on the disk and it didn`t recognize the primary hard drive- but it did on the secondary drive. So that is where I installed it on. From that point in order to get to grub, I had to change the boot order, to the secondary drive. The MBR was still on the primary drive, but also on the secondary drive (look at my screenshots above). This worked ok for a few days, but I have now been running into problems getting Zorin to log me in. Sometimes it just sits there and does nothing, or like last night, I was able to login a couple of times. I really don`t know what is going on but the install wasn`t what I wanted. And I really don`t want to reinstall Zorin again if I don`t have to. But if the RAID Array is what is giving me the problem, is there any way I can fix that?

Well, I did what you said. Nothing changed. So I did what I didn`t want to do and that was re-install Zorin. But when I deleted the partitions, It wouldn`t boot at all. I tried EasyBCD, to try to get the windows boot loader back. That didn`t work. I used my windows rescue disk and tried to manually type in the bootrec commands, and that didn`t work. So I just re-installed Zorin. And it would only install grub on my secondary drive. It didn`t even recognize the primary drive. So, after reinstalling Zorin I at least got a "working" boot manager (grub) so I can use both OS`s. But Now I have to reconfigure Zorin. Thanks for your help anyways. I haven`t a clue what the heck went wrong and I have no idea why I can`t put a MBR on my primary drive. What I did have to do is change the boot device order so that it would boot grub on my secondary drive.
What a mess....thanks you your help guys

Hi,

although not fully solved I have marked it as such, I hope that is okay with you, if you have further questions you can post them anytime!!.

Regards Wolfman