[Boot-Repair] Graphical tool to repair the PC boot in one click

[ginobili]

@ginobili
You show no Windows??
One of the choices when installing Ubuntu is erase entire drive and just install Ubuntu to that entire hard drive. That is what you are showing. Also no vendor recovery partition, so the only way to recover Windows is from the backups that you probably did not make. If that is the case you may be able to get an install image from your PC vendor for less than just buying a full new copy of Windows.

If you had some files that you have to try to recover STOP using system. Every bit of use is overwriting more data. Ubuntu is a lot smaller than Windows so some data may be recoveryable, but you need to use a live install version or Linux repairCD and use Testdisk or photorec.

I didn't pick to erase the entire drive, i manually made partions in some free space left. I already fixed the boot with testdisk and also repair-boot is showing me sda 3 with windows as a bootable device. So, i think Windows is still there.

I don't care a lot about the files is all backup up, but i don't wanna give up so easily

[oldfred]

I may have clicked on different link?
But you show a Windows partition but it is missing two essential boot files. Windows 7 and later install with a 100MB boot partition that has those two missing files. Did you delete a small Windows partition? Or did you have an older install of Windows as Windows 7 installs its boot files to that partition.

If you have a Windows repairCD you can repair your NTFS partition.
Windows Boot files:
WinXP
/boot.ini /ntldr /NTDETECT.COM
Vista/7 (with 7 the first two files are usually in a separate 100MB boot partition)
/bootmgr /Boot/BCD /Windows/System32/winload.exe

You are missing the first two files. Windows 7 will boot from one partition if it is a primary partition (sda3 is primary) and if it is the active partition (we see as boot flag and you have that now). But you cannot make those repairs from Linux, you need a Windows repair disk.

If you have access to another copy of Windows 7 that is either 32 bit or 64 bit to match yours but any version.

Make your own Windows repairCD (not vendor recovery):
http://forums.techarena.in/guides-tutorials/1114725.htm

Windows 7 repair USB, Also Vista if service pack installed
http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-re...tion-dvd-disc/
http://www.webupd8.org/2010/10/create-bootable-windows-7-usb-drive.html


Repair install
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...r-install.html

http://www.w7forums.com/startup-repair-t441.html
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tuto...torial148.html

[ginobili]

I may have clicked on different link?
But you show a Windows partition but it is missing two essential boot files. Windows 7 and later install with a 100MB boot partition that has those two missing files. Did you delete a small Windows partition? Or did you have an older install of Windows as Windows 7 installs its boot files to that partition.

If you have a Windows repairCD you can repair your NTFS partition.
Windows Boot files:
WinXP
/boot.ini /ntldr /NTDETECT.COM
Vista/7 (with 7 the first two files are usually in a separate 100MB boot partition)
/bootmgr /Boot/BCD /Windows/System32/winload.exe

You are missing the first two files. Windows 7 will boot from one partition if it is a primary partition (sda3 is primary) and if it is the active partition (we see as boot flag and you have that now). But you cannot make those repairs from Linux, you need a Windows repair disk.

If you have access to another copy of Windows 7 that is either 32 bit or 64 bit to match yours but any version.

Make your own Windows repairCD (not vendor recovery):
http://forums.techarena.in/guides-tutorials/1114725.htm

Windows 7 repair USB, Also Vista if service pack installed
http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-re...tion-dvd-disc/
http://www.webupd8.org/2010/10/create-bootable-windows-7-usb-drive.html


Repair install
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...r-install.html

http://www.w7forums.com/startup-repair-t441.html
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tuto...torial148.html

Thanks, yeah, i read your post and i was like, hmm.. maybe i mistake the link

Now i added the W7 entry to grub menu and as you say there are missing files for windows to boot that's leading an MBR is missing error when trying to boot Windows. Thanks for the link is just what i need.

I think i deleted that partion, i don't remember really.

I'll try those links, thanks for your answers. Greetings from Chile

[srgio2]

Can anyone help me?
Tried dualboot with ubuntu 13.04 and windows8 on a ultrabook toshiba sattelite z930-154
All went fine but i only could boot into linux after instalation. After using boot-repair i got this: http://paste.ubuntu.com/6007894/ and now i cant boot neither ubuntu neither windows8, i get a message saying "Insert system disk in drive"
By the way, i cant do "Please do not forget to make your BIOS boot on sda2/EFI/ubuntu/shimx64.efi file!" because BIOS has no option to change the boot file.
And the boot-info from a fresh install of windows8 is http://paste.ubuntu.com/6008205/

[oldfred]

@srgio2
You have refreshed Windows so you have to start all over.

You do have settings in UEFI to choose what to boot. Some systems will show only secure boot options if secure boot it on. And if in CSM/BIOS/Legacy you may only get those options.

Screen to choose ubuntu from UEFI may be similar to these uploaded by others.

[psfal]

@oldfred
The situation has changed, I dumped the Fedora install, I'm trying to make my Ubuntu install the grub that is used, and to update the other options to their new kernals, How do I make my sda1 install (Ubuntu) grub2 the one that comes up when I boot? Fedora was just didn't have the agility I want in a Linux installation. I'm currently booting off the grub menu installed on the sda7 partition (crunchbang Linux) and ready to do away with that one too.

[oldfred]

You can always use Boot-Repair (since this is the Boot-Repair mega thread).

But if your grub gives you the option to boot into Ubuntu you can just install grub2 from a working version into the MBR. It really is just the one line below.

#reinstall from working (not liveCD/DVD/USB) system - first find Ubuntu drive (example is drive sda but use your drive not partitions):
sudo fdisk -l
#if it's "/dev/sda" then just run:
sudo grub-install /dev/sda
#If that returns any errors run:
sudo grub-install --recheck /dev/sda
sudo update-grub

#To see what drive grub2 uses see this line - grub-pc/install_devices:
sudo debconf-show grub-pc
sudo grub-probe -t device /boot/grub

#to get grub2 to remember where to reinstall on updates:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure grub-pc
#Enter thru first pages,spacebar to choose/unchoose drive, enter to accept, do not choose partitions

[marinecomm]

Restarted my comupter this morning as was greeted with a black screen with the error message:

error: invalid arch independant ELF magic
grub rescue>

Booted up the live CD and accessed the internet to research the problem. A day or two ago I had something similar happen and I ran across Boot-Repair, used it, and I was up and running again. This time I used Boot-Repair and it has not solved the problem. I still get the above error message. I'm running Xubuntu 12.04 64-bit. Here is the results of the Boot-Info: http://paste.ubuntu.com/6017682/. I'm fairly new to Linux systems so I don't know all the in's and out's of the command prompt. Any thoughts or ideas? Thank you.

I tried the solution from answer number 2 from this forum http://askubuntu.com/questions/72003...-macbook-pro-5. When I issued the command 'sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sda
' I got back an error message stating: /mnt doesn't look like an EFI partition.

[oldfred]

@marinecomm
Often elf error is a grub version issue. You should just be able to use Boot-Repair.
You do not have an efi system installed even if your BIOS is really UEFI.

You also may have issues with a very large root system. Often better and more efficient to have a 25GB / (root) and use rest of drive as /home or /mnt/data. AT line 326 you show part of grub at 532 and and most near the beginning. That has caused issues with a few BIOS and hard drive has to jump around to find boot files.

Also noticed you show 12.04.3 but have 12.04 kernel - 3.2. Just looked at my system which also is 12.04 and it now shows 12.04.3. I thought only if you had the new kernel version would they change the version number?

[marinecomm]

I don't know. Like I said, I used Boot-Repair and it didn't work this time. also, i'm fairly new to Linux so I'm not really sure what to do in this case. Due to the error message I posted stating "/mnt doesn't look like an EFI partition" I wonder if my /boot/efi/ file got corrupted or is somehow missing.