Grub2 problem - can only boot to 2 of 3 OS's

[Jim]

On 5/29/20 12:11 PM, jim wrote:

Top posting to say this is solved. Downloaded and ran Boot-repair and 
now I can boot to all 3 OS's.

Thanks to everyone who offered help.

Jim

> On 5/29/20 11:28 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
>> On Fri, 29 May 2020 at 16:31, jim <jf_byrnes at comcast.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> I haven't done this in a while and did not think it would cause any
>>> problems.
>>
>>
>> Out of order disks partitions are a bad thing, but probably not fatal.
>> Not ideal, though.
>>
>>> I'm not sure the installation "asked me", but when I partitioned I chose
>>> /. Frankly I was sort of on autopilot, I made the choices I remember
>>> making other times.
>>
>> That is a _very_ bad mindset when you're trying to set up
>> triple-boot... but I think you may have worked that out by now.
>>
>> As Colin said, I think you should confine your experiments to VMs for
>> an easier life.
> 
> As I mentioned to Colin in another reply, it is not an experiment, it is 
> a strategy. Without getting into the debate of which is better upgrade 
> or fresh install, I have been installing the new version along side of 
> the old one and then slowly getting the new one setup while still being 
> productive in the old one. Long ago I had a problem similar to this one, 
> I'm not sure exactly how it was resolved, but I think in that case the 
> grub-update solved the problem.
> 
>>> I tried this from both sda1 - Ubuntu 18.4 and sda3 - Mint18.3 and got
>>> this result both times:
>>
>> Oh dear gods, don't do it for ALL of them! :-o
>>
>> As I said: leave your main, primary OS in control of the MBR. You have
>> not said which that is. If there isn't an obvious candidate, then pick
>> one and stick to it.
> 
> I'm not sure what you mean by "main, primary OS". Since Ubuntu16.04 did 
> not work well for me I have been spending most of my time in Mint18.3, 
> but I don't think that is what you mean. I don't reboot often but as I 
> recall I had to cursor down to Mint18.3, so I guess grub was on 
> Ubuntu18.04 (upgraded from 16.04).
> 
>> Then put the _others_ in their respective root partitions.
>>
>> FFS don't try to put _all_ of them in their root partitions or nothing
>> will be in control and it might not boot.
> 
> Really not my intention, one did not work so I tried the other.
> 
>>> This error puzzles me because using the Disks utility all of them are
>>> reported as Ext4(Version 1.0).
>>
>> Ext4 is the latest version of ext3 which is the latest version of
>> ext2. Don't worry about it.
>>
>> Use --force to over-ride the error. But ONLY in the non-main OSes. *DO
>> NOT DO THIS FOR ALL OF THEM!*
>>
>>> Doing this still donsn't work. I can see where it says it detects
>>> Mint18.3 but it never shows up in the grub menu. My goal is to boot to
>>> Mint18.3 that is my main OS, the move to Mint19.3 was to be gradual as I
>>> moved stuff over to it.
>>
>> Why not just upgrade 18.3 to 19.3?
>>
>> Seems much easier. Then you can remove the separate 19.3 install.
> 
> See my reasoning above.
> 
>> Mint 20 will be coming soon... Each major release is based on the
>> then-current Ubuntu LTS. Mint 19.x is based on Ubuntu 18.04. Mint 20
>> will be based on Ubuntu 20.04 .
>>
> 
> I'm in no hurry to adopt the latest releases. Mint19.x had something 
> that was not in Mint18.3 and I couldn't find an easy way to get it.
> 
> two more questions:
> 
> 1) In searching for a solution I see Boot-repair recommended. Have you 
> used it and is it a good option?
> 
> 2) Right now Mint19.3 means nothing to me. Would removing it solve my 
> problem or maybe create more?
> 
> Thanks for your help
> 
> Jim
> 
>