Win 7 stuck in a boot loop on dual boot machine

You have to check what is mounted in Mint 12 and correct disk signature (GUID) for this partition/drive.

Try removing references to the shared partition from /etc/fstab, then add it manually - or just leave it out. I've had linux problems with two physical partitions mounted to the same directory (e.g. the correct HD "/" partition and a USB backup of "/" were both mounted to "/") because the GUID can get copied when you backup a full partition (I stopped using GUIDs in fstab). You may have some similar problem.

Cool, thanks guys.

I might try removing the shared partition altogether then and handing the space over to Windows. After all I can easily access the Windows partition from Linux if I need to move data between the two.

Or do you envisage that causing issues too? It never has in the past but then this particular problem I'm having hasn't either.

Argh this is seriously annoying me now!

I don't think the boot loop problem has anything to do with Linux. Please someone correct me if I'm wrong here though.

I decided to start afresh so I installed Windows 7 on one partition and Linux Mint 12 on another partition. This time I didn't create a shared partition. After installing Mint I booted into it, mounted the Windows partition and then restarted and booted back to Windows (to test if the act of mounting the Win partition from within Mint casued any issues). Windows booted fine. So far so good. I then set about setting up Windows and installing all the updates and drivers etc. During this process I restarted the PC a good number of times without issue. I didn't boot into Mint at all but the last time I restarted the PC - after installing a driver for the trackpad - the boot loop problem occured again. In exactly the same way as before.

I don't think it has anything to do with the trackpad driver as when it happened the first time it was well past the point where I'd installed that driver.

Obviously I could be wrong but I don't think it's the fault of Linux either as this time I hadn't touched the Mint partition when the boot loop happened. Also, as previously stated, I'm currently dual booting Mint 12 and Win 7 on 2 other laptops (with GRUB installed on the same drive) and both of them are working fine and have been for months.

The poroblem seems to occur only on this one PC, and it clearly isn't a one-off.

Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this? Do you think it could be a hardware issue - or perhaps even an incompatibility with Win 7 (the PC originally shipped with Vista)?

I'd really like to get to the bottom of this one if possible.

Thanks guys... and sorry to be a pain!

Anyone?

You might want to ask in a Linux forum as we mostly see problems where GRUB corrupts Win7 here.

Other resources which have worked repeatedly:
Dual boot Ubuntu-Win7
Dual-Boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu in Perfect Harmony - windows 7 - Lifehacker

But it appears that Windows is the one throwing it's dummy out here?

Don't get me wrong - I appreciate it still might be GRUB causing the issue as you've suggested, but was just wondering if it could be anything else Windows (or hardware) related causing it. As I said it only seems to be affecting this one laptop.

I will of course hop on over to the Mint Forums and ask the same question there though.

Cheers.

Are you using GRUB? The problems we see here often are GRUB code corrupting Win7.

I'd wipe the HD and then follow these to install and use EasyBCD to create the Dual Boot: Dual boot Ubuntu-Win7
Dual-Boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu in Perfect Harmony - windows 7 - Lifehacker

gregrocker said:

Are you using GRUB? The problems we see here often are GRUB code corrupting Win7.

I'd wipe the HD and then follow these to install and use EasyBCD to create the Dual Boot: Dual boot Ubuntu-Win7
Dual-Boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu in Perfect Harmony - windows 7 - Lifehacker

Yeah I am using GRUB still. I'll try again then using EasyBCD. At least I'll find out that way if it's GRUB causing the problem. Just thought it might have been something else as it's only affecting this one PC - despite the fact that the exact same partitioning scheme is in use on my other PCs. Which is weird!

Thanks for the links.

Just out of curiosity is a Wubi install known to cause the same or similar problems? AFAIK it also installs GRUB... doesn't it?

GRUB has been the problem in the past.

A solution is separate HD's, or dual booting using Barman's approach in link here: Dual boot Ubuntu-Win7