# Linux Mint Wont Boot?



## MichaelAOlson (Mar 4, 2013)

Hey, I tried installing Linux Mint 15 "Olivia" with Cinnamon 1.8 from a live CD on a brand new harddrive, creating a 100GB partition for the / directory, 200GB for the /home directory, and a 10GB swap directory. After installing and restarting my computer, it wouldn't boot from the harddrive, skipping it and booted from my other HDD with Windows 7 on it. I changed the boot-order in the BIOS so the Linux partition should have booted first. I have a feeling there are a lack of drivers for my system...

Intel 4670K -i5 Haswell @3.4Ghz CPU
nVidia GeForce GTX 770 2GB GDDR5 Graphics Card
Sabertooth Z87 Motherboard
Corsair CTX 750M PSU
Western Digital 500GB Mainstream HDD
Sandisk 128GB SSD (Windows 7)
HP dvd1260 DVD Writer/Reader


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## mtzlplex (Aug 5, 2002)

I just had a similar problem(except I am trying to boot "Olivia" from a usb drive) today with "Olivia", and have spent the last couple of hours trying to rectify it without success. Just to let you know, you`re not alone.


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## mtzlplex (Aug 5, 2002)

After spending at least 5 hours on this, I finally got my external sata hd to boot "Olivia". I ended up starting from scratch, formating the external hd ext4, then reinstalling "Olivia" on the whole drive, just the one whole partition, then before I did anything else, I reinstalled Grub using the live cd. After a couple of reboots, it took. With your situation not being the same as mine, this may no be of any help to you, but I thought I`d let you know what worked for me. I`m pretty sure there is a little glitch in "Olivia" as far as the boot is concerned, all you have to do is research online, and there are plenty of people having problems like this with Olivia. Here is wishing you luck.


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## mtzlplex (Aug 5, 2002)

Just ran across this, don`t know if it can be of assistance with your problem. It is a large dl, almost 500mb, and I haven`t tried it because I am now able to boot. But I did dl it for future use. It is called "Boot Repair", and someone on the Linux Mint forum used it to be able to boot(I know it says Ubuntu, but they said it worked on Mint for them) https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair found here


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## MichaelAOlson (Mar 4, 2013)

Hey this looks great, I might try it, but I am currently running Linux Mint 14 stable, do you think Olivia is worth the try? The only change i've seen is a newer version of Cinnamon and a newer login screen. Does it run faster/utilize resources more efficiently? Maybe it is more compatible with software? I'm not sold on it after the boot issue. 

Another concern, Linux Mint uses some Ubuntu resources, and DotA 2 through the Linux Steam Store requires Ubuntu 12.04 or higher. I couldn't get DotA 2 to run on Linux Mint 14, do you think it would run in 15?


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## mtzlplex (Aug 5, 2002)

Just an opinion, if you have 14 running stable and are happy with it, I would leave it. You never know about that grub boot loader in Olivia, might boot, might not. I have my boot repair disk on hand for when it doesn`t. But if it`s a continuous hastle with booting it, I`ll drop it, and go back to my old time standard "Slacko Puppy". I`m not a gamer, so can`t help you with your questions about DotA2, but a guess would be if it wont run in 14, probably wont run in 15.


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## saikee (Jun 11, 2004)

I don't think the drivers have anything to do with booting a Linux.

The boot loader's responsibility is to load the kernel. Once the kernel is in memory then the drivers are selected as per dectected hardware. By such time Grub has buggered off and finished its task. So when the OP said won't boot from the hard drive it is Grub not booting up the specified hard disk as the OP seems to have the SSD booted up with a Win7.

Therefore the question has to be asked is when Mint was installed was Grub instructed to go to the right hard disk? The evidence suggests it did.

Lets say the OP has told the Bios to boot up the hard disk first (and the SSD 2nd) so the WD 500Gb hard disk was the installed disk and Grub should be in its MBR (the 1st 512 byte of the WD 500Gb disk). Thereafter the disk order should not be changed if Mint is to be bootable.

If the OP switches back the SSD and got Win7 booted up as the 1st boot disk the not finding Mint is normal. The OP only has an error if the WD 500Gb hard disk is booted as the first boot disk but Mint does not show up.

The OP description suggests the Win7 MBR in the SSD has been preserved and not changed so Grub was not there. To boot Mint Grub must be loaded.

So what exactly is the booting problem?

Possible cures

(1) OP keeps switching the disk order with the Bios to multi boot (no need to do anything if the two systems are bootable this way)
(2) OP can instruct Grub can to switch the disk order on-the-fly during booting (amend Grub configuration file by adding two extra lines, using command drivemap)

```
drivemap (hd0) (hd1)
drivemap (hd1) (hd0)
```
The above two line inside /boot/grub/grub.cfg will intercepts any Bios call to disk0 and swaps it with disk1 to enable the user to chop off his hands as there shall be no need for him to touch the Bios again.
(3) Win7 bootmgr can be made to boot Linux Mint. (3 to 5 times more work than Cure #(2) above, for details see Task E5 of Just booting tips in my signature as Vista, Win7 & Win8 use the same bootloader bootmgr).


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## crjdriver (Jan 2, 2001)

Did you turn off secure boot in the bios? See this from the release notes for mint;


> If your system is using secureBoot, turn it off.


Failure to do this will result in just what you have experienced.


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## MichaelAOlson (Mar 4, 2013)

What exactly does secure boot do from the BIOS? I like the idea of using the Windows boot-loader instead of GRUB, as I prefer it to boot into Windows 7 after like 10 seconds when I press the power button and leave the room. The new comments have inspired me to try to get Linux Mint 15 working again, right now i'm settling for Mint 14. Why settle?


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## saikee (Jun 11, 2004)

As a security provision every Mobo would have a function in the Bios to prevent others from changing at least the booting order or some parts of the booting procedure. This helps one's PC from being changed without one's permission. If this security is switched on the Bios will not implement any change to the booting procedure and so the original booting routine is repeated again.

The last time I tried with the Windows boot loader bootmgr, for booting 100+ LInux I found it failed on Linus distros installed on the disk other than the one with Windows (and so with bootmgr) whereas the LInux distros in the same disk as Windows all work happliy. It may be just a bug or M$ has no intention of supporting Oses in multi disk environment. I didn't spend time to investigate further but accept that this fault might have been rectified by now. The use of GUID number, same as UUID number used by LInux, is supposed to do away with identifying the partition without knowing its partition number or which disk it comes from. However in the hardware level the Bios still identifies/assigns a number for each partition and disk it finds when reading the partition table of every hard disk.

To get Vista/Win7/Win8 bootmgr to boot a foreign system one must

(a) copy the the first 512 byte of the partition contain the foreign system into the partition containing bootmgr. This is because a M$ systems does support and therefore unable to read a foreign system. The first 512 bytes are copied in binary form using the Linux/Unix command dd. In other word M$ asks the user to hand over the source of the foreign OS on a plate and does not bother go out to find it.
(b) A GUID number, unique for a partition, has to be generated by command bcdedit.exe (available from Windows installation DVD when running Command Prompt)
(c) Using bcdedit.exe to include the LInux and specify its booting position.

Some of if not all of the above extra work can be achieved in Windows with a free software called EasyBCD and that is most users go for. It is quicker to install EasyBCD than reading the manual of bcdedit.exe which is available in Windows Command Prompt with "bcdedit /?"

LInux boot loader Grub is much more powerful and can fire up any Dos, Win2k, Xp, Vista, Win7 or Win8, say installed in disk 1, partition 2, by just three lines of commands in its configuration file /boot/grub/grub.cfg

```
menuentry "My Windows in disk1 partition 2" {
set root (hd1,2)
chainloader +1
}
```
This code is automatically included by any Linux if installed in a PC already haing a MS Windows. The above commands also inform us that LInux does not necessarily knows what version it boots but the commands will always work because they just ask Grub to pass the control to the M$ boot loader which can be NTLDR for Win2k/Xp or bootmgr for Vista/Win7/Win8. The same set of commands can boot any installed operating system in a PC, be it a Linux, BSD or Solaris changing just the title enclosed between quotes in the menuentry line and the disk and partition numbers.

When it comes to booting there is nothing simpler or more powerful than Grub.

Lastly the OP can install Mint 15 in addition to MInt 14 already there. Unlike a MS Windows Linux is design to coexist with all install operating system in a PC. The same command booting the 2nd OS can be used to boot the next 100 systems.


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## crjdriver (Jan 2, 2001)

> As a security provision every Mobo would have a function in the Bios to prevent others from changing at least the booting order or some parts of the booting procedure


This is not correct. It is not every mb; it is the mb with uefi and not bios. UEFI is what replaced bios; on mb with uefi and secure boot, there is no bios. Generally this is used on all newer mb; with intel, it is on most of the z68 boards, all of the z77 and z87 boards [to my knowledge]

What it does is prevent you from booting a different os than what it came with or what it was designed for ie win8.

Just turn off secure boot in the bios as instructed by the linux release notes [If you want it to work]



> The new comments have inspired me to try to get Linux Mint 15 working again, right now i'm settling for Mint 14.


FWIW I just went back to mint 14; 15 was buggy at best with the login window/app crashing repeatedly. About every third or forth time I would pw ON, the login app would crash and I would have to restart. No problems at all with 14.


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## saikee (Jun 11, 2004)

crjdriver,

I believe before UEFI mobo was invented most Bios could have a password activated to prevent an alteration to the Bios setting, thereby indirectly protecting the booting process from being changed. If the booting process is not protected this way and anyone can slip in a Windows or LInux installation CD/DVD to boot up the PC then the existing hard disks can be wiped clean by any Windows or Linux installer.

May be I misunderstood your definition of secure boot.

It is also relevant that a LInux installer is just a computer program that even if instructed correctly can still fail with bugs. Not able to fire up after an installation is one of the most common faults for many LInux installers.


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## crjdriver (Jan 2, 2001)

Bios did have a pw to access the bios and some bios even had a jumper to prevent writing to the bios. Secure boot is something new; it is part of uefi and has replaced bios. Here is a ms article explaining uefi and what it does.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/what-uefi


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