Linux Windows dual boot UEFI BIOS confusion
I'm trying to install a Linux Mint dual boot on an old Windows 7 laptop. The laptop has UEFI (plus legacy BIOS mode as you'd expect) and it seems that HP used the legacy setting when they installed Windows 7 on it.
When I start the Linux Mint install I get a warning about BIOS and UEFI, other operating systems becoming unbootable, only proceed if sure, etc. But since no alternative is offered (other than simply giving up and not installing Linux) I decided to proceed, and found that after install, GRUB only offered a Linux option.
So I've restored the Windows bootloader for now but I'm wondering what options are available for proceeding with dual-boot plans. I recall long ago using a bootloader called NeoGRUB so I'll take a look at that as a possible option, but all suggestions would be welcome.
linux-mint windows dual-boot grub
asked Dec 12 at 10:10
Sam
2015
add a comment |
I'm trying to install a Linux Mint dual boot on an old Windows 7 laptop. The laptop has UEFI (plus legacy BIOS mode as you'd expect) and it seems that HP used the legacy setting when they installed Windows 7 on it.
When I start the Linux Mint install I get a warning about BIOS and UEFI, other operating systems becoming unbootable, only proceed if sure, etc. But since no alternative is offered (other than simply giving up and not installing Linux) I decided to proceed, and found that after install, GRUB only offered a Linux option.
So I've restored the Windows bootloader for now but I'm wondering what options are available for proceeding with dual-boot plans. I recall long ago using a bootloader called NeoGRUB so I'll take a look at that as a possible option, but all suggestions would be welcome.
linux-mint windows dual-boot grub
asked Dec 12 at 10:10
Sam
2015
add a comment |
I'm trying to install a Linux Mint dual boot on an old Windows 7 laptop. The laptop has UEFI (plus legacy BIOS mode as you'd expect) and it seems that HP used the legacy setting when they installed Windows 7 on it.
When I start the Linux Mint install I get a warning about BIOS and UEFI, other operating systems becoming unbootable, only proceed if sure, etc. But since no alternative is offered (other than simply giving up and not installing Linux) I decided to proceed, and found that after install, GRUB only offered a Linux option.
So I've restored the Windows bootloader for now but I'm wondering what options are available for proceeding with dual-boot plans. I recall long ago using a bootloader called NeoGRUB so I'll take a look at that as a possible option, but all suggestions would be welcome.
linux-mint windows dual-boot grub
asked Dec 12 at 10:10
Sam
2015
I'm trying to install a Linux Mint dual boot on an old Windows 7 laptop. The laptop has UEFI (plus legacy BIOS mode as you'd expect) and it seems that HP used the legacy setting when they installed Windows 7 on it.
When I start the Linux Mint install I get a warning about BIOS and UEFI, other operating systems becoming unbootable, only proceed if sure, etc. But since no alternative is offered (other than simply giving up and not installing Linux) I decided to proceed, and found that after install, GRUB only offered a Linux option.
So I've restored the Windows bootloader for now but I'm wondering what options are available for proceeding with dual-boot plans. I recall long ago using a bootloader called NeoGRUB so I'll take a look at that as a possible option, but all suggestions would be welcome.
linux-mint windows dual-boot grub
linux-mint windows dual-boot grub
asked Dec 12 at 10:10
Sam
2015
asked Dec 12 at 10:10
Sam
2015
asked Dec 12 at 10:10
Sam
2015
asked Dec 12 at 10:10
Sam
2015
asked Dec 12 at 10:10
Sam
2015
2015
add a comment |
add a comment |
1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
When starting an installation for dual-boot from the OS installation media (of any OS) in a dual UEFI + legacy-capable system, you should look very carefully for any clues indicating which boot method will be used. If you use a firmware boot menu of some sort, you may see not one but two options for booting your installation media: to successfully enable OS selection in GRUB, you must choose to boot the installer using the same method your already-installed OS uses.
If you boot the installer using the legacy way, it will not have access to UEFI runtime services, and so the installer won't be able to fully install an UEFI bootloader. Likewise, if you boot the installer using the UEFI way, the installer won't have access to any BIOS EDD 3.0 information, and must fully rely on user input or heuristic guesses when deciding on which device the BIOS-style bootloader should be installed.
It might be technically possible to install a BIOS-style bootloader from an installer booted in UEFI-style, but I guess the distribution may have not consider that possibility significant enough to implement installer automation for.
It sounds like your laptop prefers UEFI-style boot, but the default installed Windows image was prepared using legacy BIOS style.
I would recommend the following ways to proceed:
if you can afford to redo the Linux installation and your BIOS settings include a "prefer legacy"/"prefer UEFI" setting, switch it to "prefer legacy" and run the installer again. It should now boot in legacy BIOS mode, and the installer should then automatically install a version of GRUB that is compatible with legacy BIOS. That will be able to boot your Windows too.
If you cannot find a way to get the installer started in legacy BIOS boot mode, or you wish to fix your current Linux installation instead of reinstalling, you could boot using a Live CD or installation-media-based recovery boot (I'm not certain which recovery methods are offered by Linux Mint), chroot to your installed Linux OS, remove any
grub-efi-*packages and install the equivalentgrub-pc-*packages in their place, and then use e.g.grub-install --target=i386-pc /dev/sdato explicitly install a legacy BIOS version of the GRUB bootloader.If your installation media is a USB stick, you'll actually have a third option: you could find the
EFIBOOTbootx64.efifile on the installation media, and either rename it to something else or remove it altogether. That would make the installation media unbootable in the UEFI sense, forcing the system to use legacy methods to boot from it, even if BIOS settings offer no choice at all.
answered Dec 12 at 12:31
telcoM
15.7k12143
Thanks telcoM, really appreciate this! The BIOS options were pretty minimal but I'll take another look and hopefully your first solution will do the trick (reinstall of Linux is not a problem at all because it's just a fresh / blank install currently).
– Sam
Dec 12 at 12:35
add a comment |
Your Answer
StackExchange.ready(function() {
var channelOptions = {
tags: "".split(" "),
id: "106"
};
initTagRenderer("".split(" "), "".split(" "), channelOptions);
StackExchange.using("externalEditor", function() {
// Have to fire editor after snippets, if snippets enabled
if (StackExchange.settings.snippets.snippetsEnabled) {
StackExchange.using("snippets", function() {
createEditor();
});
}
else {
createEditor();
}
});
function createEditor() {
StackExchange.prepareEditor({
heartbeatType: 'answer',
autoActivateHeartbeat: false,
convertImagesToLinks: false,
noModals: true,
showLowRepImageUploadWarning: true,
reputationToPostImages: null,
bindNavPrevention: true,
postfix: "",
imageUploader: {
brandingHtml: "Powered by u003ca class="icon-imgur-white" href="https://imgur.com/"u003eu003c/au003e",
contentPolicyHtml: "User contributions licensed under u003ca href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"u003ecc by-sa 3.0 with attribution requiredu003c/au003e u003ca href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/content-policy"u003e(content policy)u003c/au003e",
allowUrls: true
},
onDemand: true,
discardSelector: ".discard-answer"
,immediatelyShowMarkdownHelp:true
});
}
});
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
StackExchange.ready(
function () {
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2funix.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f487542%2flinux-windows-dual-boot-uefi-bios-confusion%23new-answer', 'question_page');
}
);
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
When starting an installation for dual-boot from the OS installation media (of any OS) in a dual UEFI + legacy-capable system, you should look very carefully for any clues indicating which boot method will be used. If you use a firmware boot menu of some sort, you may see not one but two options for booting your installation media: to successfully enable OS selection in GRUB, you must choose to boot the installer using the same method your already-installed OS uses.
If you boot the installer using the legacy way, it will not have access to UEFI runtime services, and so the installer won't be able to fully install an UEFI bootloader. Likewise, if you boot the installer using the UEFI way, the installer won't have access to any BIOS EDD 3.0 information, and must fully rely on user input or heuristic guesses when deciding on which device the BIOS-style bootloader should be installed.
It might be technically possible to install a BIOS-style bootloader from an installer booted in UEFI-style, but I guess the distribution may have not consider that possibility significant enough to implement installer automation for.
It sounds like your laptop prefers UEFI-style boot, but the default installed Windows image was prepared using legacy BIOS style.
I would recommend the following ways to proceed:
if you can afford to redo the Linux installation and your BIOS settings include a "prefer legacy"/"prefer UEFI" setting, switch it to "prefer legacy" and run the installer again. It should now boot in legacy BIOS mode, and the installer should then automatically install a version of GRUB that is compatible with legacy BIOS. That will be able to boot your Windows too.
If you cannot find a way to get the installer started in legacy BIOS boot mode, or you wish to fix your current Linux installation instead of reinstalling, you could boot using a Live CD or installation-media-based recovery boot (I'm not certain which recovery methods are offered by Linux Mint), chroot to your installed Linux OS, remove any
grub-efi-*packages and install the equivalentgrub-pc-*packages in their place, and then use e.g.grub-install --target=i386-pc /dev/sdato explicitly install a legacy BIOS version of the GRUB bootloader.If your installation media is a USB stick, you'll actually have a third option: you could find the
EFIBOOTbootx64.efifile on the installation media, and either rename it to something else or remove it altogether. That would make the installation media unbootable in the UEFI sense, forcing the system to use legacy methods to boot from it, even if BIOS settings offer no choice at all.
answered Dec 12 at 12:31
telcoM
15.7k12143
Thanks telcoM, really appreciate this! The BIOS options were pretty minimal but I'll take another look and hopefully your first solution will do the trick (reinstall of Linux is not a problem at all because it's just a fresh / blank install currently).
– Sam
Dec 12 at 12:35
add a comment |
When starting an installation for dual-boot from the OS installation media (of any OS) in a dual UEFI + legacy-capable system, you should look very carefully for any clues indicating which boot method will be used. If you use a firmware boot menu of some sort, you may see not one but two options for booting your installation media: to successfully enable OS selection in GRUB, you must choose to boot the installer using the same method your already-installed OS uses.
If you boot the installer using the legacy way, it will not have access to UEFI runtime services, and so the installer won't be able to fully install an UEFI bootloader. Likewise, if you boot the installer using the UEFI way, the installer won't have access to any BIOS EDD 3.0 information, and must fully rely on user input or heuristic guesses when deciding on which device the BIOS-style bootloader should be installed.
It might be technically possible to install a BIOS-style bootloader from an installer booted in UEFI-style, but I guess the distribution may have not consider that possibility significant enough to implement installer automation for.
It sounds like your laptop prefers UEFI-style boot, but the default installed Windows image was prepared using legacy BIOS style.
I would recommend the following ways to proceed:
if you can afford to redo the Linux installation and your BIOS settings include a "prefer legacy"/"prefer UEFI" setting, switch it to "prefer legacy" and run the installer again. It should now boot in legacy BIOS mode, and the installer should then automatically install a version of GRUB that is compatible with legacy BIOS. That will be able to boot your Windows too.
If you cannot find a way to get the installer started in legacy BIOS boot mode, or you wish to fix your current Linux installation instead of reinstalling, you could boot using a Live CD or installation-media-based recovery boot (I'm not certain which recovery methods are offered by Linux Mint), chroot to your installed Linux OS, remove any
grub-efi-*packages and install the equivalentgrub-pc-*packages in their place, and then use e.g.grub-install --target=i386-pc /dev/sdato explicitly install a legacy BIOS version of the GRUB bootloader.If your installation media is a USB stick, you'll actually have a third option: you could find the
EFIBOOTbootx64.efifile on the installation media, and either rename it to something else or remove it altogether. That would make the installation media unbootable in the UEFI sense, forcing the system to use legacy methods to boot from it, even if BIOS settings offer no choice at all.
answered Dec 12 at 12:31
telcoM
15.7k12143
Thanks telcoM, really appreciate this! The BIOS options were pretty minimal but I'll take another look and hopefully your first solution will do the trick (reinstall of Linux is not a problem at all because it's just a fresh / blank install currently).
– Sam
Dec 12 at 12:35
add a comment |
When starting an installation for dual-boot from the OS installation media (of any OS) in a dual UEFI + legacy-capable system, you should look very carefully for any clues indicating which boot method will be used. If you use a firmware boot menu of some sort, you may see not one but two options for booting your installation media: to successfully enable OS selection in GRUB, you must choose to boot the installer using the same method your already-installed OS uses.
If you boot the installer using the legacy way, it will not have access to UEFI runtime services, and so the installer won't be able to fully install an UEFI bootloader. Likewise, if you boot the installer using the UEFI way, the installer won't have access to any BIOS EDD 3.0 information, and must fully rely on user input or heuristic guesses when deciding on which device the BIOS-style bootloader should be installed.
It might be technically possible to install a BIOS-style bootloader from an installer booted in UEFI-style, but I guess the distribution may have not consider that possibility significant enough to implement installer automation for.
It sounds like your laptop prefers UEFI-style boot, but the default installed Windows image was prepared using legacy BIOS style.
I would recommend the following ways to proceed:
if you can afford to redo the Linux installation and your BIOS settings include a "prefer legacy"/"prefer UEFI" setting, switch it to "prefer legacy" and run the installer again. It should now boot in legacy BIOS mode, and the installer should then automatically install a version of GRUB that is compatible with legacy BIOS. That will be able to boot your Windows too.
If you cannot find a way to get the installer started in legacy BIOS boot mode, or you wish to fix your current Linux installation instead of reinstalling, you could boot using a Live CD or installation-media-based recovery boot (I'm not certain which recovery methods are offered by Linux Mint), chroot to your installed Linux OS, remove any
grub-efi-*packages and install the equivalentgrub-pc-*packages in their place, and then use e.g.grub-install --target=i386-pc /dev/sdato explicitly install a legacy BIOS version of the GRUB bootloader.If your installation media is a USB stick, you'll actually have a third option: you could find the
EFIBOOTbootx64.efifile on the installation media, and either rename it to something else or remove it altogether. That would make the installation media unbootable in the UEFI sense, forcing the system to use legacy methods to boot from it, even if BIOS settings offer no choice at all.
answered Dec 12 at 12:31
telcoM
15.7k12143
When starting an installation for dual-boot from the OS installation media (of any OS) in a dual UEFI + legacy-capable system, you should look very carefully for any clues indicating which boot method will be used. If you use a firmware boot menu of some sort, you may see not one but two options for booting your installation media: to successfully enable OS selection in GRUB, you must choose to boot the installer using the same method your already-installed OS uses.
If you boot the installer using the legacy way, it will not have access to UEFI runtime services, and so the installer won't be able to fully install an UEFI bootloader. Likewise, if you boot the installer using the UEFI way, the installer won't have access to any BIOS EDD 3.0 information, and must fully rely on user input or heuristic guesses when deciding on which device the BIOS-style bootloader should be installed.
It might be technically possible to install a BIOS-style bootloader from an installer booted in UEFI-style, but I guess the distribution may have not consider that possibility significant enough to implement installer automation for.
It sounds like your laptop prefers UEFI-style boot, but the default installed Windows image was prepared using legacy BIOS style.
I would recommend the following ways to proceed:
if you can afford to redo the Linux installation and your BIOS settings include a "prefer legacy"/"prefer UEFI" setting, switch it to "prefer legacy" and run the installer again. It should now boot in legacy BIOS mode, and the installer should then automatically install a version of GRUB that is compatible with legacy BIOS. That will be able to boot your Windows too.
If you cannot find a way to get the installer started in legacy BIOS boot mode, or you wish to fix your current Linux installation instead of reinstalling, you could boot using a Live CD or installation-media-based recovery boot (I'm not certain which recovery methods are offered by Linux Mint), chroot to your installed Linux OS, remove any
grub-efi-*packages and install the equivalentgrub-pc-*packages in their place, and then use e.g.grub-install --target=i386-pc /dev/sdato explicitly install a legacy BIOS version of the GRUB bootloader.If your installation media is a USB stick, you'll actually have a third option: you could find the
EFIBOOTbootx64.efifile on the installation media, and either rename it to something else or remove it altogether. That would make the installation media unbootable in the UEFI sense, forcing the system to use legacy methods to boot from it, even if BIOS settings offer no choice at all.
answered Dec 12 at 12:31
telcoM
15.7k12143
edited Dec 12 at 12:40
answered Dec 12 at 12:31
telcoM
15.7k12143
answered Dec 12 at 12:31
telcoM
15.7k12143
answered Dec 12 at 12:31
telcoM
15.7k12143
15.7k12143
Thanks telcoM, really appreciate this! The BIOS options were pretty minimal but I'll take another look and hopefully your first solution will do the trick (reinstall of Linux is not a problem at all because it's just a fresh / blank install currently).
– Sam
Dec 12 at 12:35
add a comment |
Thanks telcoM, really appreciate this! The BIOS options were pretty minimal but I'll take another look and hopefully your first solution will do the trick (reinstall of Linux is not a problem at all because it's just a fresh / blank install currently).
– Sam
Dec 12 at 12:35
Thanks telcoM, really appreciate this! The BIOS options were pretty minimal but I'll take another look and hopefully your first solution will do the trick (reinstall of Linux is not a problem at all because it's just a fresh / blank install currently).
– Sam
Dec 12 at 12:35
Thanks telcoM, really appreciate this! The BIOS options were pretty minimal but I'll take another look and hopefully your first solution will do the trick (reinstall of Linux is not a problem at all because it's just a fresh / blank install currently).
– Sam
Dec 12 at 12:35
add a comment |
Thanks for contributing an answer to Unix & Linux Stack Exchange!
- Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!
But avoid …
- Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.
- Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience.
To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.
Some of your past answers have not been well-received, and you're in danger of being blocked from answering.
Please pay close attention to the following guidance:
- Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!
But avoid …
- Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.
- Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience.
To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
StackExchange.ready(
function () {
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2funix.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f487542%2flinux-windows-dual-boot-uefi-bios-confusion%23new-answer', 'question_page');
}
);
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
