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<DIV>Jonathon</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Thanks for the prompt reply so far.</DIV>
<DIV>It does not seem to be the boot that's the problem as It opens up as far as
the scenic pictures that form the Mint desktop. Its just when I try to log
on in the boxes after that when the User Name and Password are rejected so we
are not far off actually running. I should have said that I do not suspect
the keyboard as the same happened using the on screen virtual keyboard with the
mouse so its not a key change problem. Password comprises upper and lower
case and numerals for strength</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I am not sure if you are talking of Knoppix just as a boot loader as I knew
of it as a Distro which I think I tried many years back (but did not
install) along with SUSE, Mandrake, and Ubuntu. </DIV>
<DIV>You are correct in that it is on one single partition taking up the whole
disk but Linux automatically split this into two. It is a 1TB SATA so
there is no master and slave but is the first disk when it comes to running the
Linux. There is no other Linux working operating system on that disk just the
one we are referring to. All the Linux files are installed on the hard
disk so I assume we are past the USB live booting stage. The installation file
was an ISO which Linux Format said could be used exactly as it was without
further burning to an image and it seemed to go in smoothly. I did get a quick
flash of a screen with a line mentioning Grub somewhere along the line, possibly
not on the current install but did not have time to take note and I was not
interested in using it. Linux was loaded with only one HDD in circuit so
as anything that came with Linux such as any bootloader was not on the
Windows disc.</DIV>
<DIV>Thanks for your help</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Alan</DIV>
<DIV>----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV
style="FONT: 10pt arial; BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=jon@whiteheat.org.uk href="mailto:jon@whiteheat.org.uk">Jonathan
Gowar</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=durham@mailman.lug.org.uk
href="mailto:durham@mailman.lug.org.uk">Durham Linux User Group mailing
list</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Cc:</B> <A title=a.pearsonx@zen.co.uk
href="mailto:a.pearsonx@zen.co.uk">A Pearson</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Tuesday, April 26, 2016 5:27
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Durham] Help</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>On 2016-04-26 17:11, A Pearson wrote:<BR>> Hello<BR>>
<BR>> Mint Cinnamon 17.3 64 bit from LXF 207 Feb 16<BR>> <BR>> Its
been a long time since I came to the group as most of the talk was<BR>> way
above my head and I use desktops not laptops as they are easier to<BR>>
modify so that was another reason.<BR>> I hope I have got the posting right
as its many years since last time.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> Installed Mint OK
but it will not recognise password or username which<BR>> I had installed a
few minutes earlier.<BR>> Typing them in correctly with correct case
several times just gave the<BR>> message that either wrong names had been
entered or the case was<BR>> wrong.<BR>> <BR>> I have re installed
four times now booting on to a clean HDD and no<BR>> mistake has been made.
During install I went through the process of<BR>> getting Mint to identify
the keyboard which is a Microsoft business<BR>> model of British
format.<BR>> <BR>> It is on its own drive dual booted from the BIOS for
either the Linux<BR>> or Win 7 drives. I do not use the Grub bootloaders
etc as experience<BR>> shows that if you remove Linux you lose access to
Windows and have to<BR>> start all over again.<BR>> I am quite
proficient with windows PC's but relatively new with Linux<BR>> having
tried a couple of distros in the last ten years but now wish to<BR>> make a
determined effort with Mint.<BR>> .<BR>> Hope you can advise so I can
move on. Found nothing definite on Google<BR>> which was mainly people
losing their passwords which is not this case.<BR>> <BR>> Thanks in
anticipation that you may be able to help me with something<BR>> not too
complicated.<BR>> <BR>> Regards<BR>> Alan.<BR><BR>Hello
Alan,<BR><BR> Without Grub I think you will need to boot your
Linux install on a <BR>Live Linux environment.<BR><BR>I would recommend
Knoppix64, it is a Debian based, and has options to <BR>boot to command line
or GUI. Any live environment will do though.<BR><BR>Download the ISO
burn to disk or dd to USB, then boot from it. I'm not <BR>sure if your
dual BIOS booting will get in the way. Personally, I'd go <BR>back to a
single disk boot system, as it removes a layer - the more <BR>layers removed
the simpler things become.<BR><BR>If you went with Knoppix, from the boot
loader type "knoppix 2" that <BR>boots to a command prompt.<BR><BR>Once booted
try this;<BR><BR>mount /dev/sda1 /mnt<BR>for i in sys proc dev ; do mount
--bind /$i /mnt/$i ; done<BR>chroot /mnt /bin/bash<BR>passwd
username<BR><BR>(replace "username" with the actual user :)<BR><BR>Then enter
your password, keep it really simple, like "password" <BR>something without
symbols or capitals etc.<BR><BR>Then to finish
up:<BR><BR>sync<BR>exit<BR>umount /mnt/{sys,proc,dev}<BR>umount
/mnt<BR>reboot<BR><BR>Note: I am assuming here that sda1 is your root device,
and that it's <BR>just 1 large partition. Without having a Linux install
to boot on to, <BR>it will be hard to confirm - chicken and egg all over
again.<BR><BR>Any way, once rebooted to Linux attempt a login with your
username and <BR>password, I can not think of a reason why that would not
work.<BR><BR>To address the BIOS dual-booting issue. Once you have a
working Linux <BR>install, switch to a single OS booting BIOS and boot
Linux. From the <BR>command line type this:<BR><BR>sudo
update-update<BR>sudo grub-install /dev/sda<BR><BR>Again, I am assuming you
only have one drive. It actually only needs to <BR>be on a primary
drive, but I always put grub about :)<BR><BR>Upon rebooting Grub will have
nicely picked out Windows for you too.<BR><BR>I hope some of this is helpful,
let me know how you get on - Happy <BR>Hacking!</BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>