[EJWAGADORN]

I am hoping someone can explain this to me. I have a HDD which has Vista on it. I have another HDD which has been formatted. It recently had Linux mint installed but I formatted the drive.
In the BIOS, Vista will not load if the settings are 1.Bootable Add-in cards 2.Vista Drive 3. Formatted drive. Now, here is the oddity. Vista will load if I set the preferences to 1.Bootable Add-in cards. 2. Formatted drive. 3. Vista Drive.

The error I get when I use the first arrangement is, "error: unknown file system grub rescue." This is a bit odd because I thought Grub would have been deleted when I formatted the drive.

I unplugged the formatted drive and set the BIOS preferences to 1.Vista drive 2. Bootable Add-in cards and Vista booted okay.

This all makes no logical sense to me.

Regards

EJWAGADORN

[danleff]

If Grub was installed by you or by the installation of Mint Linux to the Master Boot Record of one of the hard drives, then this would explain it.

Out of curiosity, what happens if you make the boot order;

1.Vista drive 2. Formatted drive and 3.Bootable Add-in cards?

[EJWAGADORN]

danleff, on 03 June 2012 - 12:03 PM, said:

If Grub was installed by you or by the installation of Mint Linux to the Master Boot Record of one of the hard drives, then this would explain it.

Out of curiosity, what happens if you make the boot order;

1.Vista drive 2. Formatted drive and 3.Bootable Add-in cards?

If I set the BIOS to how you have asked above, then Vista boots okay.

1 ch0 M. :WDC WD1002FAEX-00Y9A0 Vista Will boot to Vista
2 ch1 M. ST332062ONS (Formatted)
3 Bootable Add-in Cards (None)

ch0 is the drive with Vista installed. This is what is so confusing.
ch1 is the drive that has been formatted that once had Linux mint installed to.

I am under the impression that GRUB has been deleted from the formatted drive that Linux initially put there. So, if it was never installed to the Vista drive, I am wondering how, during a failed boot, GRUB gets a mention? I am only a novice so perhaps there is much more to this that I am unaware of.

Thank you for your response.

[danleff]

Formatting the drive without doing a low level format retains the master boot record which probably contains grub on the drive that you formatted.

The grub reference files on the drive were removed in the format (they were located in the filesystem of the Linux system).

The MBR grub information was retained and sticks on Grub as it can't find the reference files that were removed.

Assuming that you changed the bios order in the Bios itself (and not just at the splash screen by hitting F10 or whatever is appropriate for yoyr system), it also sounds like you have a funky bios and changing the add-in card first reference in the bios to last prevents the formatted drive from trying to boot first or before the vista drive.

[EJWAGADORN]

danleff, on 09 June 2012 - 11:41 AM, said:

Formatting the drive without doing a low level format retains the master boot record which probably contains grub on the drive that you formatted.

The grub reference files on the drive were removed in the format (they were located in the filesystem of the Linux system).

The MBR grub information was retained and sticks on Grub as it can't find the reference files that were removed.

Assuming that you changed the bios order in the Bios itself (and not just at the splash screen by hitting F10 or whatever is appropriate for yoyr system), it also sounds like you have a funky bios and changing the add-in card first reference in the bios to last prevents the formatted drive from trying to boot first or before the vista drive.

Thanks for the information. Sorry to have taken so long to respond.

[EJWAGADORN]

danleff, on 09 June 2012 - 11:41 AM, said:

Formatting the drive without doing a low level format retains the master boot record which probably contains grub on the drive that you formatted.

The grub reference files on the drive were removed in the format (they were located in the filesystem of the Linux system).

The MBR grub information was retained and sticks on Grub as it can't find the reference files that were removed.

Assuming that you changed the bios order in the Bios itself (and not just at the splash screen by hitting F10 or whatever is appropriate for yoyr system), it also sounds like you have a funky bios and changing the add-in card first reference in the bios to last prevents the formatted drive from trying to boot first or before the vista drive.

Thanks for the information. Sorry to have taken so long to respond.