Triple boot MBR-UEFI problem

T

Triplet

Member
Hi everybody, EasyBCD newbie here.

I have a pc with three 64-bit OS's installed. The installation order and types are:

Fist two installs are 1- Windows 7 and 2 - Windows 10 on a dualboot SATA SSD MBR drive.

Third install is Linux Mint on a PCIE NVMe SSD GPT drive.

BIOS is set to CSM, fast boot is disabled. 1st boot device is set to the (dualboot) MBR SATA SSD.

On boot, Windows boot loader works as expected on all three entries: Windows 7, Windows 10 and a Macrium Reflect "Rescue" WinPE environment which I created later with the Macrium software.

With EasyBCD I have been struggling for quite some time to get the added Linux Mint entry working. Sadly to no avail.
The Linux entry does show in the boot loader but Linux refuses to boot.

When powering on, either a boot override or changing first boot device to EFI, Linux boots without problems.

I must be doing something basically wrong here. Can somebody help me out explaining what exact steps to follow to make the Linux entry work?

Thanks in advance :smile:
 
Thanks for your reply. As for the first link, my Windows 7 and 10 start from a MBR disk so I don't get the "EFI bootloader detected!"-warning in the first place. Obviously I have already set BIOS to legacy boot support (called CSM). And both Fast Boot and Secure boot are already disabled.
Reading the second link, the "Method 2: Using NeoGrub to boot Linux"-part appealed to me. I followed the instructions but got stuck after clicking the "Configure" button in the NeoGrub tab: nothing seems to happen. Shouldn't a window pop-up, even if Mint isn't supported?
I installed Linux Mint by means of booting from Live USB-stick. And once in Mint OS, I clicked on "Install Linux Mint" which was on the desktop. During installation, I did set to install GRUB on the same disk where I installed Mint: the GPT NVMe drive. Thinking of it, I don't remember if I booted the USB-stick in legacy mode or EFI. Can this be of importance?
Thanks.
 
Many years since I last used Linux (many many), so not really current on that score to give advice.
Only to ensure that you're not trying to second guess EasyBCD. Just allow it to auto-detect Linux and build the necessary chain structure. Don't "correct" it if you think it did something wrong. It will point to the root of the chain it constructed, not to the Linux drive directly..
 
When starting to use EasyBCD, indeed my first intuition and try-out was setting "Type: GRUB 2" and "Drive: Automatically locate and load". Didn't do any "correcting"; left it as-is. I have tried multiple ways of creating the Linux entry.
I could try narrowing things down and re-install Mint twice, noting legacy/UEFI mode the USB-stick boots from. I'm reading up and more learning about booting, MBR and GPT. Maybe the boot-mode of the installer medium indeed is significant here.
But for now it's a bit cumbersome. And maybe Mint isn't supported alltogether, as @Ex_Brit said.

Anyways, thank you.
 
To whom it may concern,

I have been experimenting on a MBR USB-drive where I installed a fourth OS. First install of Ubuntu gives a working Linux entry (GRUB 2, autolocate/load).
When installing Mint, several tried Linux entries don't work. I actually did not expect this.

So - at least for installing Linux on USB - there's certainly something different with Mint. I still can't tell if using both MBR and UEFI boots could be another issue. When I have time I'll try and install Ubuntu - on the GPT disk. I think this will tell me more.

For now, cheers
 
Triplet said:
To whom it may concern,

I have been experimenting on a MBR USB-drive where I installed a fourth OS. First install of Ubuntu gives a working Linux entry (GRUB 2, autolocate/load).
When installing Mint, several tried Linux entries don't work. I actually did not expect this.

So - at least for installing Linux on USB - there's certainly something different with Mint. I still can't tell if using both MBR and UEFI boots could be another issue. When I have time I'll try and install Ubuntu - on the GPT disk. I think this will tell me more.

For now, cheers
Click to expand...
Consider trying Ubuntu on a GPT disk to see if the problem is still same and sheds light on the differences in behavior.
 
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