As far as Linux Mint goes I'm not even sure they HAVE LTS versions but I may start using one if it came out as I almost never update mine until I'm forced to as all my Linuxt Mint pc's do is crunch.

The nearest i can think of is, Linux Mint Debian Edition , it gets updated as often as Debian stable, and that can take years.
Latest I know of is LMDE3 which is much the same as Mint 19

As far as Linux Mint goes I'm not even sure they HAVE LTS versions but I may start using one if it came out as I almost never update mine until I'm forced to as all my Linuxt Mint pc's do is crunch.

The nearest i can think of is, Linux Mint Debian Edition , it gets updated as often as Debian stable, and that can take years.
Latest I know of is LMDE3 which is much the same as Mint 19

I will have to check that version out then, thanks

Greetings everyone! Been a long time. No, I'm not back to crunching for MW. I have come across a major problem however, and I happen to be acquainted with a few here that are running Linux in whatever flavor.

I'm still running my 8th gen Intel system; all the specs are in my profile. I had to get a new keyboard because of keys no longer working 100% or keys that would continue to post without a further key press. I had decided to install the Razer control software for my new keyboard and my headset. And here is where the major problem reared its ugly head:

Upon reboot, after installation, I received a mass quantity of errors and the machine would not boot. I cannot do a copy/paste so I will attempt to type 2 lines without any mistakes:

ACPI Error: Aborting method \_PR.PR11._CPC due to previous error (AE_NOT_FOUND) (20210730/psparse-529)
ACPI BIOS Error (bug): Could not resolve symbol [PR.PR00._CPC, AE_NOT_FOUND (20210730/psargs-530)

Those 2 lines would repeat 10 more times before the system would go into "maintenance mode". Also I could not boot into Winders 10 on my second M.2 drive. So I figured that I would have to reinstall Linux Mint v21.1. I would see the same errors listed above yet Linux would boot from the USB flash drive. After installation I would reboot and the same thing would happen; the system would go into "maintenance mode" after listing the above errors. I did reinstall twice more with the same results. I decided to see what I could find on the Internet using my laptop...

On one forum I found that there a 3 causes for this: A change in the BIOS, a Kernel modification or a hardware problem. I figured that it was a hardware problem. I found another forum where someone had the same problem and he went into the BIOS and disabled CSM and still sees the errors yet is able to boot into Linux. I decided to check into new hardware but thought about the CSM item and in the next morning decided to disable CSM and reinstall Linux MInt. Voila, it worked. I'm back into Linux, but...

I no longer have a Grub menu and cannot boot into Winders. Using F8 does not find the other M.2 drive. Plus I still see the errors in the logs and on screen before booting into Linux.

Does anyone have any ideas on this?

Have a great day!

Siran

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr XO - L L & P _\\//
USS Vre'kasht NCC-33187
Winders 10 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

Greetings,

@ Keith & Mikey:

I've already selected an ASUS Prime Z490-A mobo at $249.99 and an Intel i9 10850k CPU at $429.99. I looked at the reviews of the CPU and 87% were 5 star ratings. I didn't see any of the non-5 star rating reviews. :-) Just gotta wait on the stimulus check.

So those prices total is not quite half of the stimulus check. You guys gave me another idea I didn't think about. I'm still running on a GTX 1660 TI GPU, I should be able to land a 20xx RTX at a decent price. I will have to look after I'm done here. I'll let you know what I find. Sure is nice to be in a situation where I'm retired and doing pretty well. The stimulus check is quite the bonus! :-)

[edit 1] Holy crap! Either the manufacturers are scalping or Newegg is scalping. The best price I could find on an in-stock 20xx RTX was $702.99 for a MSI GeForce RTX 2060. I checked the prices on the 30xx RTX GPUs and they were all reasonable and much lower than the 20xx's. But, none were in stock. I'll have to think long and hard on the 2060. ;-) [/edit 1]

Have a great day! :)

Siran

Try here for a 2060 in stock:
https://www.nowinstock.net/computers/videocards/nvidia/rtx2060/

Try here for a 3060 in stock:
https://www.nowinstock.net/computers/videocards/nvidia/rtx3060/

The main site is here: https://www.nowinstock.net/ and you can find alot of things at various prices, somethings you might even know were available

Hi Siran,
The one thing that CSM legacy mode is for it to enable booting a non-UEFI OS. It sounds like your Window installation might be installed on a MBR drive and not a UEFI compatible GPT drive.

When you disabled CSM mode, that locked you out of the Windows drive I think.

But ACPI errors are normally innocuous and do nothing but spam the message logs. I have never heard of them causing a system to fail to boot. The error is caused by cpus that support the CPPC flag. Both AMD and Intel cpus of recent generations do. The kernel devs are working on a fix to get rid of the error messages supposedly.

I think you said you have each OS on separate drives. Your FAT32 EFI partition that contains your grub menu should be on your Mint OS drive in the first 512MB partition on the drive with your Mint OS occupying the rest of the drive in the next partition after the grub partition.

Since you said you can boot the Live USB stick you should be able to reinstall grub. Try the second part of this page while booted from your Live USB.

https://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/2283

---

Hi Keith,

Well, something weird happened to this system when I was sleeping, of all things. I can no longer mount the drives: 2 M.2 NVME drives, one 1 TB SSD and my 500 GB spinning HDD. My Update Manager can no longer refresh the list. I'm not sure what else can be/go wrong. :-\

I do have Linux and Windows 10 on separate M.2 drives. My EFI partition is not first, but last. My mistake; did not know that the position was relevant. Not only that, this was the first time installing Linux Mint that while doing the partitioning even mentioned the EFI partition. Must be a new thing in this new version of Mint.

I will re-enable CSM and do a reinstall of Linux Mint... again, this time putting the EFI partition first. I'll let you know what I come up with.

Thanks Keith. Have a great day!

Siran

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr XO - L L & P _\\//
USS Vre'kasht NCC-33187
Winders 10 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

Hi Keith,

Ok...

I reinstalled Linux Mint with CSM enabled and the EFI partition at the beginning of the drive. Believe it or not, I'm still getting those ACPI Error messages yet I'm now booting into Linux "properly". Everything is now configured the way I had it. I'm still not getting a Grub menu and the Windows M.2 NVME drive does not show up when I use F8 to bring up the boot menu.

I went to that page you linked to for installing Grub2 from the USB install drive. I booted from the USB drive and proceeded to use the second section since this is still a supported version of Linux Mint. I used the commands in the terminal window and listed the drives. I'm confused here. The (*) is shown at the boot partition of my Windows M.2 NVME drive. Is that where Grub gets installed? I had no problem with Grub until the fiasco which happened when installing the control software for my keyboard and headset. Everything worked just fine until that point.

I will hold off on the Grub issue until I find out if indeed that is where Grub is installed. Perhaps I shall check the Internet again... ;-)

Thanks and have a great day!

Siran

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr XO - L L & P _\\//
USS Vre'kasht NCC-33187
Winders 10 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

No the location of the EFI partition is not relevant. It is typically at the beginning of a new drive, but could be at the end or in my case on one host, in the middle between two OS partitions.
I believe there is a restriction when the block count goes over a certain number for large drives but I could be wrong there.

Fixing grub is not going to fix the ACPI error messages. They are harmless. But not being able to see the Windows drive is the issue.

The whole point of having Windows on its own separate drive is to not mess with its bootloader so it will always be able to boot. The GRUB2 partition normally goes onto the drive you are installing Linux to.

It sounds like OS-Prober in the grub file is not being run to discover the Windows drive. I think you said you reinstalled Linux Mint. If that is so, then the reinstallation is what caused the problem since new Linux installations default to disabling OS-PROBER

So boot into your Linux Mint installation and navigate to /etc/default and open a command terminal. Then we will change/add an entry in the grub file.

cd /etc/default

sudo nano grub

Look for a os-prober statement that reads:
#GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false

This is causing the OS-PROBER to not be run.

Then uncomment the statement to remove #

This will cause the statement to be to be run and OS-PROBER will run during grub

If the statement isn't there, then add this:

GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false

Save the file with CTRL-O

The run update-grub

sudo update-grub

reboot

This should rewrite the boot grub.conf file to make the entry to probe for Windows OS' and should add the Windows drive into the grub menu

---

Hi Keith,

Everything went well with the Grub file. The line was not there and I added it. After the grub update, it showed that it saw the Windows installation drive. Now...

I rebooted and went into Linux just fine. I rebooted again to go into Windows and get this on the screen for several seconds then re-displays the Grub menu:

Secure Boot forbids loading module from (HD3, GPT2) /grub/x86_64-EFI/parttool.mod.
Can't find command 'drivemap'.
Bad shim signature.

Uh, Ok, I just looked on the Internet and found a few things that have me thinking. I believe I have Secure Boot [Disabled]. I'm going to reboot and set it to [Enabled] to see if that fixes this new problem. Be back in a flash...

[edit]Well, I was wrong; Secure Boot was [Enabled].

I did make a change to the OS type; I changed it to [Other OS]. This is what I got:

Setting partition type to 0x7.
Error: can't find command 'drivemap'.
Error: invalid EFI file path.

I switched back to what was original and am back to the error messages above about "Secure Boot forbids...".

I will look some more on the Internet.
[/edit]

Thanks Keith,

Siran

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr XO - L L & P _\\//
USS Vre'kasht NCC-33187
Winders 10 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

Well I don't know much about Windows. Is it required to use Secure Boot for that OS?

Can you disable Secure Boot in the BIOS and see if that changes the problem?

I am not sure of the order of the events that led to this problem, I believe you said it started with installing drivers for a headset. Since Linux does not deal with "drivers" per se, I assume this means you installed Windows drivers for the headset.

So this leads me to believe that the Grub partition does not have anything to do with the inability to boot Windows now that the grub file has a Windows entry.

So I think that repairing the Windows bootloader may be the next logical step.

So you need to boot the Windows install medium and drop to a command window then issue these commands:

bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /rebuildbcd

Then reboot and using the grub menu for Windows, see if you can get into it.

Also I forgot to ask if you ever tried changing the boot target in the BIOS? You said you tried the F12 key at POST to try and get into Windows but you can also preselect the Windows boot partition in the BIOS directly as the boot target and when you exit the BIOS with a Save and Exit, it should boot Windows directly. Did you ever try that approach and what was the result?

---

Hi Keith,

Well, I'm back into Winders, but...

First things first: I was not installing drivers for my Razer keyboard and headset. I was installing the setup software which controls the LED back lighting on the keyboard and shows battery level and other things for the headset. This software is in the software manager. I don't remember exactly what happened after the installation was complete. I do remember looking for the software in the menu and could not find it for some reason. That was when I decided that perhaps a reboot was in order and when I discovered the problem.

Now for the Winders "but..." above: I went into BIOS as you suggested.

The Boot Option Priorities has 2 selections:

#1 Ubuntu (1 TB NVME SSD)
#2 1 TB NVME SSD

I went into Boot Override which included my 250 GB NVME SSD with Winders installed. If I were to boot normally to go into Linux, the Grub menu is in lower resolution (1024 x 768). If I go into BIOS and select my Winders drive, the Grub menu is displayed in the higher resolution and I can boot into Windows by selecting it in the menu. If I select the Winders drive in the low resolution Grub menu, the machine boots into Linux Mint. Go figure! I'm stumped.

Can I do this:

So you need to boot the Windows install medium and drop to a command window then issue these commands:

bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /rebuildbcd

Then reboot and using the grub menu for Windows, see if you can get into it.

by booting into Winders via the BIOS method? Winders does not have a "LiveCD/USB" like Linux does, at least not that I remember. I don't go into Winders very much anymore, maybe once every few months or so, so booting Winders through the BIOS method is Ok with me. But if the above fixes can get me into Winders in a normal manner, so much the better. I will wait for any response you may have. :-)

Thanks Keith and have a great day!

Siran

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr XO - L L & P _\\//
USS Vre'kasht NCC-33187
Winders 10 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

I only suggested fixing the Windows bootloader as I thought you said you were unable to get into Windows. Now you say you can boot Windows from the grub menu with no issues.

You must have a scrambled grub in boot. Probably the Windows UUID is pointing at the Linux drive.

You will have to look at the main grub and fstab files to see what's what.

---

Hi Keith,

... Now you say you can boot Windows from the grub menu with no issues.

I can only get booted into Windows if I use the boot option in Boot Override in the BIOS and select the Windows drive in Grub that displays. In a normal boot, without going into the BIOS, if I select the Windows drive to boot from in Grub, it boots into Linux.

You must have a scrambled grub in boot. Probably the Windows UUID is pointing at the Linux drive.

I looked in Grub and the only line that is uncommented is the OS_PROBER line you had me add, plus these lines near the top of the file:

GRUB_DEFAULT=0
GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=hidden
GRUB_TIMEOUT=10
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

In the fstab file, there is no reference to Windows, a Windows drive or UUID at all. All it shows are my partitions on the Linux NVME drive.

I shall keep looking on the Internet too to see if I can find a solution.

Thanks Keith and have a great day!

Siran

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr XO - L L & P _\\//
USS Vre'kasht NCC-33187
Winders 10 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

You looked at the wrong grub file. The one in /etc/default is just the configuration file for the actual grub.cfg file in /boot/grub.

That file is the actual grub file that produces the GRUB2 boot menu and controls the boot process. The /boot/grub/grub.cfg file identifies the target boot partitions and OS drives by their UUID number.

That file is the one I am saying has the invalid UUID number for the Windows bootloader partition. The menu item for the Windows OS must be pointing at the Linux drive.

Somehow I think that os-prober did not run or picked up the wrong UUID for the Windows drive. Can you run sudo os-prober from the command line and post its output?

---

Hi Keith,

OS-PROBER Output:

 sudo os-prober
[sudo] password for rick:                 
/dev/nvme0n1p1:Windows 10:Windows:chain
/dev/nvme0n1p2:Windows 10:Windows1:chain

I looked at /boot/grub/grub.cfg and this is the section pertaining to Windows:

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###
menuentry 'Windows 10 (on /dev/nvme0n1p1)' --class windows --class os $menuentry_id_option 'osprober-chain-FAD4518FD4514F4F' {
	insmod part_msdos
	insmod ntfs
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root FAD4518FD4514F4F
	parttool ${root} hidden-
	drivemap -s (hd0) ${root}
	chainloader +1
}
menuentry 'Windows 10 (on /dev/nvme0n1p2)' --class windows --class os $menuentry_id_option 'osprober-chain-320452170451DF03' {
	insmod part_msdos
	insmod ntfs
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 320452170451DF03
	parttool ${root} hidden-
	drivemap -s (hd0) ${root}
	chainloader +1
}
set timeout_style=menu
if [ "${timeout}" = 0 ]; then
  set timeout=10
fi
### END /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###

I hope this sheds a little more light on this issue. :-) By the way, my M.2 NVME drives are correct: /dev/nvme0n1pX. The sda and sdb storage devices are my NTFS drives: data drive for storage and a SSD for installed games.

Thanks Keith and have a great day!

Siran

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr XO - L L & P _\\//
USS Vre'kasht NCC-33187
Winders 10 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

Go back to the /boot/grub/grub.cfg file and see what the -- set root= statement has for the UUID for the Linux OS set root= statements.

I think you will find either one of your Windows1 chain or Windows chain UUID's match one of the Linux OS set root= values.

That is why you are getting the Linux OS booting when you select the Windows grub choice.

I don't think you should have TWO chain statements. One of them is incorrect and its entry should be removed from the grub.cfg file.

I think maybe the second entry which probably is identified as chain1 is the extraneous one. But verify first which one has the same set root= value as one of your Linux entries.

Then it is as simple as removing the entry from the file. If it is the second statement, just cut everything within the curly braces.

I am guessing here as I never have had to deal with any Windows boot partition in the grub before.

---

Hi Keith,

Go back to the /boot/grub/grub.cfg file and see what the -- set root= statement has for the UUID for the Linux OS set root= statements.

The -- set root= statements are set to the UUID of my Linux partitions.

I think you will find either one of your Windows1 chain or Windows chain UUID's match one of the Linux OS set root= values.
That is why you are getting the Linux OS booting when you select the Windows grub choice.

I don't understand how setting the Linux -- set root= statement to a Windows UUID will cause the PC to boot into Linux.

I don't think you should have TWO chain statements. One of them is incorrect and its entry should be removed from the grub.cfg file.
I think maybe the second entry which probably is identified as chain1 is the extraneous one. But verify first which one has the same set root= value as one of your Linux entries.

Both have the Windows partitions UUIDs.

Then it is as simple as removing the entry from the file. If it is the second statement, just cut everything within the curly braces.

#
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE
#
# It is automatically generated by grub-mkconfig using templates
# from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub
#

I don't feel comfortable messing with that file.

I used the Disks function in Accessories to verify the UUIDs for both M.2 NVME drives. The UUIDs for the Windows partitions M.2 match that which is in the grub.cfg file. The UUIDs for the Linux partitions M.2 match that which is in the grub.cfg file.

I'm thinking about joining the Linux Mint forum and posting everything there to see if someone may have any ideas to fix this. So, until then I won't be messing with the grub.cfg file. Like I mentioned, I don't feel comfortable about that. If I need to go into Windows for any reason I will just use the BIOS Boot Override method.

Thanks Keith and have a great day!

Siran

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr XO - L L & P _\\//
USS Vre'kasht NCC-33187
Winders 10 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

Hi Keith,

I found something different about setting up Linux Mint and Windows as dual boot on 2 SSDs.

When I partitioned my Linux SSD I used "Partition type: Primary" for the EFI and /boot partitions, the / and /home partitions, per instructions I used, are set to "Partition type: Logical". I found another set of instructions that set all partitions as "Partition type: Primary". Also it says to select the /EFI partition before hitting the "Install Now" button, for loading the bootloader. I selected the / partition I believe. It is looking to me as though I must, once again, install Linux Mint using the new instructions I just found.

What do you think? I won't do anything until I get your opinion.

Have a great day!

Siran

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr XO - L L & P _\\//
USS Vre'kasht NCC-33187
Winders 10 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

Greetings,

Just over 4 days ago I was finally able to get my dual boot system working properly. I did a lot of searching of the Internet and tried many different approaches. I was able to find something that showed me the location of the Grub boot loader. Are you sitting down? It showed me that it was located /sdb1/cdrom or something like that. The only time I have a CD/DVD machine hooked up is if I decide to watch a DVD movie. It is connected through a USB port.

I found something (cannot remember what it was that I found) that got rid of that entry. I had all SSDs and my one HDD disconnected and had only the Windows M.2 NVME drive installed. Windows was completely installed, finally.

I re-connected my other drives and booted into Linux Mint. I did the sudo os-prober and updated Grub. I rebooted and Windows showed up in the Grub menu. I selected it and booted into Windows. I then rebooted and selected Linux Mint and booted into it. Problem fixed!

@Keith:
I believe that what I fixed this thing with was one or more of these that I saw on the Internet:

bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /rebuildbcd

But if memory serves, I fixed it by booting into my Live USB Linux drive. Memory is really bad any more at my age (71), mostly short term. Using GParted was how I found the /cdrom crap and I could do nothing with the partition since it didn't exist anywhere. Maybe I didn't use the above commands, but I do remember something about them. I don't know, I just don't remember clearly. All I remember was being very elated when I got it fixed!

Thanks Keith for the help you gave.

Have a great day!

Siran

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr XO - L L & P _\\//
USS Vre'kasht NCC-33187
Winders 10 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

Greetings,

Just over 4 days ago I was finally able to get my dual boot system working properly. I did a lot of searching of the Internet and tried many different approaches. I was able to find something that showed me the location of the Grub boot loader. Are you sitting down? It showed me that it was located /sdb1/cdrom or something like that. The only time I have a CD/DVD machine hooked up is if I decide to watch a DVD movie. It is connected through a USB port.

I found something (cannot remember what it was that I found) that got rid of that entry. I had all SSDs and my one HDD disconnected and had only the Windows M.2 NVME drive installed. Windows was completely installed, finally.

I re-connected my other drives and booted into Linux Mint. I did the sudo os-prober and updated Grub. I rebooted and Windows showed up in the Grub menu. I selected it and booted into Windows. I then rebooted and selected Linux Mint and booted into it. Problem fixed!

@Keith:
I believe that what I fixed this thing with was one or more of these that I saw on the Internet:

bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /rebuildbcd

But if memory serves, I fixed it by booting into my Live USB Linux drive. Memory is really bad any more at my age (71), mostly short term. Using GParted was how I found the /cdrom crap and I could do nothing with the partition since it didn't exist anywhere. Maybe I didn't use the above commands, but I do remember something about them. I don't know, I just don't remember clearly. All I remember was being very elated when I got it fixed!

Thanks Keith for the help you gave.

Have a great day!

Siran

WOO HOO!!!