SagaciousKJB
September 9th, 2016, 06:25 PM
!!!!Here's a video that shows exactly what is happening!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcVQjXI5rmo
This is a very interesting problem, and I don't really know where the issue and solution is going to end up being, so I am putting it in this forum for now since it seems like it will have the broadest range of expertise that may have ran into this issue...
So I'll try to be brief but descriptive...
What I am trying to do...
Dual boot Ubuntu 14.04.5 and Windows 7 using GRUB 2 on an older ( no UEFI ) DFI LP JR 790GX-M2RS motherboard.
What I have done...
Installed Ubuntu 14.04.5 onto a SATA HDD, configured GRUB to boot off of it
Removed Ubuntu HDD from computer, inserted IDE HDD and installed Windows 7 on it
Used Super Grub Disc to boot back into Ubuntu 14.04.5 after re-inserting Ubuntu HDD
Used Boot Repair to update Grub, adding Windows 7 to the menu
What happened...
Everything went smoothly at first. Windows booted up from the GRUB configuration menu as did Ubuntu, and there were no problems, and much rejoice was had as this hasn't been my experience before.
...then a few days later...
The old problem came back. When I tried to boot Windows from the GRUB menu, instead of the "Starting Windows" loading screen, I was simply presented with a perpetually blinking cursor in the upper left hand corner of a blank screen. Interesting sidenote, Ctrl Alt + Del would not reboot the computer at this point as it would at almost any other stage during the boot process.
The odd quirky bit I have found that "fixes" it...
So I don't remember quite when I discovered it, but during my first forays into dual-booting I had this very problem, and I had left the Windows installation CD in the drive. So the computer would see it and go "Press any key to boot..." but I would just simply not press any key, let GRUB load, and in those instances the Windows loader would work. However, if I took that CD out, and booted directly to the hard-drive, the Windows loader behaved with the blinking cursor issue I mentioned.
Now it's important to clarify, this last time I configured it all, I paid special attention to having no CD in the drive, but leaving the boot priority in my motherboard as CD > Hard Drive. In the past I theorized that perhaps setting it back to Hard-drive > CD might have made things wonky or something, so I made sure to leave the boot configuration alone this time, made sure no CD was in the drive, and when Windows loaded with that configuration I thought that was the end of that issue.
The blinking cursor nonsense happened again maybe the second or third time I tried booting Windows from grub, so remembering my old solution, I put Super Grub Disc into the CD drive and chose "Detect all OS" option, it found "Windows Vista bootmgr" and I selected that, and Windows started just fine. This might seem to suggest that it's a problem with the grub configuration file, but as I said, I don't even need to actually boot from a CD, just simply have a bootable CD in the drive as I turn the computer on and then choose to boot first hard disk, and the same grub configuration will magically work whereas if I started the computer with no CD in the drive it would give me the blinking cursor.
So... What the heck is going on? I am kind of starting to suspect it is not software related at all, and perhaps something to do with my BIOS, or maybe something is happening to the Windows installation after a few times booting up? I am pretty sure I can actually rule out configuration issues with GRUB, but perhaps there's some other caveat to the way it's installed I am not understanding. I did pretty much let Boot Repair do all the work.
I used Boot Repair to do a Boot Info Summary, so here's the pastebin URL to that...
http://paste.ubuntu.com/23155473/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcVQjXI5rmo
This is a very interesting problem, and I don't really know where the issue and solution is going to end up being, so I am putting it in this forum for now since it seems like it will have the broadest range of expertise that may have ran into this issue...
So I'll try to be brief but descriptive...
What I am trying to do...
Dual boot Ubuntu 14.04.5 and Windows 7 using GRUB 2 on an older ( no UEFI ) DFI LP JR 790GX-M2RS motherboard.
What I have done...
Installed Ubuntu 14.04.5 onto a SATA HDD, configured GRUB to boot off of it
Removed Ubuntu HDD from computer, inserted IDE HDD and installed Windows 7 on it
Used Super Grub Disc to boot back into Ubuntu 14.04.5 after re-inserting Ubuntu HDD
Used Boot Repair to update Grub, adding Windows 7 to the menu
What happened...
Everything went smoothly at first. Windows booted up from the GRUB configuration menu as did Ubuntu, and there were no problems, and much rejoice was had as this hasn't been my experience before.
...then a few days later...
The old problem came back. When I tried to boot Windows from the GRUB menu, instead of the "Starting Windows" loading screen, I was simply presented with a perpetually blinking cursor in the upper left hand corner of a blank screen. Interesting sidenote, Ctrl Alt + Del would not reboot the computer at this point as it would at almost any other stage during the boot process.
The odd quirky bit I have found that "fixes" it...
So I don't remember quite when I discovered it, but during my first forays into dual-booting I had this very problem, and I had left the Windows installation CD in the drive. So the computer would see it and go "Press any key to boot..." but I would just simply not press any key, let GRUB load, and in those instances the Windows loader would work. However, if I took that CD out, and booted directly to the hard-drive, the Windows loader behaved with the blinking cursor issue I mentioned.
Now it's important to clarify, this last time I configured it all, I paid special attention to having no CD in the drive, but leaving the boot priority in my motherboard as CD > Hard Drive. In the past I theorized that perhaps setting it back to Hard-drive > CD might have made things wonky or something, so I made sure to leave the boot configuration alone this time, made sure no CD was in the drive, and when Windows loaded with that configuration I thought that was the end of that issue.
The blinking cursor nonsense happened again maybe the second or third time I tried booting Windows from grub, so remembering my old solution, I put Super Grub Disc into the CD drive and chose "Detect all OS" option, it found "Windows Vista bootmgr" and I selected that, and Windows started just fine. This might seem to suggest that it's a problem with the grub configuration file, but as I said, I don't even need to actually boot from a CD, just simply have a bootable CD in the drive as I turn the computer on and then choose to boot first hard disk, and the same grub configuration will magically work whereas if I started the computer with no CD in the drive it would give me the blinking cursor.
So... What the heck is going on? I am kind of starting to suspect it is not software related at all, and perhaps something to do with my BIOS, or maybe something is happening to the Windows installation after a few times booting up? I am pretty sure I can actually rule out configuration issues with GRUB, but perhaps there's some other caveat to the way it's installed I am not understanding. I did pretty much let Boot Repair do all the work.
I used Boot Repair to do a Boot Info Summary, so here's the pastebin URL to that...
http://paste.ubuntu.com/23155473/