Mint 18.3 Cinnamon Dual Boot Issues with Win7

Hi Wiz...no you've got it right. Now as of this very moment, I have not plugged in the 18.3 and gone thru the drill. What I remain uncomfortable with Chris is that this notebook in the Boot process does not automatically flip to the next in the boot order. It is a manual process. How will I be able to switch to the T5 after the boot? Just shut down and reorder the sequence?
Doc
 


I suspect you are missing something between the F2 and F12 options, but without being able to sit at your elbow, it is a little hard to diagnose.

Not to worry, though, the T5 will be looked after.

We will be doing nothing in terms of blowing away nor restoring until we know that all is in working order.

You can engineer to have the USB stick with 18.3 to boot first, exit your Setup with F10 saving changes and it will reboot using the stick.

EDIT - THE BELOW LINE APPLIES TO UBUNTU, NOT LINUX MINT. Slightly different versions of the Ubiquity Installer.

Once the stick is in play, there may be an option on the way in to Install Linux Mint, or to Try LInux Mint, you choose the Try option, this will bring you into the Desktop for the install stick.

RESUMING

None of this affects your REAL install on the Toshiba.

You can then launch the Nemo File Manager from your Start Menu, and in Nemo you should be able to see the T5 with Timeshift.

If you can see that, then you are looking good. Did you want to try that?

When you are finished with the Live Session, you just shut down as normal, that is, from the Start Menu, or from the small human head/bust near the right-hand corner of your System Tray.

Cheers

Wizard
 
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Wiz...there is no 'Try' option. If I open with F2 I can only choose the order under Boot...so sorry you can't see it.

In the Setup Utility, across the top are Main, Security, Power Management, Advanced, Boot and Exit. Under the Advanced is Boot Speed: Execute-Disable Bit Capability: Beep Sound: USB Legacy Emulation: and System Configuration.

Under System Configuration are: PCI LAN (Enabled); Internal Pointing Device (Enabled); Web Camera:(Enabled); SATA Controller Mode (AHCI); Power On Display (Auto-Selected). ...that's it.

O.K., I shut down and restarted with the 18.3 thumb drive inserted. F2 shows:
1. HDD/SSD (Toshiba MQ01ABF032(S2)
2. FDD (Blank)
3. USB (SMI USB DISK)
4. CD/DVD (New internal 500GB SSD)
5. LAN

This is with the 18.3 thumb drive inserted. Now I haven't tried to move the Order and place the USB in the #1 position. I don't know what that would do. And it's clear that the FDD which was T5 and showing before now is blank after it shows in the #2 position. So something has happened.

So just for fun I shut down again and rebooted to F12...and it shows the same Order as above.

I'm trying the best I can at verbally describing what's on the Toshiba screen, Chris...I know you can't be here at my elbow (wish you were!), but I hope this helps. What do you suggest I try next? I'm concerned that the T5 did not get described as before in the Boot Order.
Doc
 
O.K., this is from the Toshiba. I went to Nemo and Timeshift. Here is the shot. As you can see, the 18.3 thumb drive shows up with its' files/folders. The T5 doesn't show up even though it is also plugged in.
 

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The T5 doesn't show up even though it is also plugged in.

That's cool, the T5 is showing up, in the entry of "MyTimeShift", because that is on the T5. That is the only partition currently that needs to be read from it.

OK, next step is as follows. With the 18.3 thumb drive in place, reboot the Toshiba, enter the boot sequence, and choose 2. FDD (blank), then F10 out of there and let it reboot, and see if it boots to the thumb drive.

None of this will hurt your install, worst case is you'll get some sort of blank screen or screen with a message and you can just force a power down by holding your power button 3 - 5 seconds.

I have found that some of the older BIOS utilities will refer to an auxiliary USB drive as an FDD (floppy disk drive).

See how you go

Wizard
 
Well, I followed instructions. It took its' time restarting but then came up into 18.3. In Disks the 16GB Drive shows up. Can you tell me what exactly happened? How do I know that the HDD actually allowed this to reboot? If I shutdown now and reboot, will it still use the #2 Option (HDD) to reboot? Kind of a dumb question since I just need to go ahead and try it and then comment after this...

Nope. Comes up in the internal Toshiba HDD. So what happens if I reorder the boot sequence with the HDD (the 18.3 thumb drive) in the #1 slot? I'll wait until I hear from you, Wiz.
Doc
 
Sorry...meant to get right back to you. It boots to the Toshiba Harddrive. So I'll have to select the blank usb port when we want to use the 18l.3 thumb drive.

Question still remains...since after doing the above, it booted into the selection, does that mean that the 18.3 thumb drive was what booted me back to the Linux O/S? There's no obvious way for me to tell if the thumb drive actually was the drive booted?
Doc
 
does that mean that the 18.3 thumb drive was what booted me back to the Linux O/S?

No

There's no obvious way for me to tell if the thumb drive actually was the drive booted?

If the thumb drive is booting, it will boot into a screen like this


JBzFGon.png



Note the Install Linux Mint that my cursor is pointing to.

This is where we are trying to get to. But we are not going to install.


O.K., I shut down and restarted with the 18.3 thumb drive inserted. F2 shows:
1. HDD/SSD (Toshiba MQ01ABF032(S2)
2. FDD (Blank)
3. USB (SMI USB DISK)
4. CD/DVD (New internal 500GB SSD)
5. LAN

Are you able to use F2 to bring up this list, and then arrow down to either of 2. or 3. and press enter, and see if that boots from the USB stick to the picture above?

Wiz
 
For the 2nd time when I've gone to exit the Toshiba (after attempting the 18.3 boot), the 'Exit' doesn't function and I have to hit the button and do a hard shutdown...just an observation for you, Wiz.

When I arrow down to either #2 FDD or #3 (USB SMI USB DISK) the Enter is non-functional. Nothing happens. Something is failing at some level, Chris.
Doc
 
In answer to your first question though, here's what happens and what I see. In shutting down and restarting using F2, with the 18.3 inserted...after I moved to the USB option and hit F10. It did shut down but then in coming back up there was a delay of approximately one minute to restart. When it came up, clearly the 18.3 reboot failed. It comes up finally with my normal screen with all my programs...nothing like what you show.
Doc
 
Dick, I am sorry to say that we are going to have to wrap this Thread up. It is not that I do not want to help, just that I cannot help any further.

Until or unless you can find a way to work between F2 or F12 and get a USB stick with Linux Mint on it (does not have to be 18.3 could be 19) to boot ahead of the hard drive, we are hamstrung.

For the moment, your backups by Timeshift appear to be going fine, and you will not run out of space with that partition allocated to it on the T5.

As long as your full install on the Toshiba continues to run OK, you are fine. If it goes pear-shaped, then you have problems.

You said in #6 on page 1

I don't recall the steps I used to setup the same system on my Toshiba notebook

... and so you must have been able to boot from a USB stick at that time, it's a pity the steps were not documented then (spilt milk), but it means the Toshiba is/was capable of it.

If you have that new SSD on order from the US, and you are going to be going to the Big Smoke to get that installed, then you might be able to get the technician to show you then how to alter the boot order, so take the LM USB stick with you.

If or once you are able to do so, then don't come back to this Thread (coming up on 11 pages, and too unwieldy), but rather start a new Thread in, say General Linux, on how to restore a Distro from Timeshift.

OK? Thanks Dick, and sorry I can't help further on this one.

Wizard
 
You've helped me a lot Chris. I understand just how strung out this has become too I'll follow the steps you're telling me now and look forward to more help in a different thread!
Doc
 
One final post here...I've checked 3 different thumb drives (Rufus, Linux Mint 18.3, & Clonezilla) .They're all bootable and all show up when plugged in to the usb drive. So the thumb drives are all good. The problem must simply be the age of the Toshiba. No doubt that it requires manual ordering of the boot.

The new internal SSD is on the way and I;ll approach this matter in a totally new thread. Just thought you'd like to know.

Doc
 
On my desktop computer I learned the hard way how easy it is to bork the finicky Windows boot loader. So I started installing Linux and Windows on separate drives.

Drive 'A' has Windows installed and drive 'B' has Linux installed. I would use the BIOS to choose which to boot. My reason for doing this was to avoid having to repair/rebuild the Windows boot loader if anything went haywire or I just wanted to experiment with more Linuxes. I would actually disconnect the drive cable to the Windows drive just to be sure nothing was written to the MBR. (kinda like keeping your peas and carrots from touching on the dinner plate)

After the Linux was completely installed I would boot into it and update GRUB which is on the Linux drive and it would see the Windows installation on drive 'A' and add a menu entry. Thereafter I can choose either Windows or Linux from the GRUB menu. I can re-install Linux, partition the Linux drive, add more Linuxes for multi-boot all without touching my Windows installation. I just need to be careful that any GRUB installations/updates stay on the Linux drive.

I would guess this would also work on a laptop with two hard drives but I don't know that for sure.
 
Hi and thanks for the considerate comment. That is exactly how my desktop (Win7) was setup with Linux. I couldn't tell you why the guy set it up that way but there it is. Right now I'm still waiting on a shipment from the States that will contain my new internal SSD which I'll use with the help of the Wizard to replace the existing HDD currently on that Toshiba notebook...and which is the active storage drive containing Linux on it. You'll probably see more of the chatter back and forth in another few weeks. Thanks again for your caution.
Doc
 
On my desktop computer I learned the hard way how easy it is to bork the finicky Windows boot loader. So I started installing Linux and Windows on separate drives.

Drive 'A' has Windows installed and drive 'B' has Linux installed. I would use the BIOS to choose which to boot. My reason for doing this was to avoid having to repair/rebuild the Windows boot loader if anything went haywire or I just wanted to experiment with more Linuxes. I would actually disconnect the drive cable to the Windows drive just to be sure nothing was written to the MBR. (kinda like keeping your peas and carrots from touching on the dinner plate)

After the Linux was completely installed I would boot into it and update GRUB which is on the Linux drive and it would see the Windows installation on drive 'A' and add a menu entry. Thereafter I can choose either Windows or Linux from the GRUB menu. I can re-install Linux, partition the Linux drive, add more Linuxes for multi-boot all without touching my Windows installation. I just need to be careful that any GRUB installations/updates stay on the Linux drive.

I would guess this would also work on a laptop with two hard drives but I don't know that for sure.

Hi Vrai! It will work! I have three laptops, two are Asus and the other is a Gigabyte. All three have dual SSDs, and I dual boot Windows 7 and Linux on them. Do the same with my desktops.
 

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