MEPIS Community Forum

That's my take also. Once the partition table is messed up, all bets are off.

My own experience shows that having a SATA/IDE combination can cause problems with Linux, depending on the BIOS firmware. When GRUB and BIOS disagree over the disk labeling and numbering, it can render the Linux OS unbootable. There are ways to fix this by fooling GRUB, but it's kinda tricky.

If Remix_OS boots, my recommendation is to use its boot loader to chain load into MEPIS. Alternatively, you can use the Windows boot loader to chain load into MEPIS. To do chain loading, you need to install GRUB on the / (root) partition instead of the MBR when installing MEPIS.

The problems of mixing SATA and PATA are very well documented.

Mixing the two is asking for trouble.

Backup your stuff from both drives via some other means and go all SATA.

This appears to be incorrect. Here is a long thread which, yes, does detail occasional problems for which they give fixes for, but never says "Just don't do it.":

http://forums.cnet.com/7723-7588_102-115142/mixing-sata-and-ide-drives-in-a-system/

If it doesn't work, then why do they sell motherboards with both controllers? Perhaps your statement would be more accurate, if you qualified it, and said it only applies to Linux?

This is something that I have never heard of happening in M$ OS's; which belies the slogan, "It simply works." I'm not rich. I hate to throw out perfectly good HD's, simply because the hardware elites all say, "You must now buy the new HD interface of the year, and throw out all your old HD's, even though they work perfectly fine. I can, after all, just keep using Windows.

So, I may have gotten the partition table problems out of the way, after using Paragon Partition Manager. I reinstalled Remix_OS, as previously posted, but I'm having a devil of a time getting a version of KDEnlive with stable audio in it; and I don't see any updates since Maverick. However, my Presonus FP10 firewire device does work; which was not the case when I tried Kubuntu - although inexperience may have been a factor.

So, I installed Mepis again, and while no partition disappeared this time, For my trouble, I was again treated to a GRUB> prompt which was unresponsive to any keystrokes. Seeing no obvious way to get Grub starting Remix_OS, since its live disk has no boot repair tool, and the one on Mepis didn't help, and I am a relative Linux novice, I haven't gotten further.

The PATA/SATA problem is/was primarily a GRUB problem. The only obstacle is to use the hard disk that the BIOS says is sda. An alternate boot manager may be all that's needed for your setup. EasyBCD works from Windows even. But Smart Boot Manager, GAG Boot Manager, and even a GRUB Boot Floppy are other ways. See: http://www.mepis.org/docs/en/index.php? ... ot_methods

OK, I downed and installed Debian:

debian-6.0.5-amd64-DVD-1.iso

It DOES pull up a proper Grub boot screen, like Remix_OS. It doesn't seem to be playing alsa through jack correctly yet. The problem I am having with Grub seems to be peculiar to Mepis. I am not entirely certain, since at that time, I had the Remix_OS partition when I tried to install Mepis, whereas now, I just have Debian installed.

debian 6.0.5 uses GRUB 2 doesn't it?

Indeed it does.