Triple-Boot w/ Lion, Ubuntu and Win7

[knouroozi]

When I select my Windows 7 partition in the Chimera boot screen, it gives me the all-too-common "BOOTMGR is missing: press CTRL + ALT + DELETE to restart"

Before you go on about saying that I have to boot from the system reserved partition or run /FixMbr and et cetera from my Windows 7 install disc, please read everything to understand my situation.

I have two 500GB hard drives. Note that the capacities of partitions are rounded.

sda: GPT
sda1: EFI (200MB)
sda2: Lion (HFS+, 100GB)
sda3: Media (HFS+, 400GB)

The Lion partition has 10.7.3 installed, whereas my user folder is located on Media.

sdb: MBR
sdb1: Ubuntu (ext4, root (/) partition, 256GB)
sdb2: Swap Area (6GB)
sdb3: 7 (NTFS, 210GB)
sdb4: Restore (FAT32, 28GB)

sdb1 has both Ubuntu 12.04 installed and Grub to allow chainloading. Boots perfectly. sdb3 houses Windows 7 Professional 64-bit, installed after Ubuntu. sdb4 has been there before either operating system and houses installers for Windows and post-installation files for my Hackintosh.

I used the partition manager in the Ubuntu 12.04 LiveCD to partition sdb into the 4 partitions mentioned above. I then installed Ubuntu and Grub to sd1, with sdb2 being specified as the Swap Area.

I then proceeded to install Windows 7, disconnecting my OS X drive before doing so. I installed to sdb3 (then formatted to FAT32, which the install disc automatically formatted to NTFS). It told me that Windows might create additional partitions for system files. I clicked on OK.

Windows 7 install went fine and dandy, and thanks to GoingBald's awesome triple-boot tutorial I was able to fix the Windows 7 time. I set up Windows 7 with the usual (Firefox, Notepad2, some Ninite stuff, Graphics Drivers) and bob was my uncle. In the middle of all the installations and updates I did restart multiple times, but all the while my OS X was happily disconnected.

I connected my OS X drive to complete my triple-boot with Chimera and 10.7.3 and 12.04 worked perfectly. I tried booting into my Windows 7 partition and it gave me the BOOTMGR is missing error. "Fine" I thought.

I disconnected my OS X drive, popped the Win7 install disc in, ran the 3 commands that included /FixMbr and /RebuildBcd and restarted (with the OS X drive still disconnected). It worked. Connected the OS X drive and tried to boot into Windows 7 through Chimera, and I was greeted with the BOOTMGR is missing error again.

I should mention that booting to sdb using the BIOS boots straight into Windows 7 with no issues - no Grub in between.

Help would be appreciated.

 

[pippox0]

your issue should be caused by second hd.
you have installed win7 , without the other sata hd, so when you connect osx hd, windows7 loose the partition scheme ... i guess .

you should try to modify booting flags on win7 using easyBcd to look the proper partition to boot win7 ...
http://neosmart.net/EasyBCD/

i hope you resolve your problem .

best regards

PippoX0

 

[Going Bald]

When you installed 12.4 Ubuntu did you remember to install grub to the root partition of the Ubuntu install and not to the hard drive? If you installed grub to the hard drive MBR then that is the problem.

 

[knouroozi]

When you installed 12.4 Ubuntu did you remember to install grub to the root partition of the Ubuntu install and not to the hard drive? If you installed grub to the hard drive MBR then that is the problem.

Yes, I installed Grub to the root partition of 12.04. In the Boot-Repair LiveCD session I used to double-check this, I also made the default boot partition of sdb to sdb1, so it loads up Grub. What's weird is that Windows 7 loads normally when selected from the Grub menu.

 

[pippox0]

Yes, I installed Grub to the root partition of 12.04. In the Boot-Repair LiveCD session I used to double-check this, I also made the default boot partition of sdb to sdb1, so it loads up Grub. What's weird is that Windows 7 loads normally when selected from the Grub menu.

You can always chainloader Win7 from Grub

Chimera (OSX) ---> Grub ---> Ubuntu or Win7

 

[knouroozi]

Yes, I installed Grub to the root partition of 12.04. In the Boot-Repair LiveCD session I used to double-check this, I also made the default boot partition of sdb to sdb1, so it loads up Grub. What's weird is that Windows 7 loads normally when selected from the Grub menu.

You can always chainloader Win7 from Grub

Chimera (OSX) ---> Grub ---> Ubuntu or Win7

True, but do any of you people think there is clean way to boot Win7 from Chimera without re-install? It's always an option, considering how much I've had to do it. I just want to understand the cause of the issue in order to avoid it next time.

 

[Going Bald]

If you are going to do a re-install, I recently did this and can say with some surety that it will work.
Boot to BIOS and make steeings for OS X install, AHCI, SS3, HPET 64 bit-save&exit & continue boot UniBeast to the OS X installer and format the HDD with this scheme:
GUID partition tables
first partition - for Win7 size as desired, MSDOS FAT
second partition - shared between Win7 and OS X - MSDOSFAT
third partition - for Lion size as desired MacOS Extended (Journaled)

Once partitioning is complete, exit installer and boot the Win7 install disk and install Win7 to the first partition. Download and install service pack 1, use MS update to finish all updates, install security suite and other apps. Basically get it working well.
Something you might also want to consider is installing your user / app data files to a separate HDD while in the process of installing Win7.

Once you have Win7 to your liking, boot with UniBeast and install OS X Lion. Update to 10.7.3 and run MultiBeast either EasyBeast or UserDSDT. Something you might also want to consider is installing your user / app data files to a separate HDD.

When done, you should have no trouble dual booting.

 

[knouroozi]

If you are going to do a re-install, I recently did this and can say with some surety that it will work.
Boot to BIOS and make steeings for OS X install, AHCI, SS3, HPET 64 bit-save&exit & continue boot UniBeast to the OS X installer and format the HDD with this scheme:
GUID partition tables
first partition - for Win7 size as desired, MSDOS FAT
second partition - shared between Win7 and OS X - MSDOSFAT
third partition - for Lion size as desired MacOS Extended (Journaled)

Once partitioning is complete, exit installer and boot the Win7 install disk and install Win7 to the first partition. Download and install service pack 1, use MS update to finish all updates, install security suite and other apps. Basically get it working well.
Something you might also want to consider is installing your user / app data files to a separate HDD while in the process of installing Win7.

Once you have Win7 to your liking, boot with UniBeast and install OS X Lion. Update to 10.7.3 and run MultiBeast either EasyBeast or UserDSDT. Something you might also want to consider is installing your user / app data files to a separate HDD.

When done, you should have no trouble dual booting.

I've grown tired of reinstalling (twice in the past 3 weeks), so I'll stick to chainloading Windows 7 using Grub. I'll rename "Linux" to "Other" using the Rename Partition modifier and use Grub to boot into Win7 or Ubuntu.

Thanks for the help though - my problem seems to be a wild card.

 

[pippox0]

Before you give up, try to make active sdb3 win7 partition on sdb drive , this should resolve win7 problem.
Doing so, you could loose unix booting ,on the other hand.

 

[knouroozi]

Before you give up, try to make active sdb3 win7 partition on sdb drive , this should resolve win7 problem.
Doing so, you could loose unix booting ,on the other hand.

True. Forgot to do that, but your idea came too late. Reinstalled Windows 7 and gave up on Ubuntu.

It should also be mentioned that booting from Grub only worked when booting to sdb using the BIOS.