Dual Booting Windows 7 On Already Installed Linux Mint 17.1

Hello everyone,
Recently, I installed Linux Mint 17 (Cinnamon) on my HP dv6 Laptop. During installation Linux was not detecting my original Windows 7 and was attempting to occupy the entire hard disk. So I used the "Something Else" option to manually create separate partitions for Linux (Previously I had allocated around 120 GB free space for Linux using Windows Disk Management). This installed the Linux but after booting it does not detect Windows 7 and directly boots to Mint. I have tried installing and updating the grub but it did not help either.
Please Help...

Hello All. This is my first post here. I am worse than a newbie; I'm a PC dinosaur! Not joking either.
Recently got a Dell Inspiron 3048 with Windows 8.1 pre installed. As I am a die hard XP user (my other PC is a Dell Dimension 2400), and seeing that PC's days may be numbered, I want to start using Linux, and decided Mint 17.1 would be first on the list.
Ordered a Linux Mint 17.1 boot disk and went to install it. At the option for a dual boot with Windows, I got lost, and did not understand the "other" choice versus making Linux the only OS on the PC. I wound up wiping my HDD and lost contact with Windows 8.1. Fortunately, the Dell Tech I got at Dell Support was able to walk me through getting Windows back up, but the only way I can now access Mint 17.1 is with the boot disk, but there is no set up options as it is already set up, even though incorrectly for a dual boot.
How do I wipe out Linux without losing Windows 8.1 as well so I can re install Linux and this time make the correct selection for a dual boot?
Anyone willing to respond please do so small and slow so I can follow.
TIA.
BTW, I have tried installing Zorin OS 9 Ultimate on my XP machine via DVD and USB, but I can't get past the f1/f2 loop, even though I have reconfigured my boot sequence according to the drive I'm installing from. Zorin support has been MIA on this. Anyone having a similar problem?
Cheers

I am trying to boot Linux Mint from an 8gb Sandisk USB. I changed my boot settings and it boots into what I believe is called grub? I am given two options, Boot Linux Mint, Boot Linux Mint (compatibility mode). When I select either of them all I get is a black screen. I've tried many things to get around this, messing with my graphics card settings (within grub), different USB's (another 8gb and a 32gb), I tried Ubuntu and that just doesn't boot at all I go straight back to my UEFI settings. I'm very new to Linux and I don't just want to hop in, I just want to boot from my USB whenever I want to play around with it. Thank You

Note: I'm running windows 8.1 currently on a ASUS N550JV laptop. I've been using the UUI from Pen Drive Linux.

I just got a new laptop with Windows 8.1 and I cannot figure out how to install Linux Mint by booting from a CD or USB drive. Previously, I had installed Linux Mint on my old desktop and netbook computers that were running Windows XP. I had no trouble booting from a CD. Now that the process has been complicated in Windows 8.1 I don't know what to do. Any help would be greatly appreciated, I would really like to get rid of Windows 8.1 ASAP. Thanks!

Hi, So im quite new to linux and im not surprised as iv tried before to check it out and failed then (old computers problem) but i decided to have another go on a new comp recently.

UEFI mobo
Nvidia geforce 770 as output.

I need a duel boot of win7 & mint. Win7 is installed.

UEFI has caused me so many problems its just beyond me ! (i had never heard of it before i brought this comp)

booting Mint from a cd/dvd works fine.

booting from a USB fails with a blank or locked up screen at the first mint logo. (many tests with dif methods of creating live USB)

Installing mint with grub over the top of win boot loader fails , i get no options to choose between win & linux it boots straight to linux and then fails (same error as above)

I have a small SSD with win7 , there is not a lot of space on it so i want to install mint 17.1KDE on a different HDD.

After a month or so of reading testing reading testing etc i ended up getting mint installed on partitions i created on secondary HDD but i had to keep the windows boot loader in place and use easyBCD.

However now i get the choice of win7 or linux and windows still actually works (breakthrough ^^) BUT linux just crashes at boot (at the first logo) and then the monitor looses all signal?


I am soo frustrated. Mint will run of a CD but i can not get it to work in any other way , please help

Thx.

Did it again!

Last week, with help from this forum, I was able to install Linux Mint 17.1 dual boot with Windows 8.1. It worked so well, I decided to explore other Linux distros recommended by forum members as some I wanted to check out.

I was using Unetbootin to download and install these as live sessions on my Windows 8.1 partition.

On my last such download, something went wrong, and no doubt I caused the error, but no clue as to how.

When I opened up this PC, I got the normal dual boot option for Windows and Mint. When I selected Windows, I found an additional dual boot option between it and Unetbootin! Somehow I created a partition (?) on my C Drive for Unetbootin (see Thumbnail below).
This Unetbootin option only goes to a page for me to choose another OS. Further, when I rebooted, the Windows/Mint dual boot option no longer existed, just the Windows/Unetbootin one.

Been checking out various articles and websites about BCD/MBR repair, but nothing definitive (that I can understand) about modifying these to delete the Unetbootin partition and restoring the Windows/linux dual boot.

Naturally, this is a newbie land mine area, so I'm very reluctant to try anything I can't fully understand, which is the category everything I've Googled on this topic falls into.

Anyone know how I can resolve this short of a complete start over
installation based on steps that basically a PC fence post can follow?

TIA
Cheers!

Hi All,

I recently decided to tryout Linux and dual booted my laptop (originally just had windows 8) with Xubuntu. Now I want to try out Kali Linux. So I downloaded Kali and made a bootable USB, the problem is that when I try to boot from the USB it just brings up the grub menu asking me to select Xubuntu, Windows etc. I've changed the boot menu in the BIOS but that has no effect.

I've tried booting into windows and the restarting by holding shift but when I select the usb option it just says:

"system doesn't have any USB boot option. Please select other boot option in Boot Manager Menu"

and then returns to the grub menu. I don't understand because I used a bootable usb to install xubunto?

I'd be really grateful if anyone can help me out with this!

Thanks

Hi all:

Yes, my first post and I am sure to make mistakes. Here goes.

Regarding suggestions for Linux Screencasts forum. I constantly struggle with dual boot with Windows. I read so many blogs that my eyes cross. Its even more confusing now with UEFI partitions. It happened today and now Windows is not booting. Screencasts sound like a windfall.

What I need to know:

1. Exactly where are the dual boot files located?
2. Where are examples of working dual boot files?
3. What tools do I need to access dual boot files when my system is not working?
4. If I use Windows tools to fix Windows boot then Fedora boot is overwritten. What do I need to watch?
5. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity.

There are my suggestions for today. Hope it generates food for thought. :-)

Hi friends. I have to say right off the bat, this is basically my first time trying to install Linux by myself. After reading this forum and others, and tech sites, I decided Linux Mint looked the most to what I am used to, which is Windows 7.


Here is my CPU-ID Info - http://valid.x86.fr/5ya0sx


I downloaded Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon 64bit (The one found on this link, http://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=172).
I burned the img to a DVD with Nero Burning ROM. I wanted to boot from the disc, and the Linux started to show it's logo, and I waited for a few minutes, and I finally thought something was going to happened, but this showed up, (Screenshot) http://i.imgur.com/oELzKCg.jpg.
So basically I shut down my computer and here I am. I have eno experience as to what I am supposed to do when I get that message. Frankly I did not see this type of message when looking through step by step instructions about how to install Mint allongside W7.
Can someone please tell me, for the love of Star Trek Voyager and all that is Holy, how do I install Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon as a dual boot on a Windows7 system.

Thank You

After creating a bootable usb using Universal USB Installer. I booted up the sytstem (Dell Inspiron N4110) F12 boot on usb, did the install, everything went well until after copying files and then the error message that "The grub-pc package failed to install into /target.. So i continued without a boot loader and now am trying to figure out how to get it back.
Previously i did a perfect dual boot of Kali Linux wherein the Grub boot loader was present. I did however uninstall Kali, reclaim HDD space, and even use EasyBCD to remove Grub(i believe).
Also worth noting is that before this dual boot with pignuy and after uninstalling kali linux i did a complete reinstallation of my windows 7 system using the recovery HD.

Now i would like to know how i could get grub boot loader back onto my system so that i can boot up Pinguy OS. Thanks