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Rollback RX vs GRUB

If your computer is truly not capable or not set up correctly to boot from usb in the first place, you will get the same failure and also be out 10 bucks.
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But at least I'll know there's no point in further tinkering.
 
And it never ends...

I received the USB stick very promptly, but it doesn't work.
1. Inserting it a running system shows a prompt that it needs to formatted, which I did not do.
2. Rebooting the PC with the stick in does nothing; the PC continues with its normal boot.
3. Rebooting and then going to BIOS options and telling it to boot your drive gets a DOS failure screen, which begins with "Kernel panic -- not syncing: stack protector: kernel stack is corrupted in 814dbcc1"

Anxiously waiting your setting me straight...
 
Okay, I made it even stranger. I burned an ISO of Linux Mint with ISO to USB. Then I rebooted and hit ESC to go into BIOS. I chose the Linux stick. It said remove other media and hit any key to continue. I did and the PC when right into Win7, starting with Rollback MBR, as usual. I wonder if that MBR interferes even when I'm not booting to C:, but I do know I can boot from a CD.
 
What brand of stick was it? I've had some that just flat out would boot, but they were fine for file storage.
 
A 'stylish' Kingston DataTraveler SE9. I find it exhilarating that I finally discovered a way to boot in Ubuntu – don't even have to swap USBs, just enter BIOS on boot and choose it. And if I don't bother, straight into Windows, with my old pal Rollback.

...now, what else can I break?
 
jefboyardee said:
Never mind the last. ISO to USB is apparently no good. Universal USB Installer did the trick, it booted Ubuntu from a stick. Which also confirms that the bad stick I just got really is bad, and so far, I really did waste ten bucks. Oh well, learned something...
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All depending on what country you're in, there are a lot of fake and duff USB sticks around, same with SDs. If you buy from somewhere reputable, i.e. NOT Ebay, market traders, night markets, etc, should be OK though.
 
That's odd. I've never had a problem with the Kingston sticks.
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Perhaps I'm wandering too much. The Kingston works great. The bad one just says '4GB,' on a sticker no less. So it might be from another planet, but at least it inspired me to finally figure this out for myself.
 
Just to convince myself I wasn't hallucinating, I replaced the Ubuntu ISO with Linux Mint. And it worked! Someday I'm gonna find Linux equivalents for all the Windows gizmos I've come to rely on, and then and then and then... it was worth paying ten bucks to educate myself.
 
Turns out I was hallucinating. I think I goofed by burning the ISO onto a stick with pendrivelinux.com. All that did was make the stick mimic a CD, which has no editable files available. I have to first either click 'try' or 'install.' So to really have dual boot, it's back to abandoning Rollback... right where I started.
 
I admit insanity. Having decided that in order to dual boot, I'll have to learn to live without Rollback, everyone else does. So I uninstalled the Windows side, rebooted so it could uninstall the startup side, came back to Windows and got rid of everything related. Then I stuck in my Linux Mint CD, installed that and just like that, I'm a dual booter for the umpteenth time.

Then, because I can't admit defeat, I booted into Windows and reinstalled Rollback. It needed a reboot, where it installs its startup stuff. It did that, so I figured so much for ever seeing Linux boot. But then -- jaw hits floor -- the Grub menu appeared!

I tested Linux, then Windows, then Rollback and they all work now. The perplexing thing is seeing the Rollback splash menu appear before the Grub menu. That makes no sense to me, but it works, even though I'm insane.
 
jefboyardee said:
The perplexing thing is seeing the Rollback splash menu appear before the Grub menu.
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Kinda makes me wonder if Rollback is a bootloader or something more along the lines of Norton Ghost.

Glad everything's working for you. Sometimes this stuff is part art, part science and part voodoo.
 
While looking for a grub solution, I've poked around for comments about Rollback and the word 'voodoo' was used more than once. Then again, both those words are bit spooky.
 
I spent a while getting all this to work together, and now that I've done it, it hits home that I never really had to. I'm happy with Win7 but want to be prepared for the future, and it doesn't seem like Win9 will even catch up with the current distros.

So my last burning question is: can I install another distro over a current one without it forcing its own grub on me, leading to more headaches? At least I know how to do it now, but that don't mean I want to...
 
If you want to try a different distro, I'd install it over the existing partition and let it overwrite your current grub install. It should be fine, although I'm not sure if Rollback will get in the way.
 
I actually did that again today. Uninstalled Rollback. Deleted the ext4 partitions, thereby deleting Linux. Needing the supergrub boot to cleanse the MBR. Getting Windows back up. Reclaiming the unclaimed space back. Reinstalling Linux. Reinstalling Rollback. So I know it can be done cuz I just did it (again).

Just a lot of effort to try all them distros. My question should be: can install multiple linux distros on the same ext4 partition and have them share the same grub list? Or can I at least make that one 90GB partition into ten 90s, install ten distros and still sharing grub?
 
Thanx for the conf.

Meanwhile another foible I deserve: when my distro updates and happens to tweak its grub, I have to un- and re- install Rollback. It's still interesting to be the only person in the world that has dualboot and Rollback running together. It's even interesting just to think that.
 
I've finally figured out how to install a distro on a flash stick and put its mbr there too. With the stick plugged in and usb chosen at boot, grub offers the hard drives' Windows and Mint, and whatever I have installed on the stick. Now I can try every damn distro out there, without having to delete partitions and fix mbrs first, let alone having to un/reinstall Rollback... I can try them all now!

It took me a while for me, a mere tinkerer, to figure all this out. Now I have to figure out why I even bothered ... pardon my babbling.
 
To put my babbling to bed: I think I went through all this just to prove to myself that I could, and it was a fun challenge. But now that it works, I really don't see any reason to scrap Windows in favor of a system that can only come close, as I see it.

I suppose Linux is better in some ways, but for someone who is happy with all the commercially available options in Windows (or Mac I suppose), trying to get Linux to do what I want is not only impossible, it's an aggravating waste of time.

I still have Linux Mint installed, but someday I'll tire of having to grub just to load Windows. Bottom line: if I somehow had a PC and internet access but couldn't spend fifty bucks for Windows, I'd be forever grateful for all the possibilities offered in Linux... but I had fifty bucks.

Thanks all for helping me waste my time, learned a lot.
 
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