Allocated Bootloader incorrectly

[AndyInMokum]

Greetings from Amsterdam. I have done something so stupid, that it is probabaly going to make you all fall about laughing. I am very new to Linux and I have on my older Fujitsu Seimens AMILO Li 3710 laptop a dual boot with Linux Mint and Linux Mint Debian Edition. I was exerimenting with Mangeia in a VM and liked it a lot. I have an old 200GB Lacie external hard drive that I used with my antiquated Mac. I reformated and partitioned it and then installed Mageia without any perceivable hitches.(Incidently, I'm extremely please with the result, even thought I am going to ask many questions). However it seems that I installed the Grub boot loader in the wrong location because I no longer see my Mint boot loader, only the Mangeia one. I have tried to boot with the Lacie disconnected and I still only get the Mangeia loader, so presumably I loaded it on the laptop. My question is going to be an obvious one. How do I rectify this? Or do I have to take the draconian approach and uninstall and start again. I feel very foolish. Please can someone help me in laguage that a newbie can understand. Many thanks.

[jkerr82508]

No-one is laughing. You are not the first to have this experience. It happens because Mageia uses Grub and the ubuntu based distros use Grub2. It is somewhat beyond my experience, but what may work is to switch to Grub2 in Mageia.

Install grub2

Code: Select all

urpmi grub2

and then access MCC -> Boot -> Set up boot system. Select Grub2 with graphical menu from the bootloader drop-down. Leave the boot device as the MBR of the boot disk, presumably /dev/sda. Complete the wizard and then re-boot.

With any luck it will have added your Mint installations to Mageia's boot menu.

If it did not, then execute as root:

Code: Select all

os-prober
update-grub2

and then re-boot.
Warning: I have switched successfully to grub2 on a Windows/Mageia dual boot. I have not tested this on a system with multiple linux OS's installed. You may prefer to wait until someone with relevant experience replies.

Jim

Edited to fix typos.

[Ken-Bergen]

In my experience Mageia writes the boot loader by default to the disk you install to be it internal or external.

What happens if you try to boot Mageia without the external drive plugged in?

[AndyInMokum]

No-one is laughing. You are not the first to have this experience. It happens because Mageia uses Grub and the ubuntu based distros use Grub2. It is somewhat beyond my experience, but what may work is to switch to Grub2 in Mageia.

Install grub2

Code: Select all

urpmi grub2

and then access MCC -> Boot -> Set up boot system. Select Grub2 with graphical menu from the bootloader drop-down. Leave the boot device as the MBR of the boot disk, presumably /dev/sda. Complete the wizard and then re-boot.

With any luck it will have added your Mint installations to Mageia's boot menu.

If it did not, then execute as root:

Code: Select all

os-prober
update-grub2

and then re-boot.
Warning: I have switched successfully to grub2 on a Windows/Mageia dual boot. I have not tested this on a system with multiple linux OS's installed. You may prefer to wait until someone with relevant experience replies.

Jim

Edited to fix typos.

Many thanks Jim and sorry I haven't replied earlier. The problem actually became quite serious. The reason why I could no longer find my Mint installation was because the installation of Mageia onto the Lacie wiped the hard drive on the laptop. I thought I was going mad and had installed it to the wrong drive. No, the partition tables were all correct. Mageia had been installed as expected to the Lacie. I unplugged the beast and rebooted - low and behold the grub boot loader had installed onto the laptop. Presumably wiping it in the process. Anyone reading this, should take it as a object lesson why we backup our stuff. Phew! To cut a long story short, I recovered everything I needed and reinstalled Mageia in VM until either I or someone else can explain why this happen. I will keep on tinkering with it in the VM until I'm confident enough to install it on my old G4 Powerbook.

[jkerr82508]

Just to be sure that I understand you correctly, you installed Mageia to the secondary, LaCie drive, but in the process the hard drive on the laptop was wiped clean, meaning that all partitions were removed, not just that the bootloader had been replaced.

I've never heard of that happening (other than due to user error) and have no idea why it would have happened.

Jim

[AndyInMokum]

Yes, that was exactly what happened. I thought I had done something really dumb like partitioning and mounting the wrong drive. No, sure enough Mageia was on the Lacie. It was when I check the main drive on the laptop in GParted I saw or didn't see Mint. I unmounted the Lacie and rebooted and low and behold the Mageia boot loader appeared. Of course it couldn't load anything as the Lacie was disconnected. Very strange indeed. I might muster up enough courage and try it again but not this week, lol!

[jerrytaff]

Thank you for the advice. I had the same problem (except that I hadn't erased my mint partition) . I hadn't twigged that Mageia was using grub. I updated to grub2, followed your instructions and now my system dual boots fine.

[jerrytaff]

Except that now, the boot menu is not the same as the one displayed in MCC, so I can't change the boot priority or add/ subtract entries.
Anyone know their way around grub2? I've been spoiled by learning to rely on GUIs like MCC

[gohlip]

It's almost a year since you first started this post.
Has anything changed since? like upgraded your Mageia, removed your Mint, etc.

I think it's better you start a new topic, list where your Mageia, Mint partitions, versions of distros, provide output of
# blkid
and let us know if you want to use Mint or Mageia bootloader to start (your choice), and if Mageia, which one, grub-l or grub2)
And restate your problem (hard to understand what you wanted to do here).

ps: sadly, I have to say I'd recommend using Mint bootloader as Mageia's grub2 is incomplete and/or not fully functional.
examples... mkrescue not working; update-grub does not catch all distro's (unless mounted).....

ps: MCC still works wonderfully, but for bootloaders, I always make sure there is only one installed (or none, but don't do that), definately not both grub-l and grub2.

[jerrytaff]

Sorry Gohlip, if I've confused you. - it wasn't me that started this thread. I only ran into this problem yesterday. I found the post helpful and responded - originally to thank jkerr82508 for the instructions, but then discovered that I couldn't use MCC to change the menu, so re-posted to let others that stumble on this problem know that it the solution presented is not complete.

I'd originally used Mint. Then added Mageia, which initially stopped me from booting Mint. I followed the advice in this thread to get access to Mint back, but clearly I had to install the Mageia Grub2, and in so doing confused MCC - it is still working with Grub. (If I uninstall grub will it switch to grub2 or will it get confused?)

My wife will also be using the PC and she is likely to find Mageia too confusing - she is only used to Windows - Whereas I started off on Mandrake 6 more years ago than I care to remember. Hence the need to get the PC to default to booting Mint. However, I worked out how to do it the old fashioned way - read the manuals (well not quite the old fashioned way; I used a screen based text editor, not vi or emacs on a VT100 terminal).

[gohlip]

Particularly since you are not the OP (original poster), it is confusing. Note the OP uses VM. Do you? It is always better to start a new post, unless you are having the exact problem as the OP.
Anyway, the following points may help.
The latest installation (by default, unless specifically instructed) will overide the other bootloaders. In your case, Mageia's grub has overiden Mint's.
Do not uninstall Mageia's grub-l unless you install grub2 before rebooting. You may not be able to boot anything if you do that. Assuming you are not familiar with either grub-l or grub2, I'd advise you do not change anything with the bootloader at this moment (Mageia's bootloader 'management', in my opinion, is er... never mind).

And...repeat....Start by stating the partitions where Mint, Mageia reside and their distro versions.
Provide input of either or both (more info will help, p l e a s e and anything else you think we should know)

Code: Select all

# blkid
# fdisk -l


If you know the Mint grub version, it may help (eg, grub 1.99, v2.0 14ubuntu3, etc), if you don't know, let us know you don't know.


ps: And do you have Mint's livecd (it will help a lot)
sadly, Mageia's livecd won't (in bootloader issues)

And...please start a new post.

[jkerr82508]

then discovered that I couldn't use MCC to change the menu

You should be able to edit the grub2 menu using grub-customizer. The package is available in the Mageia core repository.

https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Feature:Grub ... ent_status

This page may help:
http://linuxaria.com/article/change-you ... er?lang=en

Jim

[jerrytaff]

Thanks Jim,
As I said, I sorted my immediate problems out manually, but will bear this in mind for next time I need to make any changes.

[doktor5000]

Also have a look at the relevant Errata entries: https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Mageia_4_Errata#Grub2

[jerrytaff]

ok thanks. Useful info.

[doktor5000]

Please mark the thread accordingly by editing the topic of the first post and prefix it by [DONE], thanks

[Ken-Bergen]

Please mark the thread accordingly by editing the topic of the first post and prefix it by [DONE], thanks

Jerry was not the original poster so he can't do that.

Andy, the original poster has not visited here since June 11 last year so I doubt that he will.