[Boot-Repair] Graphical tool to repair the PC boot in one click

[YannBuntu]

Your issue is with Windows.

+1
Windows8 mixed its bootloader with the bootloader od Win7, so GRUB only sees one.

I believe Boot-Repair will copy bootmgr & the BCD to your other Windows install

It won't because there are several Windows. B-R does this trick only when there is 1 Windows.

[tipiglen]

Reinstalling mint had no effect.
Still offered win7 or 'recovery environment' or mint.

Thanks again. I'll follow up Old Fred's suggestion.

Perhaps I could revert to old grub and simply create my nown menu.lst entry?

The things one does for friends....

ed

[YannBuntu]

Perhaps I could revert to old grub and simply create my nown menu.lst entry?

You can revert to GRUB Legacy via Boot-Repair --> Advanced options --> GRUB options --> GRUB Legacy , but i think you won't be able to add 2 Windows entries, because there is only 1 WIndows bootloader for both Windows.

[oldfred]

Grub legacy almost never found a valid boot stanza for Windows 7. We usually has to add to manually.

Users have installed Windows to two partitions to get two boot entries in grub. You have to move boot flag or active partition to partition where installing second version, so Windows does a full install with boot files.
I believe a user or two have either copied boot files & edited the BCD or moved boot flag to second install and run the Windows repairs to make the second Windows directly bootable. Then grub2's os-prober finds both installs, or you then could have two entries in grub legacies menu.lst.

[tipiglen]

So is there a simple workaround?

My friend's computer had (thanks to some work removing Norton and other trash) a working copy of Vista, but I thought she might have a (bit) better experience with win7, and there was an 80 gig partition going spare, so I installed win7 there, having already installed mint in case she might find it (as I do) far les frustrating than any form of *******...and to give me easy access to backing up her personal files...

After a successful win7 install, (before I restored grub using boot-repair), ******* was offering win7 and Vista, but of course no sign of mint...

Should I re-install mint (again), but this time specify a different location for bootloader during installation? Thanks in advance.

Ed

[tipiglen]

Simple partial solution:
copied Boot(folder) and bootmgr(file) from the Vista installation to the w7 installation, and then did update-grub.

Grub found both but offers them both as w7, but on different locations (sda2 and sda3)

Choosing either one leads to the ******* submenu offering a choice of w7 or vista.

I suppose if I edit /boot/grub/grub.cfg (as root) it might persist at least until someone runs update-grub....so first I'll set the default to the original (now working) vista install, run update-grub, and then edit grub.cfg.

A result of sorts, and thanks again for your comments and for the boot-repair work.

Happy Trails,
ed

[oldfred]

In Windows the BCD is what determines what to boot. You should use bcdEdit to edit the BCD files in each version of Windows to only boot that one.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...t-how-use.html

How to fix Vista/Window 7 when the boot files are missing - rebuild BCD with bcdedit
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...32&postcount=4
Some advanced BCD rebuild, Vista post #17 on:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1426103
http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBC...r+from+the+DVD

[darkomano]

From Windows Recovery prompt only two commands are needed to repair
Windows boot:

1. bootsect /nt60 all /mbr
2. bcdboot c:\windows
where c:\windows is the folder where Windows 7/8/Vista is installed.
Reboot to check if Windows 7/Vista can boot from hdd.

After that you can repair Linux/Ubuntu booting with LiveCD or use boot-repair tool.

[kansasnoob]

I just received a notification from Gert Hulselmans but I'm busy with other things, and I've been out of the grub loop for a few cycles

Here's the text:

Can you test the thing described on:

http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/boo...cript/ticket/2

Thanks,
Gert

Please feel free to PM me

[YannBuntu]

@kansasnoob: thanks for participating