Newbie needs help with Vista and GRUB [Solved]

[black_lion]

Hello everybody. I'm new in the forum but not in the linux world. The thing is I'm having trouble getting to work Sabayon together with Windows Vista.
Here's my scenario: I have 2 sata disks. 1 for Windows Vista (2 partitions, 1 boot and OS and 1 as a file container) and another extra disk with 1 ntfs partition.
I shrinked with the Vista Disk Manager the second disk and left 80gb free to install sabayon on it. I booted with my livedvd (in this case a pen drive made with unetbootin) and installed sabayon with automatic partitioning on free space, grub by default.
The thing is , when I finish installation I restart my computer and Windows Vista "error recovery" boot menu starts instead of Grub. I reinstalled and repaired the sabayon installation, configured Grub from it to install on the Vista disk and I'm still having the same problem: no matter where or how I configure Grub, Vista boot menu always appears first, saying it's been a software or hardware error that attempted to change boot partition data and prompts me to start vista in safe or normal mode or run a disk scan.

I'm really scratching my head with this and found no solution.

Could somebody give me a hand?


Thank you so much.

[joeoden]

saying it's been a software or hardware error that attempted to change boot partition data and prompts me to start vista in safe or normal mode or run a disk scan

Sounds like you have some kind of anti-virus software (in Vista) enabled to protect against master boot record changes disable mrb protection or allow the changes that grub has done to mrb in your anti-virus software

Also if the above doesn't help check to see if BIOS (Motherboard) has some kind of boot failure guard, mrb or even virus protection option enabled, you need to refer to your motherboard manual for correct settings

You may still have to run disk scan (check for disk errors in Vista computer management tools)

Hope it helps
Joe

[black_lion]

Thank you Joe!!!

I have Trend OffiScan running on Vista. I will try to find the way to disable MBR proetction, if exists and then I'll check my BIOS.

Thanks a lot! I'll let you know how it went.

[black_lion]

I have no mbr protection nor antivirus on my motherboard bios.
Trend Offiscan doesn't seem to protect the MBR, the only option left I have is to uninstall it...

Though, I have a basic question... is it best to install GRUB on my Vista hard disk or on my Sabayon hard disk?
Didn't work anyway.


Thanks!

[joeoden]

Trend Offiscan doesn't seem to protect the MBR, the only option left I have is to uninstall it

As far as I know all anti-virus has some kind of mrb protection
Vista and XP clients I install AVG (free edition) if don't like AVG then Clam for windows and for spyware install Spybot

is it best to install GRUB on my Vista hard disk or on my Sabayon hard disk

It is a matter of preference, I always install to mrb of 1st drive

Didn't work anyway

Check disk for errors with Vista first then check with gparted (from a live cd/dvd), if still no go then try uninstall Trend, reinstall or setup grub

What hardware do you have, motherboard, cpu, ram and video
Joe

[Thev00d00]

Change the disk boot order in bios

[black_lion]

I finally got it to work. Thanks Everyone for your support.
I solved it manually partitioning my second disk. I noticed that the automatic partitioning of Sabayon Installation created "Virtual" partitions in my Vista disk (Swap and boot!!) so I created all the partitions manually in my second disk and it worked!! Since last night I've been playing around with Sabayon and still haven't tried if Vista boots hehe

Thanks again!

[joeoden]

and still haven't tried if Vista boots hehe

You won't need it unless you fix MS problems for other people
I should have realised that you done auto partition that will teach me for not reading your post correctly

Remember to mark your thread [Solved] if your issue is fixed

[black_lion]

Well... it isn't solved


I booted up Vista really fine. Then I restarted my PC again and Sabayon never ever came back to life. It freezes on "Preparing System to Boot press ALT+F1 for verbose mode".
Then I tried to boot safe mode but it's completely full of errors and freezes at the login prompt.

I must re-install and see what happens. The thing is... these "Volume group" seem to be necesary... I don't really know what it is, but one of the significative errors were related to the lack of them... though Sabayon booted immediately after my last install... When I use automatic partition the volume groups are created on my first hd.... last night I created manually only boot, swap and "/" partition but nothing about VG's....

[black_lion]

Finally I created manually all the volume groups on my second disk and now I have both OS working on my computer.

Thanks everybody.