Windows 7, Dual Boot, Legacy, UEFI. Zorin not a boot option

Hi,

I installed Zorin 17 onto an HP DV7 with Windows 7, dual boot.
I took the 'run alongside' option and allowed for two 150gb partitions. I used USBImager.

Zorin installed and opened up. It made some downloads
and then said I had to restart. I restarted and it went to Windows
7, without giving an option to select Zorin. I also tried hitting
Escape upon bootup, but Zorin was not listed as an option.

I assumed the bootmanager was deactivated, and did
Comand Prompt: bcdedit/set {bootmgr} displaybootmenu yes.

This brought up the bootmenu when the computer was turned on,
but Windows 7 was the only option.

Also: Booted into USB, started Zorin using 'Try', then
CMD efibootmgr
result: 'EFI variables are not supported on this system.'

I reinstalled using Rufus, which gives 'BIOS OR EFI' as the only
choice. I got the same result with Windows 7 the only boot option.

So I guess Windows is legacy, and Zorin is not compatible in dual boot mode?

Is there another option besides installing with 'erase all' and
not doing dual boot?

Thanks,

Mark

Load the Zorin "Try" USB and see if you can use repair boot program. Zorin uses Grub for boot menu which should detect 7 and Zorin and write entries into a menu.

Zorin should still be usable even if your system doesn't support UEFI. You'll want to make sure bios support is enabled in Rufus and make sure the mode is MBR, not GPT partitioning. Also, when you select to auto split the partition, you still need to select a location to install the bootloader to. You'd want to make sure that you're selecting the correct.location as well, so that it's findable.

You can also check your bios settings to make sure the boot mode is strictly bios. If it's old enough it shouldn't have any mention of UEFI lol.

Does the system have 'fast boot' at all? This didn't really take effect until Windows 8, but think I read somewhere on the web that some machines with 7 had this. If dual-booting on one hard drive, the first thing you should do is use Windows Disk Management to shrink your C:\ drive to make space for Zorin. As you appear to have mbr in use you are limited to 4 Primary Partitions. If this is a notebook as opposed to a desktop, notebook manufacturers often have 4 partitions, all Primary. The first is usually a System partition, the second the Windows partition, the third a System Restore Partition, and sometimes a fourth partition for creating rescue media. The first thing I would do if possible and you have available an external hard drive is to create an image using Rescuezilla. Then separately backup all your critical personal files. My preferred install medium is DVD, but if not an option then use MultiSystem or Rufus on USB. The other thing you should do is create a Windows Repair Disk before anything else. If your C.o.A. has worn off if a notebook, run a .vbs file using Notepad. Make sure to save the file as .vbs and not .txt.

This means if you have to reinstall Windows, you have access to the licence key to activate Windows. You might also wish to consider using EasyBCD from NeoSmart

Scroll down and register for the free one.

Before I forget, if you are in the situation of having 4 Primary partitions, you will need to make a choice of which one to remove, but backup your system first.

This is an old video but still applicable that I made for dual-booting Windows 7 with Zorin 9:

Sadly the Matthew Moore video is now private on YouTube which inspired me to do the above. His method was dual booting with Windows 8 from scratch, mine looks at using EasyBCD with an existing Windows install.

Footnote: MultiSystem:

https://zoringroup.com/forum/6/13887/

You may need to install xterm to run the installer:

Welcome to the Forum!

You used Rufus? There You can set up the Partition Sheme between GPT and MBR. GPT is for UEFI Mode and MBR for Legacy Mode. Look here:

So, you could theoretically create 2 Sticks one with GPT Sheme and one with MBR Sheme and then test which one works.

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I ran Boot repair, the recommended option, and it said 'boot repaired'. I checked and I have BIOS only, not UEFI.
Upon restarting, Boot manager opens and Win7 is still the only option given. I reran Boot Repair and chose Advanced, and noticed:
Grub Location: sdb
OS to boot by default sdb5 (Zorin OS)

Is there a way I can check the location of the bootloader?

Thanks for the Rescuezilla and boot manager program recs,
I'll check them out.

Yes, you can run in the Terminal efibootmgr -v
That will show You the Boot Entries and the Locations.

Do you have multiple storage drives installed?

Also if you boot into the live usb then open gparted and share a screenshot. (Send for all the storage drives if you have)

Here are some screen shots: Disk Management for Zorin, Win7, and
Zorin/USB gparted.

When I reinstalled Zorin using Rufus instead of USBImager,
I thought it would be just be an override of the existing installation,
but it appears to have made a new partition.
Rufus listed MBR as the install option.

Disk Management in Zorin lists two hardrives, Toshiba and
Western Digital. I didn't see the Toshiba in Windows DM.

Toshiba: sda1
Western Digital: sdb2

With Zorin listing two hardrives, does that make a dual boot option or 'erase all' option difficult? I don't have any personal files on this notebook, so if I screw it up I can start from scratch. Although the free 'plants and zombies' looks good.

Thanks,

Mark171



It's clearly visible in your first screenshot. There are two drives 'Disk 0' and 'Disk 1'

You do have multiple drives, When you selected 'Install alongside Windows' for the first time I guess the installer selected your 2nd drive to install Zorin and that's how you proceeded with the installation.

This is your first drive /dev/sda and looking from the screenshot it only has your windows installation in it.

Now this right here is your second drive /dev/sdb, this is where your Zorin installation resides.

So when you boot your device it boots into your primary drive /dev/sda. In order to boot into your Zorin installation:

  • Enter bios
  • Locate 'Boot order'
  • Put your second drive on the top in Boot order list.
  • Save the changes and exit BIOS

Now you should able to boot into Zorin. If Zorin boot is successful then open terminal and run:

  • sudo gedit /etc/default/grub
  • Don't change anything and go to the end of the file
  • add the following line

GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false

  • Save the changes and exit the editor
  • Now in terminal run: sudo update-grub

This will update the grub and add the Windows boot entry to the grub and on the next boot onwards you will get the option for both Windows and Zorin to select between.



Looking into this, I guess you are correct. It didn't override the existing root partition instead it created a separate root partition.

You can use gparted to delete the 2nd root partition and add the free space to the first root partition.

-x-

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Like I stated before, notebooks (and HP Minis like the one I have) come with 4 partitions, all marked Primary. Regardless of how many hard drives you have, only 4 Primary partitions are allowed under mbr.

As I stated in my first response, backup your entire Windows Drive, then decide which Partittion you are going to delete. After, for Zorin, just make a Primary partition of 80 Gb and mark it as '/', then create an extended partition to create a swap area at the end of the extended partition, double the size of physical RAM you have in your notebook, and the freespace in front of swap use as '/home'.

Thanks for the suggestions, I looked at BIOS and
found this list in Boot Order.

Notebook Hard Drive
Internal CD/DVD Rom Drive
USB Diskette on Key/USB Hard Disk
USB CD/DVD ROB Drive
!USB Floppy
Network Adaptor

Looks like it's not detecting the second drive. I went through every menu in BIOS and didn't see it listed, ie: an enable/disable toggle. I will check around old HP notebook threads and try to find something out about this model.

Yes I got Rescuezilla to work! And backed up the Windows. Took about 12 minutes and was 7 GB.

Iv had rufus mess up some of my installs for usbs. I use Etcher now as iv had no issues with it on my duel boot windows 10 laptop.

I would try reseating the drive, but the fact it shows up in GParted suggests it is fitted correctly. I believe it is likely to be down to the mbr issue of 4 Primary partitions. You should also check the BIOS that the drive shows up there - make sure the second drive is enabled and also check that it is set to AHCI, not RAID.

Thanks for your suggestions. Since I can't find the second drive listed in BIOS, I'm reluctant to start deleting partitions at this point. I'm still doing some research but might just buy a used notebook at the repair shop with ONE drive, and do a complete 'erase' install. I've contacted an HP forum about the Bios/dual drive issue.

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Maybe one other Suggestion for this: You could try to reset the BIOS to Default Settings and look if this will help.

Possible solution here:

**Thanks for the posts about the BIOS! I've decided to attempt the following:

a. Delete the two Zorin installations from the non bootable drive [the drive that's not listed in BIOS,
this has caused a problem]
b. Convert the HP TOOLS partition to logical, which would erase the tools, but those are backed up
with Rescuezilla and also are available for download. This would result in 3 primary partitions
instead of 4.
c. Install Zorin with 'something else' and proceed, using 'shrink' volume.

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