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

[Midgetprawn]

I had to reinstall XP and upgraded to 12.04 but Grub 2 wouldn't find XP. Used boot-repair today and although it finds the boot.ini on sbd1 on the correct uuid E206F21906F1EF03 and sets up the Grub.cfg to say

menuentry 'Windows NT/2000/XP (on /dev/sdb1)' --class windows --class os $menuentry_id_option 'osprober-chain-E206F21906F1EF03' {
insmod part_msdos
insmod ntfs
set root='hd1,msdos1'
if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd1,msdos1 --hint-efi=hd1,msdos1 --hint-baremetal=ahci1,msdos1 E206F21906F1EF03
else
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root E206F21906F1EF03
fi
drivemap -s (hd0) ${root}
chainloader +1
}

I get an error message on boot up saying E206F21906F1EF03 cannot be detected.

I can get xp to boot if I use GAG but it won't find Ubuntu. How do I resolve the 2?

[YannBuntu]

@MichelT: ok, now Boot-Repair did its job normally. The Windows UEFI entries are correct, but i don't know why they don't boot Windows. Please create a new thread there, and indicate its link here. I'll give you suggestions there.

@Midgetprawn: please also create a new thread there, and indicate its link here. In that thread, please indicate your BootInfo URL.

[MichelT]

@MichelT: ok, now Boot-Repair did its job normally. The Windows UEFI entries are correct, but i don't know why they don't boot Windows. Please create a new thread there, and indicate its link here. I'll give you suggestions there.

The new thread is at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...1#post12391531

Thanks

[YannBuntu]

trogdor1138's feedback on Mac is very interesting IMO as it is the first case i see with grub-efi working on Mac:

I'm actually booting Kubuntu 12.10 in EFI mode on my Mac, so I can help a little. There are two main ways that GRUB 2 can be configured for EFI.

The first is to put GRUB, its configuration files, and all of its required modules into the boot folder. This is located at /EFI/ubuntu from the root of the partition. On a GPT disk this will often be the first partition, the EFI system partition, but it doesn't have to be. Your EFI boot manager should allow you to select any EFI application from any location, but it probably only automatically checks the /EFI/ folders.

The second way is to simply put the actual GRUB 2 EFI binary at the above location, with all modules and configuration files located on your root partition. This is how my installation set itself up, and I believe it is the default action for Ubuntu to take.

Ubuntu should also auto-mount GRUB's EFI partition at /boot/efi. Inside this directory you should find /EFI/Ubuntu/grub.efi as explained above.

The handy thing about the second way is that you can continue to use 'update-grub' as normal without worrying about keeping files in sync. I'm not sure if this holds true for the former.

So basically:

- You turn on your PC
- The EFI loads, checks for EFI applications, and checks its boot configuration
- Your EFI points to /EFI/Ubuntu/grub.efi on a partition and GRUB loads
- GRUB reads its configuration files, either in the same folder or at /boot/grub on your root partition depending on your setup

As for configuration, oldfred is exactly right. Continue to edit /etc/defaults/grub and /etc/grub.d as you would before, then run 'update-grub' to generate grub.cfg as normal.

On my EFI system, that's all it takes. At most you would need to manually copy your new grub.cfg to the GRUB EFI folder.

@trogdor1138: for our information, please could you indicate your current BootInfo URL? (this won't change your boot)

[greenewbie]

The root of c: is the top level of that partition. Of course in Linux it is not c:. You should have those files there already and just copy over them.

But I think chkdsk is more important. And that only runs from Windows.

You can try running ntfsfix, but is really does minimal repairs, but should turn on chkdsk flag so Windows runs that if its booting gets that far.
sudo ntfsfix /dev/sda1

I have run chkdsk from a Windows 7 repairCD actually USB flash drive. Do you have access to any other Windows to make a repairCD?

Thanks for your help again oldfred. I'll try chkdsk whenever I get the opportunity to do so, as that's your recommended option.

I think the Windows repairCD will have to wait till I get back to England, I'm in France at the moment and no doubt trying to fix English Windows with French stuff will confuse it no end! (= One of the major reasons why I use Ubuntu: I don't get all the hassle with language like I do with Windows!).
I do however have an old XP "Reinstallation" CD (for another old Windows PC), Service Pack 1a, supposedly only for use on a Dell computer (and the machine I'm trying to fix is HP). I guess that is as useful as a sinking battleship?

I fear that I must be in the wrong thread and wrong forum, asking about Windows stuff now, but of course if you have any advice for me I'd be delighted to hear from you!

Thanks again.

[Shoushouwhatwhat]

Dear all, I have a Laptop (ASUS X310A, I installed Ubuntu 12.04 to be side by side with Windows 7 but I seem to have gotten a problem with booting Windows 7. I used the Boot Repair twice with no results.

Boot-Repair info: http://paste.ubuntu.com/1417623/

The error I get when starting Windows 7 from GRUB is:
error: invalid efi file path

In Boot Manager or Menu, I have 3 options now:
2x for Ubuntu (maybe cause I did boot-repair twice)
1x Windows boot manager (If I boot this it opens "ASUS Preload Wizard", it gives me the option to re-install windows losing all previous data -)

When I was making the partition before installing Ubuntu, I made the new partition by making sda4 smaller and adding ext4 mounted: "\" and adding a swap area. Installed it and it didn't work, nothing worked. So i booted Ubuntu from the USB again and deleted the partitions I made and decided to make sda3 smaller and making the partitions but this time it gave me the option that I could mount sda3 on "\windows" or "\dos" I ignored it and didn't choose neither because the I know that it doesn't need to be mounted and proceeded to create what is now sda7 (ext4) and sda8 (swap area). It still didn't work so I booted from USB and did the first boot-repair, so I was able to boot Ubuntu now but not windows, but when I did it through my USB I was not able to update boot-repair, so i decided to redo the boot-repair from Ubuntu running on the Hardisk (fully updated) and it still didn't work.

In GRUB this is what i see (when booting using Ubuntu as first option in Boot Menu):
Ubuntu, with Linux 3.2.0-29-generic
Ubuntu, with Linux 3.2.0-29-generic (recovery mode)
Windows UEFI loader
Windows Boot UEFI bootx64.efi.bkp
Windows 7 (loader) (on /dev/sda3)
Windows Recovery Environment (loader) (on /dev/sda5)

I tried all the ones starting with "Windows" they all don't work

Please help, Many Thanks

[trogdor1138]

@Shoushouwhatwhat

It looks to me like your grub.cfg is listing the incorrect EFI files for boot. The first two entries reference EFI files, but they have a .BKP extension, which is weird. Maybe they're backups and not eligible for booting?

The last two look they're referencing the correct Windows partitions directly, which won't work since boot sectors aren't used for an UEFI install. I'm guessing your PC's EFI boot manager now points to the Windows Recovery EFI application instead of the boot manager, which is also unusual.

Regardless, could you please try adding the following to /boot/grub/custom.cfg (create it if it doesn't already exist):

menuentry "Windows Boot Test" {
search --fs-uuid --no-floppy --set=root CA62-F337
chainloader (${root})/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgr.efi
}

menuentry "2nd Windows Boot Test" {
search --fs-uuid --no-floppy --set=root CA62-F337
chainloader (${root})/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootx64.efi
}

After adding the above, run:

sudo update-grub

I suspect that at least one of the two new entries should get you into Windows.

[YannBuntu]

@trogdor1138: please read this post http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...&postcount=637 which explains the meaning of the *.efi.bkp and *.efi.grb
This will help you for helping others

[trogdor1138]

@trogdor1138: please read this post http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...&postcount=637 which explains the meaning of the *.efi.bkp and *.efi.grb
This will help you for helping others

Ah, I was not aware of that. You learn something every day... Thanks for bringing me up to speed.

I can't say that I'm crazy about it being set up to do that. I understand the why; Macs will only EFI boot media if they have an EFI application set up at /EFI/boot/bootx64.efi, but why mess with the /EFI/Microsoft directory? I don't mean to criticize; I'm simply curious as to the reasoning.

Also, I ran your boot-info script as you asked; check out the results here: http://paste.ubuntu.com/1418070/

You'll see indications of both GPT and MBR behavior. Both OS X and Kubuntu are running in EFI and are GPT-aware. Windows 8 is running in BIOS and is blissfully ignorant of the GPT disk. Each operating system can be booted directly, and none of them chainload any other. I'm not using rEFIt/rEFInd but prefer to use the stock, simple Apple boot manager.

The only thing not recorded there are the contents of my /boot/grub/custom.cfg, which are:

outb 0x728 1 
outb 0x710 2 
outb 0x740 2 
outb 0x750 0

Let me know if you have questions about the results.

[gfxguy]

http://paste.ubuntu.com/1418114

Your tool has at least gotten me one step farther - after installing Ubuntu 12.10 on my new Windows 8 laptop (after resizing the Windows partition), it would only boot into Ubuntu, no menu at all.

Your tool at least gives me a boot menu, and includes two Windows options (uefi and another boot one); it also gives me the option of getting to BIOS, which the laptop wouldn't even do before! I had to set boot device priority using a Toshiba utility installed in Windows... piece of crap.

Anyway, neither of those options will boot - the result is ultimately a file not found one.

Ubuntu continues to boot just fine (which is most important, of course).

Edit: not file not found, but "cannot load image." I've looked at the pastebin output and tried adding pretty much all the efi files I can find. I know I don't know what I'm doing.