br1anstorm
Active Member
Hello all. I have just joined the NeoSmart forum after installing the latest EasyBCD 2.3 Community Edition in order to set up a multiboot arrangement on my Win7 laptop. Disclaimer: I am not an IT or computer expert, so terminal/command line stuff is outside my comfort zone.
Here are the basic facts. Samsung laptop, 750GB hard drive, with Windows7 as OEM operating system. I have left untouched the existing partitions occupied by Windows 7, its Recovery and System. I have created an extended partition containing five logical partitions as follows:
/dev/sda5 swap
/dev/sda6 Linux Mint 17.3 'Rosa' (and its grub)
/dev/sda7 Linux Lite 2.6 (and its grub)
/dev/sda8 (empty) - to hold another linux distro in due course
/dev/sda9 a shared DATA partition
The installation of the first Linux distro (Mint) went fine. I then added it to the EasyBCD menu and was able successfully to boot into either Win7 or Linux Mint.
Then I installed Linux Lite and its grub into the next partition. It installed fine. I added it to EasyBCD menu, and it shows as the third OS option there and in the initial (Windows) boot screen. BUT.......
When I choose to boot into Linux Lite, up comes a "grub" menu offering me Linux Mint 17.3 (or the usual alternatives like safe/recovery mode, plus Windows 7). No listing and no mention of Linux Lite 2.6, and no way to get into it. It looks as if Linux Mint has taken over, or blocked access to, the Lite grub in another partition!
I have quickly browsed the FAQs and forum threads, and this seems to be an identical problem to that already posted by Lilinux in the forum thread titled Triple Boot here. The detailed screenshots posted in that thread are virtually identical to mine.
I see that there is an answer to Lilinux's query. It says "You'll need to add Kali Linux to Ubuntu's GRUB boot menu, EasyBCD doesn't yet support specifying which GRUB2 loader to load."
I deduce from this that EasyBCD cannot manage two Linux distros which both happen to use Grub2 (as Mint and Lite apparently do).
I have no idea how to add a second Linux distro to a previous one's GRUB boot menu. Part of my reason for choosing EasyBCD was to have a way of multibooting without having to edit files within Linux using the terminal and all that (which is definitely NOT easy for a novice).
This also raises the separate question of whether EasyBCD can handle (without editing Grub) one Linux distro (like Mint) which uses Grub2, and one (like PCLinuxOS, which I was thinking of putting in my remaining empty partition) which uses Grub Legacy?
Can someone point me to a clear and comprehensive step-by-step of how to add one distro to another's Grub? If it's a simple process I will try it. If it is complicated, then Easy BCD has failed me, and I'll be looking at the delete and uninstall buttons....
I'm still in honeymoon mode with EasyBCD. I hope we are not heading for an early separation!
Here are the basic facts. Samsung laptop, 750GB hard drive, with Windows7 as OEM operating system. I have left untouched the existing partitions occupied by Windows 7, its Recovery and System. I have created an extended partition containing five logical partitions as follows:
/dev/sda5 swap
/dev/sda6 Linux Mint 17.3 'Rosa' (and its grub)
/dev/sda7 Linux Lite 2.6 (and its grub)
/dev/sda8 (empty) - to hold another linux distro in due course
/dev/sda9 a shared DATA partition
The installation of the first Linux distro (Mint) went fine. I then added it to the EasyBCD menu and was able successfully to boot into either Win7 or Linux Mint.
Then I installed Linux Lite and its grub into the next partition. It installed fine. I added it to EasyBCD menu, and it shows as the third OS option there and in the initial (Windows) boot screen. BUT.......
When I choose to boot into Linux Lite, up comes a "grub" menu offering me Linux Mint 17.3 (or the usual alternatives like safe/recovery mode, plus Windows 7). No listing and no mention of Linux Lite 2.6, and no way to get into it. It looks as if Linux Mint has taken over, or blocked access to, the Lite grub in another partition!
I have quickly browsed the FAQs and forum threads, and this seems to be an identical problem to that already posted by Lilinux in the forum thread titled Triple Boot here. The detailed screenshots posted in that thread are virtually identical to mine.
I see that there is an answer to Lilinux's query. It says "You'll need to add Kali Linux to Ubuntu's GRUB boot menu, EasyBCD doesn't yet support specifying which GRUB2 loader to load."
I deduce from this that EasyBCD cannot manage two Linux distros which both happen to use Grub2 (as Mint and Lite apparently do).
I have no idea how to add a second Linux distro to a previous one's GRUB boot menu. Part of my reason for choosing EasyBCD was to have a way of multibooting without having to edit files within Linux using the terminal and all that (which is definitely NOT easy for a novice).
This also raises the separate question of whether EasyBCD can handle (without editing Grub) one Linux distro (like Mint) which uses Grub2, and one (like PCLinuxOS, which I was thinking of putting in my remaining empty partition) which uses Grub Legacy?
Can someone point me to a clear and comprehensive step-by-step of how to add one distro to another's Grub? If it's a simple process I will try it. If it is complicated, then Easy BCD has failed me, and I'll be looking at the delete and uninstall buttons....
I'm still in honeymoon mode with EasyBCD. I hope we are not heading for an early separation!
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