Well yesterday i got some cables i ordered, allowing me to connect my UATA disk drive and a WD360 HDD via SATA. I then try to install Windows 7 on the 360, which it fails to do. Apparently it couldn't 'find or create a partition on this drive'. Hours later after arduous research i managed to use a Mint live disk to get rid of the single partition that was on the drive and format it back to NTFS. This allowed me to install Windows 7. I downloaded AVG then decided that i might as well install Mint while i'm at it. Put the disk back in, run the installer. I put it on a 2.5GB partition on the same drive as Windows 7. It rebooted into GRUB which gave me the usual options for Mint as well as three options called Windows Vista. Turns out one of them was Windows Vista, one of them was Vista Repair and the other was Windows 7. I checked them all and they booted fine, except from Mint which booted into the log in screen and allowed me to log on, but just took me to a blank black screen with the Gnome cursor on it. It was late so i decided to mull over this tomorrow. This morning my hard drive adapter arrived, so i moved the 360 into a 5.25" bay. I booted up into Mint and the problem persisted. I booted into 7 and was surprised to find that it just took me to a black screen where the HDD just clicked repeatedly. I was able to boot into Vista recovery but not Vista itself, until i ran the repair. I was able to boot into the Mint live disk. So my questions are these:

How do i get Windows 7 to work?
How do i get Mint to work?
Where the hell has my splash screen gone?

Caboose asking for help? I'd never thought I'd see the day

I think your hard drive is off. Try turning it on at the BIOS.

Haha, it all goes to pot when you try to make a pre built into a self built...

I doubt that, since i can access it through GRUB. It also doesn't help that i CAN'T ACCESS THE BIOS.


Okay, just tried again. Windows 7 decided to work. So now i just need to get Mint to work and get my splash screen back.

If Mint REALLY isn't working, I would use GPartED and delete your Mint Partition () and then just re-install it via LiveCD. That is what I had to do when Ubuntu crashed, after the MD5Sums were copied off of my faulty LiveCD.
~Vincent

Well it doesn't boot into Gnome, i get the log in screen and log in, but it just takes me to a black page with a cursor on it. Doesn't do anything else. I used the 'partial Gnome' boot mode or whatever it's called and it gave me this message:



Even if it is fixable i think i will delete the partition, since i only allocated 2.5GB and it's put itself on the wrong HDD. What i want to know though is if this will also delete GRUB, and if it does will i have to reinitialize Vista and 7's bootloaders before i reinstall Mint, or will GRUB just take over again?

Download the latest BIOS update from you manufacturer's website.

I doubt that would work, i had a look a while ago. I didn't get a motherboard manual since it's a pre built motherboard and i'd not feel comfortable using a universal flasher.

If you can't get to the BIOS, wouldn't an update "reactivate" it?

Something probably happened during install.