In order to install Linux Mint 14 alongside Windows 8 I disabled UEFI and booted to a flash drive with the Linux image. I installed Linux, restarted the computer, and the GRUB boot loader appeared. When I selected Windows 8 I got the following error:
Windows Boot Manager
Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause. To fix the problem: 1. Insert your Windows installation disc and restart your computer. 2. Choose your language settings, and then click "Next." 3. Click "repair your computer." If you don't have this disc, contact your system administrator or computer manufacturer for assistance. File: \Boot\BCD Status: 0xc000000e Info: The Boot Configuration Data for your PC is missing or contains errors.
I did not have a disk, so I didn't bother trying to repair the installation, especially if doing so was going to ruin the GRUB boot loader and give me problems with my Linux installation. I re-enabled UEFI to see if it would allow Windows to load properly. It did, but it did not give me the option to boot to Linux. How can I resolve this issue and allow the two operating systems to co-exist?
UPDATE:
I've tried EasyBCD without any success. I can add a Linux boot option, and it shows up in the menu, but it consistently says that a boot configuration file is missing or corrupt when I try to boot to it. I've also installed rEFInd on Windows, but I could not find documentation as far as add the Linux boot option to the menu, or install an Ext4fs driver (honestly, I'm not even sure what these programs do. I have no real knowledge of OS booting. When I dual boot I always install Linux last and let GRUB do all the hard work. Unfortunately my GRUB won't work with Windows 8). I don't think I haven't tried looking through documentation, I just think my lack of experience with dealing with bootloaders has hindered my ability to understand what documentation I've found.
I'm looking for more suggestions or where I can find information in order to better understand the problem or how to fix it.
UPDATE:
I recreated the bootable USB flash drive through UNetbootin and reinstalled Linux Mint in EFI mode. However, when I tried to select linuxmint
from the Windows boot manager it wouldn't load, citing there was something wrong with \EFI\linuxmint\grubx64.efi
. The vital step I had missed was that I needed to disable secure boot in my BIOS settings. Once I disabled the secure boot, rEFInd loaded correctly as it was supposed to, and I was able to load GRUB without a problem. I spent hours trying different things; tweaking the boot menu with EasyBCD; reinstalling Mint over and over again; it turned out all I needed to do was disable secure boot and either install rEFInd or install Linux in EFI mode.
Best Answer
It's tricky to switch between BIOS-mode and EFI-mode OSes on a single computer; for best results, you should keep both OSes in one boot mode. Your best bet is to install an EFI-mode boot loader for Mint. Several are available, but installation can be tricky. Specific options you might want to try include the following:
/boot
, if you've got a separate/boot
partition). When you reboot, rEFInd should come up and give you options for Windows and Linux. Select one of the Linux options, press F2 or Insert twice, and addro root=/dev/sda7
to the boot options, changing/dev/sda7
to your Mint root (/
) partition. When you press Enter, Mint should start up. When it does, run themkrlconf.sh
script that comes with rEFInd. Thereafter, you should be able to boot with rEFInd without entering the boot options. This method bypasses GRUB, so you can optionally remove it.