os_prober calls the Vista partition the Windows Recovery partition

[deh]

Two days ago I repartitioned my laptop HD and added the latest Ubuntu (2.6.35-25-generic) to the existing Vista and existing Ubuntu (2.6.32-28-generic via upgrades from 9.14(?)). Prior to this install it was using Grub with menu.lst from the old/upgrade Ubuntu. After the install the boot menu labels the partition with Vista as the Windows Recovery partition and the recovery partition item is no longer present.

At first I wondered how I could get Vista to boot. I found that SuperGrub cd would boot it OK. Then, it dawned on me that the boot menu item was not the recovery partition, but instead the Vista OS partition mislabelled . Vista loads just fine from it. The recovery partition is no longer listed as it was with Grub/menu.lst. SuperGrub will not boot the recovery partition, showing an error "missing BOOTMGR".

'os-prober' produces--
root@Toshiba:/home/deh# os-prober
/dev/sda2:Windows Recovery Environment (loader):Windows:chain
/dev/sda7:Ubuntu 10.04.2 LTS (10.04):Ubuntu:linux

This is how the partitions are used--
sda1 - Windows recovery
sda2 - Vista
sda5 - NTFS Linux/Windows sharing
sda7 - Ubuntu 9.14->10.10
sda9 - Ubuntu 10.10 clean


Disk /dev/sda: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xf62af509

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 192 1536000 27 Unknown
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 * 192 11947 94420928 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 11948 30401 148231693 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 19823 22251 19502891+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda6 29966 30401 3502138+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda7 11948 19495 60629247 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 19496 19822 2626596 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda9 22251 29645 59396096 83 Linux
/dev/sda10 29645 29965 2572288 82 Linux swap / Solaris

I edited boot/grub/grub.cfg so the boot menu item is labelled correctly, but suspect that it will revert back when there is an upgrade. Hopefully, I will never have to use the Windows recovery, but it would be nice to know that it would work if needed.

[grahammechanical]

What happens when you select Windows recovery? Do you get a menu with the option to load Vista and the option to load Windows Recovery?

What would happen at boot time before you installed Ubuntu? Did the machine boot straight into Vista or did it give you a menu with those two options? Is that what GRUB is doing now?

Here is a link to a brilliant utility called Grub Customizer..
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=10340183#post10340183

It works great.

Regards.

[Quackers]

For some reason with Vista, grub labels the actual Vista partition and the recovery partition the wrong way round. It was the same with my system whe I had Vista running. Both entries worked though (but obviously, to use the Vista recovery option I had to choose the Windows Loader entry).

[deh]

Quackers,

For some reason with Vista, grub labels the actual Vista partition and the recovery partition the wrong way round. It was the same with my system when I had Vista running. Both entries worked though (but obviously, to use the Vista recovery option I had to choose the Windows Loader entry).
Grub is not listing the recovery partition. Only the Vista partition is found (and mis-labelled). Your experience indicates it isn't just something I did.

Grahammechanical,


What happens when you select Windows recovery? Do you get a menu with the option to load Vista and the option to load Windows Recovery? The selection goes directly to Vista.


What would happen at boot time before you installed Ubuntu? Did the machine boot straight into Vista or did it give you a menu with those two options? Is that what GRUB is doing now?Before I installed the latest Ubuntu the grub menu that came up was generated by menu.lst from the Ubuntu installation.

I just did some searching and found a saved menu.lst and it doesn't show the recovery partition, so it must not have been there. It's not something I have paid much attention to, and I would have probably not given it a thought had the latest install not mis-labelled the Vista menu entry as the recovery partition.

With my Acer Netbook and Win XP/Ubuntu the grub menu shows the windows and windows recovery partition. Consequently, I was expecting both to show on the Vista laptop,

Thanks for the link to the Grub Customizer.

[Kixtosh]

I've been puzzled by this too. My Toshiba Portégé R500, with Vista Business, also reverses the labels for starting Windows, or starting the recovery to out-of-box state, as described by Quackers. In answer to some questions from grahammechanical, though, in my case at least:


What happens when you select Windows recovery? Do you get a menu with the option to load Vista and the option to load Windows Recovery? ... No, as deh stated, Windows starts up normally from this menu item.


... What would happen at boot time before you installed Ubuntu? Did the machine boot straight into Vista or did it give you a menu with those two options? ... It would boot straight into Vista, so I would expect it did the same for deh. To access the recovery process, it was necessary to hold down the "0" key during boot. Toshiba included two extra partitions, other than the Vista partition: one labeled "recovery", and another one, labeled "Toshiba", if I recall correctly. This no longer worked after installing Ubuntu (Lucid Lynx), but I could access the recovery process by selecting the other option, Windows loader, which seems to be missing from the GRUB list on the machine deh is using.