>From what you are saying we know the BIOS boot system is working. We know the HDD boot system is not working. Often this is becuase of a wreaked MBR - so first off reload the MBR.
In DOS this use to be done with the FDISK command which IMHO is a STUPID place to put it! I have no idea how this is done in Linux nor Windows because I have not needed to do this since I was setting up multiboot machines. Now there is a FAQ or MINI FAW on multi boot machines and they fully go through how to do this using LILO. But GRUB should be using the same underlying system. Booting is booting regardless of the boot manager. So read the FAQ. Next check that the MBR is intact - and likely it is not - then you will need to know where the boot records for _each_ of the operating systems you want are located. Last I did this I installed about 5 operating systems...then never ran multiboot on the machine! But I did install a VM and you _can_ ask the VM to boot from a boot record. You will need to use a physical read from the drive. This means you are not mounting it. You are accessing it as a device. Use "dd" SO the boot sequence is: The BIOS reads the MBR and does a "JMP" to the boot code. This boot code is the multiboot manager in your case (and in other cases the actual operating system boot manager) loaded into memory. At that point you will select an operating system and the boot manager will read the os boot record and then "JMP" to the code of the operating system boot manager which will take over and kick out GRUB or whatever multiboot manager you used. If its linux it the operting system loaded will create a virtual disk in memory which will contain non code device drivers. This has to MATCH the version of the OS boot manager and you _may_ need to rebuild it which is very easy: read up on initrd and mkinitrd (but I see its not in my lastest linux installation). Your system may not use it.. but if it does it can be a hard to find glitch and you will get a system which will not boot! I very much doubt you have a problem with initrd SO lets go back to the GRUB stage. Grub gets loaded. It needs to know where the main boot record is for each operating system installed. These things often fight with each other. Windows was famous for overwriting the boot records of anything else in the system. So what you needed to do was list the boot record for the specific OS in question and store it in a file where GRUB (or any other boot manager) could access it. I remember now... you use "dd" for this. Then you tell your boot loader in which file each operating system boot record is stored and your name for that operating system. Finally if necessary you point the main MBR for the disk to where grub's boot sector is and you _can_ use dd to do this... I have. But its been more than a decade. One question I would ask: Have you considered using a virtual machine instead of multiboot? BTW it should make no difference that you are using a lap top. ------------- I re-read your email. It is possible that the partitions on the disk were wreaked. This would also explain it. What you _can_ do is check your partition tables before and after you attempt to install Linux. On Mon, Sep 30, 2013 at 11:50:46PM -0600, Joe Shuttleworth wrote: > I was able to boot up CrunchBang today with the System Rescue CD, but not > Windows. CrunchBang seems to be working ok now.Is it alright to run the 32 > bit version on a 64 bit Intel laptop? > > I tried to reinstall grub in the MBR: > root@sysresccd /root % grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/custom /dev/sda > > and got this message > > root@sysresccd /root % /dev/sda does not have any corresponding BIOS drive > > I was hoping to do a clean install, from what I've read Windows will only let > me shrink the partition to half and I don't want to leave it with 300 G. > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Chris" <gafu...@netscape.net> > To: "CLUG General" <clug-talk@clug.ca> > Sent: Monday, September 30, 2013 6:38:40 PM > Subject: Re: [clug-talk] Computer not booting > > Hi Joe, > > Sorry you're having problems with your dual boot setup. I've never > tried crunchbang in a dual boot set up. I wonder how well it plays with > windows, especially with an EFI drive. I can tell you Ubuntu works well > with Windows 7. In theory, crunchbang should work fine. If I were in > your shoes I'd do the following: > > 1) Clean install windows 7. Allow windows to partition the drive the > way it wants. This usually means 3 partitions, including a 300MB boot > partition and a 20 GB or so recovery partition in addition to the main. > > 2)Shrink main windows partition (not the boot or recovery) from within > windows. > > 3)make windows recovery CD (just in case) > > 3)Install Crunchbang on free space. Allow Crunchbang to auto partition > the drive (making sure not to touch the windows stuff). Don't do manual > partitioning here. > > You shouldn't really need to do anything else. > > Good luck. > > Chris > > On 13-09-29 03:47 PM, Joe Shuttleworth wrote: > > I'm having trouble with my computer not booting and was wondering if > > someone would be able to help. I have a laptop that was working fine > > yesterday morning: Acer Aspire5742z 64 bit. I partitioned the hard drive > > and installed Windows 7 in the first partition and Linux in 3 other > > partitions: / /home and swap. After I installed Windows everything seemed > > ok and I did some updates and shut things down. I latter installed > > CrunchBang Waldorf. The Linux install didn't go well: I couldn't use any of > > the menu to access anything in CrunchBang, all I got was "failed to execute > > child process (input/output error). I rebooted and the computer died. I > > can't boot into either OS, I can't even boot the System Recovery CD that I > > have. > > > > I'm hoping someone will have some incite into this. I don't know how much > > is hardware or software related. I installed Grub in the MBR. I don't know > > if that would cause the problem. > > > > > > Thanks for any help. > > > > Joe > > > > _______________________________________________ > > clug-talk mailing list > > clug-talk@clug.ca > > http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca > > Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) > > **Please remove these lines when replying > > > _______________________________________________ > clug-talk mailing list > clug-talk@clug.ca > http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca > Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) > **Please remove these lines when replying > > _______________________________________________ > clug-talk mailing list > clug-talk@clug.ca > http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca > Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) > **Please remove these lines when replying _______________________________________________ clug-talk mailing list clug-talk@clug.ca http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) **Please remove these lines when replying
