[RESOLVED] Triple Linux Boot Problem

My PC has been running successfully with Windows XP, Windows 7, SolydX and PCLinuxOS installed. The Windows 7 bootmanager was configured for the linux distros, using EasyBCD 2.2

I have recently added Zorin 6.4, again using EasyBCD to install the grub bootloader. Although Zorin appears in the bootmanager menu list, whenever I try to boot it, I get SloydX. The other linux distros boot correctly.

I understand that PCLinuxOS uses Grub (legacy), whereas both SolydX and Zorin use Grub2. Does this mean I can't boot two Grub2 distros using this method.

If so what is the alternative.

I would like to be able to have easy access to all three distros, because I have not yet decided which one to use in the long term.

HJi charmin,

use "Boot Repair" to fix the bootloader, download an ISO and create a bootable disk and you can keep it for future use, I recommend it!:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

http://sourceforge.net/projects/boot-repair/

Regards Wolfman

Could you launch into one of your GNU/Linux distributions and show us a screenshot of Gparted? Are all OS's on one hard drive or several? Do your OS's (forget about Zorin for the moment) reside on 'Primary' partitions? If so this could be your problem as the maximum number is 4 - always best to add additional OS's in an 'Extended' partition!

Hi Swarfendor437

See below, details of the file system of the hard disk containing my three linux distributions. It would appear that they are all inside an Extended Partition.

Partition-----File System------Mount Point------Label------------Size

/dev/sda1------ntfs---------------------------DVD Files-----106.61 GiB
unallocated------------------unallocated--------------------1019.75 MiB
/dev/sda2-------ntfs-----------------------WIN XP PRO2-------9.41 GiB
/dev/sda3-------ntfs-------------------------Windows 7-------23.19 GiB
/dev/sda4-----------extended----------------------------------183.66 GiB
--/dev/sda5---ext4------------/boot--------------------------635.15 MiB
--/dev/sda6---Linux-swap-----------------------------------------3.98 GiB
--/dev/sda7 ---ext4------------/--------------SolydX-------------19.07 GiB
--/dev/sda8 ---ext4------------/home-----------------------------38.42 GiB
--/dev/sda9 ---ext4------------/boot-----------------------------698.11 MiB
--/dev/sda10--Linux-swap-----------------------------------------3.90 GiB
--/dev/sda11--ext4-------------/ --------------PCLinuxOS---------19.53 GiB
--/dev/sda12--ext4------------/home-----------------------------39.06 GiB
--/dev/sda13--ext4-------------/boot-----------------------------667.00 MiB
--/dev/sda14--Linux-swap------------------------------------------3.72 GiB
--/dev/sda15--ext4-------------/ --------------Zorin OS-------------617.69 Gib
--/dev/sda16--ext4-------------/home -----------------------------36.32 GiB
Unallocated---------------------------------------------------------142.91 GiB


I have tried to add zorin boot information into the pclinuxos "menu.lst" file. I can get the menu item to appear but I cant find the appropriate info from the zorin "grub.cfg" file to boot it. Any ideas?

Charmin

Hi charmin, looking at your Hard Drive layout you have a lot of '/boot' partitions - the only time I have used '/boot' was setting up Zorin on a works Asus eee901 pc which had a very tiny SSD split in two - a first partition of 3.6 Gb and a second one of 6.4 - I put '/boot' of 512 Mb on 1, then '/home' on first partition, with the remaining 6.4 Gb partition as '/'. (You could not do that with XP!).

When you installed Zorin did you tell it to put GRUB on sda1? Because that is what I would have selected. What concerns me is that you have an 'unallocated' partition in the middle of all your NTFS partitions which I don't think will help. I did have an issue once where an earlier version of Zorin I had installed alongside PearOS 3 got lost in the boot manager but that was down to installing Pear automatically alongside Zorin as both were based on Ubuntu. I always prefer the manual approach. I have never had the need to use /boot to put more than one GNU/Linux distribution on a drive or multiple drives.

Hi,

your bootloader should be on dev/sda1 but yours is on dev/sda13?.

Did you try Boot Repair?. (See previous post above).

Regards Wolfman

Hi Wolfman,

I have downloaded Boot Repair, but not run it yet.

Is Boot Repair compatible with using EasyBCD 2.2 to setup my system?

Charmin

hi,

it states here (see link below) that it can do anything so I suppose that it is compatible with Boot Repair, you can try running both but you must make sure that the bootlaoder gets loaded to the normal boot partition which is at the very beginning of your partition layout!.

http://neosmart.net/EasyBCD/

My partition layout is shown in the pic below and when I installed Linux, I choose the partition dev/sda1 for my bootloader which is also where Windows MBR (Master Boot Record) resides.


See also:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2601

Regards Wolfman

Hi Wolfman,

I don't know if it is relevant to the current discussion but I have three hard discs on my system. Disc 1 contains two NTFS partitions, including "C". Disc 2 contains further NTFS partitions and disc 3 is the one I posted the details about.

Charmin

Hi charmin,

afaik; the MBR should be on the very first drive which is set as "Master", the other 2 HDD's are normally slaves, MBR should be on dev/sda1 of the "Master" HDD!.
It should be on dev/sda (the master drive) and then on partition dev/sda1.

Regards Wolfman

Depending on how versatile your BIOS is, you should place GRUB on the drive that GNU/Linux is residing on. On my rig I too have three hard drives. For a 'headache free' multi-hard drive, mutli-os boot I would normally remove the power cables to the two windows partitions and install GRUB on the hard drive that has the GNU/Linux, reboot into the new install then update with:

Code:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Then shut down the machne, reconnect the two NTFS drives, reboot into the new GNU/Linux system, open a terminal and enter:

Code:

sudo update-grub

This should then pick up the other two partitions and if any are bootable, enter them into the GRUB menu. I then choose to boot from the GNU/Linux drive each time by making it the first to boot!

If installing many OS's on one drive then I would follow Wolfman's guidelines of sda1.

Hi Swarfender437 and Wolfman

Thank you for all your comments and advice, but I think I have solved my problem.

Instead of using the Windows 7 Boot Manager and EasyBCD to boot directly into individual Linux distributions, I booted into one (SolydX), installed and ran "Grub Customizer". This enabled me to include Zorin and PCLinuxOS in the SolydX boot menu. I didn't have to worry where the separate bootloaders were installed and means I can add as many other distros as my hard disk will take.

This has been an interesting investigation and I have learnt a lot about grub and bootloaders.

Once again thanks for your help.

Hi charmin, will mark your thread as [RESOLVED]!