Problem with triple boot after format

Hi,

I'm, running a triple boot on two drives.

I have Win 7 Pro 64 bit on a 128 GB Crucial C300 SSD; and Linux Mint and Ubuntu on a 320 GB VelociRaptor.

I'm new to Linux and am starting to get somewhat comfortable with it, so I decided to reformat my Win 7 drive.

I had the Linux drive set to boot first so that grub (?) would give me the options of what OS I wanted to run, and all was well.

Now after I reformatted the Windows drive (still with the Linux drive booting first), the OS menu still has Win 7 listed, but when I click on it, I get a message that it doesn't exist (not sure of exact words, but pretty sure 'does not exist' was part of it).

If I set the Windows drive to boot first, Windows boots and runs just fine - but of course it gives no option for the Linux.

So as it sits now, if I want to change OS's, I have to change my boot order :*** .

Can anyone help me out?
Keep in mind I'm very new to Linux, so any command line instructions you may give will have to be explicit.

Sorry for the n00bness, and thanks.

 

I forgot to mention that I did a firmware update on the SSD along with the Win 7 reformat.

 

Greetings cobrajet,
Noticing a couple of things here. You say you formatted the SSD with Win7 but state that you can still boot into Windows when you set boot to the first hard drive so it is safe to say you re-installed Win7.
Not sure which Linux OS you had hosting grub but it really does not matter. As plodr mentioned, SuperGrubDisk2 will allow you to boot into any of the OS's you have installed. Both Mint and Ubuntu use Grub2 so it does not matter which one you boot into.
Hypothetically let's say we decide that Ubuntu will host grub. Using the SuperGrubDisk2 select to boot into Ubuntu. Once in Ubuntu, open up a terminal and as root type:

Code:

# grub-install dev/sda

This will install grub to your MBR
Hopefully all is well and you did not get any errors.
Now while still in your terminal and still as root type

Code:

# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

This command will find all existing OS's regardless of what HDD they reside on (this even works if you have OS's installed on an external HDD) and write them to your grub.cfg file which is what generates your grub menu. Remove the CD with SuperGrubDisk2 and reboot. If all goes as it should, you should now be presented with a grub menu that has Win7, Mint and Ubuntu. You may also have some other stuff on there such as memtest. Me personnally even though they say do not edit your grub.cfg file, I always do so that my menu only shows that in which I want to see.

As a suggestion, I recommend down loading Parted Magic This is a great tool that runs in RAM. It includes SuperGrubDisk2 as well as many other usefull tools. If you use this, make sure that instead of selecting boot into RAM that you go to the extras selection on the main menu. There you will see SuperGrubDisk2.

Let us know if you are back up and running.

All the best,

Ian

 

Hi plodr and ichase,

Thank you for your time, but I'm not getting anywhere.
In fact, I'm not even getting started.

I don't know anything about the terminal.

I burnt SuperGrub2 and booted to it, found and opened Ubuntu.
Found a terminal.
First thing it says is
To run a command as administrator (user "root"), use "sudo <command>".

So after my computer's name, is says ~$

After the $ is a space, then a blinking space.

At the blinking thing I type (without the quotes) "sudo <command>" and hit enter

Next line comes up says "bash: syntax error near unexpected token `newline'"

I don't have a clue how to proceed from there.

The easiest thing would be for me to just reformat that drive too, which would take no time at all; but I wouldn't be learning anything that way...

So if either of you guys wants to try to help me through this, I'll be checking back sometime on Friday and Saturday. And if no one has added anything by then, that's OK too.

So thanks again.

 

Aw plodr, you replied too fast!

I was just getting ready to tell you guys I fixed it :celebrate - but not through the terminal .

I came upon this source (forgive me if links aren't allowed):

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2/#Reinstalling GRUB2

and way near the bottom, after trudging through a swamp of things I didn't come close to understanding, in big letters it said Reinstalling Grub2.

And that led me to

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

which sent me to soucerforge for a boot repair disk.

http://sourceforge.net/p/boot-repair/home/Home/

I burnt the iso, booted to it, let it do it's thing, and boom !
It was done - in minutes !

And it's actually even better than it was before, because previously I had to boot to my Linux drive (conventional spinner), but now I boot to my SSD and get my OS menu :cool .

And Ubuntu is still the default OS.

So although I didn't get to learn about the terminal, I did get it fixed without an unwanted reinstall; and I will remember what you told me about sudo.

Thanks again to both of you.

 

EasyBCD...Windows keeps the MBR... and my sanity, UEFI firmware is another story