New linux user: dual boot Mint install fatal error
Following this guide (linuxtechi) and got Mint Cinnamon 22.2 (Zara) - yes the iso is verified, created bootable USB with Etcher, and after the screen where I input user details and password, well along the install process, got a fatal error (screenshot) :
Unable to install GRUB in /dev/sda
Executing 'grub-install/dev/sda' failed
This is a fatal error
Here is a screenshot of the GParted, fdisk, df, lsblk and what re-running the install now looks like.
Restarting (after pulling out USB) , instead of going to Windows 10, goes to a black screen that says
This is not a bootable disk. Please insert a bootable floppy and press any key to try again ...
Turn it off, back on with USB, at least I can still boot from there into USB-space mint for now.
I'm guessing this has something to do with some peculiar hardware/BIOS settings than the fault of Mint. Worth mentioning that this is a refurbished 2013 HP box (order excerpt) , with a windows 10 digital key license, and that upon every fresh boot up (first time ever to now) it shows a black-background screen that says
The preboot authentication application cannot be found.
Press any key to attempt boot without authenticating.
so it's very possible something is bork'd from the get go or else it has some very unorthodox settings to begin with.
Can confirm running Mint off the USB is fine. The screencaps are sent from Firefox within, and I'm super happy with how clean everything is. Just not sure what to do now. If it's complicated, I can try sending the box back for refund and try again with another brand new box. But now I'm shy about trying dual boot on my regular desktop.
Questions after looking around for help:
- am I booting from UEFI or Legacy? I don't know -- how do I check ?
- Fatal error installation hard stop: is there a way to access a log of what happened ?
- How do I boot back into Windows 10 for now ? use GParted to delete all the "new" partitions and try booting again?
Edit: gave up . It's now a Mint box. Goodbye Windows you can kiss my dust
You seem to not have a
/bootpartition. Did you change any partitioning settings in the installer?I suggest removing all the newly created partitions and then trying to install Mint using the default settings instead of some shady guide from a random site that tells you to do random stuff.
The Linux Mint installation also has a built in option to install it alongsides Windows. You should use that one to be able to properly dualboot. Otherwise Windows might mess with grub on system updates etc., and that could be a mess to fix if you don't have deeper experience.
Unless you changed anything like that in the installer, it depends on if you have BIOS or UEFI as your system configuration. If it's a GUI with mouse input support instead of a text only window, it's probably UEFI.
Seems like your system is failing to find the boot partition, so it's basically set to boot from Linux but it can't find Linux. So there isn't really any logs to be seen.
To boot into Windows, try changing the order of boot media in your BIOS/UEFI
Linux Mint is specifically meant to be easy to install, and using some bullshit guides someone wrote will likely make it only harder. I generally suggest avoiding random articles like that for Linux advice, ArchWiki is a good resource on most Linux related topics, but even ChatGPT usually gives better advice than those slop "Linux guide" sites
^This. The ext4 /boot partition is explicitly missing. The fat32 flagged boot, esp is windows.
To add, in my experience, Linux installers will ignore the user and default to installing to preexisting efi (esp) partitions, so I usually explicitly deflag the windows boot partition, do my install, and then load up gparted after installing and reflag the the windows boot partition as
boot, esp. This ensures they use separate partitions and don't clobber each other during updates.Use GParted to de-flag where Windows is sitting, then do the install, and then use GParted to reflag?
Yeah, it's been a minute since I've installed both to the same disk, but last I checked this was still an issue and that was the work around to give them distinct boot partitions.
So I poked around, and it looks like you might need to do some asinine config fiddling to make that go away.
There is a web board for Mint
https://forums.linuxmint.com/
HTH
I would add that the another thing I would try personally would be to verify the integrity of the usb image. There should be an option right at boot for some distributions, but I not sure about Linux Mint. The live image can run fine in some cases even if it is corrupted but the installation will fail. Relevant especially if the usb stick is older and or cheaper one.
You done got bit by Secure Boot, methinks.
As for getting into your Windows installation without getting GRUB installed, you can try manually selecting the boot device at startup. You can probably get to the boot select menu by hitting F12 at startup, but it might be a different hotkey like F10. It's been a minute since I've done troubleshooting on an HP. Alternately, you can set the boot order in the startup options of the UEFI if you're unable to find the one-time boot menu hotkey. You should try this first before the next step and let us know if you were successful.
After confirming that you can start Windows, go into your UEFI and look at boot options, and see if turning off Secure Boot fixes your fatal error. IIRC, that era of HP had a kind of awful UEFI UI to navigate though, with some options being categorized oddly. Secure Boot may be found under either boot options or security, I don't recall offhand which. I remember a lot of digging around in their awful UI to find simple options, which is one reason I dislike HP (among many others).
aye aye cap'n that seems likely -- the official installation has an official side by side install (dual boot) option link which I don't see -- it can't even see a Windows OS lol (screencap here)
Edit with notes for future self: F10 for secure boot options. but ESC offers a different menu including (F9) selecting which device to boot from. F10's menu says Legacy support is already on, secure boot was already disabled, fast boot already disabled. =..= gonna clear all the new partitions to try to get back into windows. I think the system not being able to see windows is a huge symptom of what went wrong: obviously it's going to install weirdness thinking there's no other OS.
Huh. Do you have a Windows Install Media key? You should be able to repair the MBR using one of those, if you're keen to rescue the Windows install. To do that, select "Repair Windows" from the WIM splash screen.
I'm a fan of Linux generally and Mint in particular, but to be frank, I've never had much luck dual booting Windows and Linux on a single physical drive. The Windows MBR likes to mess with foreign bootloaders. It'll see GRUB as a problem to be fixed and try to self-repair the "malicious code." I've had much better luck with completely separate physical disks than trying to make roomies of Linux and Windows on a single physical drive. Then you just use the one-time boot menu to select which OS you want to use. It's not as elegant as just selecting from GRUB, but I've had fewer problems that way.
I do recall this used to be a problem for older systems, but in newer systems with UEFI I've only ever had windows just put itself first in the boot order. Similarly, "Install Linux Mint alongside WBM" had always worked flawlessly for me even with secure boot enabled - but on the other hand I was always ensuring to have completely unassigned free space on my disk, rather than actively try to resize windows during installing or something. Though, I'm not dualbooting anymore and I'm permanently on Mint so I have no way to check anything on a windows partition anymore
I worked in electronics recycling, so a fat lot of my experience is with hardware older than 10-15 years, which tracks.
I can see Windows having a shit fit with a Home installation having disk partitions modified by an external program. There's probably some registry entry somewhere that gets set by the Windows disk manager that drops a flag during boot. Windows be like that.
yes this was a box that comes with a digital key, no media, so I can't repair MBR.
I'm pretty mad by this point -- the stupid windows 10 install is in LEGACY MODE which is where all the pain seems to be originating from. Gonna make this a pure Mint box if I can figure out how to get rid of the of "The preboot authentication application cannot be found." message
You don't need a license to make a WIM, it's just the Windows version of the live boot disk you made for Mint. Besides the OS install program, it also includes methods for repairing existing installations, either using the automated troubleshooter or by command line. The licensing is supposed to be handled behind the scenes, so it shouldn't cause you trouble if you try to reinstall Windows. The question is if it's worth the trouble to try.
What's more, usually digital keys get saved to/bound to the motherboard, so when reinstalling/fixing, if it asks for a key, you just skip it (click you don't have one) and it'll automagically figure it out (usually).
Yeah, the digital keys are flashed to a ROM chip on the motherboard.
It's all an unnecessary pain in the ass because Microsoft is dead set on licensing their dumb OS, even though the rest of the industry gave up on that ages ago. It wouldn't be so bad, except MS tries to have it both ways by monetizing user data and advertising on top of charging for a damned license.
I realize I didn't give any advice about actually getting the dual boot working.
You should try to verify the Mint live disk before trying again. You may need to reflash the USB drive. Very rarely I've had Rufus fail while writing a verified ISO without giving any indication. Maybe once it was actually down to the thumbdrive rather than the software, so keep that in mind as well.