I broke my computer

kevmore007

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This is a long one, so pop some popcorn and pull the chairs in tight.
First of all Hi everybody. I'm new here and this is my first post. To keep things tidy this will be my introduction post as well. I am not new to computers, my first computer I used had a paper printer as a monitor!! I am fairly green at Linux. I have been dabbling for years every time Windows pushes me to the edge I will install Linux for a few years and then something will happen and I will switch back to Windows.
Anyway, here is my problem. The laptop is a Lenovo E560 that came with win 10 but I had it downgraded to win 7 pro to use with my drones. Then I decided I wanted to load Mint (cinnamon) onto an external HD using my win 7 laptop to do it. This is where the wheels fell off this wagon. For the life of me I could not get it to work. The installation would almost finish and then stop and I tried several things. I eventually took the Win 7 hd out and put in the external one I was trying to install mint on into the machine and still couldn't finish properly.
So then I put the win 7 hd back into the laptop and it wouldn't boot. Tried fixing it with the win 7 disc and no go.
Still no boot. Then I decided to install mint beside win 7 because I needed a working laptop. So now I've got mint all loaded up and it works fine except for a couple of things. I am not getting the proper linux grub start up menu where I can pick what operating system I want to use, and if I turn the laptop off and restart I have to use a linux grub cd to boot into linux. My computer still refuses to start win 7 at all. I can see all the files using linux and I have even gone in and messed with some of the windows boot files. At this point I need to rebuild my MBR in windows, but can't seem to do this from either win or linux. The linux currently works fine if I don't shut the laptop down, I just let it sleep.
One option I have is to backup all my windows files (pictures etc) and try to install windows beside linux, but I am afraid that i'll mess that up too.
The only reason I need windows is to use excell, open office doesent seem to be able to play nice with excell.
 


You may have to start from scratch. Every article I have read involving dual booting Windows and Linux requires Windows first. I believe this is because Windows MBR doesn't install correctly when installed after Linux. Where as GRUB will recognize both the boot directory for Linux and the MBR for Windows. Personally I would: 1. Back up all the data. 2. Wipe the drive with a live Linux usb/cd and the dd command. 3. Install Windows on a partition minus the space wanted for Linux. 4. Install Linux using the rest of the available space.
This should give you a fresh clean install. If you are going to continue to use Windows 7, I would re-install soon as that OS will no longer be supported Jan 14.
 
Boot into Mint and open the terminal.

Run this command:
sudo update-grub

Wait for it to finish.
Reboot-

Upon rebooting you should be able to use the arrow keys to boot either into Windows or Linux Mint.

-:::-BTW, Windows 7 will no longer be supported as of Jan. 14, 2020.-:::-
 
Well, thanks for the help,
Here is a pic of the start menu I am greeted with:
5110


I did the grub update, but my laptop still refuses to boot into linux by itself, I still have to use the linux boot disc I downloaded.
 
You may have to start from scratch. Every article I have read involving dual booting Windows and Linux requires Windows first. I believe this is because Windows MBR doesn't install correctly when installed after Linux. Where as GRUB will recognize both the boot directory for Linux and the MBR for Windows. Personally I would: 1. Back up all the data. 2. Wipe the drive with a live Linux usb/cd and the dd command. 3. Install Windows on a partition minus the space wanted for Linux. 4. Install Linux using the rest of the available space.
This should give you a fresh clean install. If you are going to continue to use Windows 7, I would re-install soon as that OS will no longer be supported Jan 14.
Windows is greedy and an egomanic ; it doesn't know nor care that something else could exist on the same HD so wipes everything bootwise to the exclusion of everything else.
 
@kevmore007 coders are lazy so best to make everything succinct. Yes to my knowledge Windows is installed first. if for no other reason than Windows is greedy and an egomanic ; it doesn't know nor care that something else could exist on the same HD so wipes everything bootwise to the exclusion of everything else.

If you install a linux install partition and swap ,install your linux then update-grub should work.

as is your current setup, if you can get into grub via live CD maybe you can re-install grub to the partition of your linux
 
Looking at your picture is a bit of a puzzle.
Look at your BIOS.
What hardware is set to Boot? What hardware is set to Boot first?
The triangle is set against PCI Lan. That probably should not appear. It is not the desired Boot device.
The first hardware is shown as the DVD. What is the effect of having the HDD Boot before the DVD?

Received wisdom is you should not use a RW to install and Boot from. A Read Only device is recommended.
 
Looking at the pic you posted of your boot menu it looks like your system is set to boot to the CDROM drive.

If you have Mint 'installed already' you should want to have your boot menu set to the:
HDD Intel SSDSC2BP480G4 which is your hard drive.
 
Thanks everybody. When I choose the hd it just goes back to this screen.
I've fixed the problem though.
I downloaded the recovery disc for my laptop and did a fresh install of windows 10.
All is good now
thanks again to all.
 

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