Locked out of Windows Partition with Grub

[Enlightened Shadow]

Hi. I hope this is the right place to ask this.

I have two partitions on my HDD. A Windows XP (hd0,2) and an Ubuntu 9.10 (hd0,1).

I have been using the Windows mainly and ran a program that changes the HDD's serial number. Now when I boot up and Grub loads, I try to access the Windows partition and get the following error:

Error: No Such Device: 2e3857fb3857c08f

I am still able to boot the Ubuntu partition but can not seem to get grub to point to the Windows partition any more. This is very frustrating as I really need to get back into that partition soon.

If anyone could please help with this It would be amazing. Thanks.

[Canime]

Yeah, this happened to me several times, the process requires you get the windows CD out and run the system restore using the windows CD, however later on I ran some updates and I was locked out of windows again. Try,


sudo os-prober

then


sudo update-grub

Maybe it will find it.

[Enlightened Shadow]

Thanks for the reply Canime. I tried it. The code sudo os-prober returned
sudo os-prober
[sudo] password for mike:
/dev/sda2:Windows XP Ultimate:Windows:chain

I then ran the update grub command. I restarted and tried to access the Windows partition and got the error again. :(

So I'm back in Ubuntu trying to find another work around. Unfortunately the Opitcal Disk Drive on this machine is shot. I'm restricted to the use of a USB drive. If you know how I could get a Windows Recovery disk loaded onto a thumb drive, that would be great.

However if you knew how to remove Grub and reinstall it from scratch without a recovery CD, that would be even better.

Thanks for trying to help :).

[wilee-nilee]

Lets have a closer look at the whole thing, click on the bootscript in my signature, follow the instructions to generate a text file. Come back open a reply; click on the (#) in the reply panel and paste all the text between the code tags.

I have loaded windows recovery W7 that is by formatting the thumb in ntfs putting a boot flag on the partition then using the file roller/archive manager to extract to the thumb, forget if I extracted the ISO or DVD I have both, ISO I think.

[Enlightened Shadow]

Hi again. Sorry for the really late reply. I wanted to say that I was able to get back in. What I did was when it would give me the option to boot into an OS, I would press E for edit and then remove the whole search ---fs--- UUID line. It would then boot from that. It's not perfect and needs to be done each time the PC is started but it works. Thanks.

[coffeecat]

It's not perfect and needs to be done each time the PC is started but it works. Thanks.

What seems to have happened is that you've changed the UUID of the Windows C: partition from the original 2e3857fb3857c08f. Running 'sudo update-grub' *should* have fixed that by rewriting the Windows entry in your grub.cfg with the new UUID. For some reason that doesn't seem to have happened, but there must be a permanent and relatively easy fix for this. If you run the boot script that wilee-nilee suggested, it should be possible to see what needs to be done.

[Enlightened Shadow]

OK I'll run it when I get home from work. I hope we can figure it out lol. For now I just removed the line in the 40_custom file and updated Grub. That at least lets me boot back into Windows.

[coffeecat]

40_custom file

Ah. That's something you didn't mention before. :wink: Simple substituting the new UUID should have done the trick. When you post the boot script output, post the contents of your 40_custom file as well if you still have the relevant stanza.

[Enlightened Shadow]

Hey guys I'm sorry for the really late reply lol. I just now got a chance to run that script. Here is the output:


Boot Info Script 0.55 dated February 15th, 2010

============================= Boot Info Summary: ==============================

=> Grub 2 is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda and looks on the same drive in
partition #1 for /boot/grub.

sda1: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system: ext4
Boot sector type: -
Boot sector info:
Operating System: Ubuntu 9.10
Boot files/dirs: /boot/grub/grub.cfg /etc/fstab /boot/grub/core.img

sda2: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system: ntfs
Boot sector type: Windows XP
Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
Operating System: Windows XP
Boot files/dirs: /boot.ini /ntldr /NTDETECT.COM

sda3: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system: swap
Boot sector type: -
Boot sector info:

=========================== Drive/Partition Info: =============================

Drive: sda ___________________ __________________________________________________ ___

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160000000000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19452 cylinders, total 312500000 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xd0f4738c

Partition Boot Start End Size Id System

/dev/sda1 63 195,896,609 195,896,547 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 * 195,896,610 300,383,369 104,486,760 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 300,383,370 312,496,379 12,113,010 82 Linux swap / Solaris


blkid -c /dev/null: __________________________________________________ __________

Device UUID TYPE LABEL

/dev/ramzswap0 swap
/dev/sda1 11c34fd9-bf30-4cef-9cba-ce84536de229 ext4
/dev/sda2 2E3857FB8CC54BFB ntfs
/dev/sda3 48c5b437-6284-4c40-8158-719c9820467e swap

============================ "mount | grep ^/dev output: ===========================

Device Mount_Point Type Options

/dev/sda1 / ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro)


=========================== sda1/boot/grub/grub.cfg: ===========================

#
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE
#
# It is automatically generated by /usr/sbin/grub-mkconfig using templates
# from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub
#

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/00_header ###
if [ -s /boot/grub/grubenv ]; then
have_grubenv=true
load_env
fi
set default="0"
if [ ${prev_saved_entry} ]; then
saved_entry=${prev_saved_entry}
save_env saved_entry
prev_saved_entry=
save_env prev_saved_entry
fi
insmod ext2
set root=(hd0,1)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 11c34fd9-bf30-4cef-9cba-ce84536de229
if loadfont /usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2 ; then
set gfxmode=640x480
insmod gfxterm
insmod vbe
if terminal_output gfxterm ; then true ; else
# For backward compatibility with versions of terminal.mod that don't
# understand terminal_output
terminal gfxterm
fi
fi
if [ ${recordfail} = 1 ]; then
set timeout=-1
else
set timeout=10
fi
### END /etc/grub.d/00_header ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ###
insmod ext2
set root=(hd0,1)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 11c34fd9-bf30-4cef-9cba-ce84536de229
insmod tga
if background_image /usr/share/images/grub/Dark_Ubuntu.tga ; then
set color_normal=white/black
set color_highlight=light-green/black
else
set menu_color_normal=white/black
set menu_color_highlight=black/white
fi
### END /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries. Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment. Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.

menuentry "Windows XP Ultimate" {
insmod ntfs
set root=(hd0,2)
drivemap -s (hd0) ${root}
chainloader +1
}

menuentry "Ubuntu" {
recordfail=1
if [ -n ${have_grubenv} ]; then save_env recordfail; fi
set quiet=1
insmod ext2
set root=(hd0,1)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 11c34fd9-bf30-4cef-9cba-ce84536de229
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-15-generic root=UUID=11c34fd9-bf30-4cef-9cba-ce84536de229 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-15-generic
}
### END /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###

=============================== sda1/etc/fstab: ===============================

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid -o value -s UUID' to print the universally unique identifier
# for a device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name
# devices that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
# / was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=11c34fd9-bf30-4cef-9cba-ce84536de229 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# /windows was on /dev/sda6 during installation
UUID=D1B4-28B3 /windows vfat utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0 1
# swap was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=48c5b437-6284-4c40-8158-719c9820467e none swap sw 0 0
/dev/scd0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0

=================== sda1: Location of files loaded by Grub: ===================


47.5GB: boot/grub/core.img
1.4GB: boot/grub/grub.cfg
.5GB: boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-14-generic
1.4GB: boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-15-generic
17.1GB: boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-16-generic
.5GB: boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-generic
.5GB: boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-15-generic
3.8GB: boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-16-generic
17.1GB: initrd.img
1.4GB: initrd.img.old
3.8GB: vmlinuz
.5GB: vmlinuz.old

================================ sda2/boot.ini: ================================

[boot loader]
timeout=3
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Ultimate" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Windows Recovery Console" /cmdcons


That's a really nifty little script there. Thanks so much for showing it to me lol. Now maybe you guys can show me how to get my UUID back in order :).

[Enlightened Shadow]

Ah. That's something you didn't mention before. :wink: Simple substituting the new UUID should have done the trick. When you post the boot script output, post the contents of your 40_custom file as well if you still have the relevant stanza.

Haha yes I should have mentioned that I'm running Grub 2. If you still need the contents of the 40_custom file after you look at the contents of the results file from the script, I will post it here.

[coffeecat]

Haha yes I should have mentioned that I'm running Grub 2.

It was always clear that you were running grub2. The fact that you had set up entries in 40_custom and had disabled 30_os-prober was relevant to the advice given, and would have helped if you had mentioned it. Disabling os-prober means that update-grub no longer autoupdates grub menu entries for other OSs. Using 30_os-prober is easier because it will detect the new UUID and sort everything out for you. Using 40_custom, you have to change the UUID yourself. There's no need to post your 40_custom - grub.cfg in your boot script output makes clear what is in it.

Instead of this stanza:



menuentry "Windows XP Ultimate" {
insmod ntfs
set root=(hd0,2)
drivemap -s (hd0) ${root}
chainloader +1
}

This should do the trick:


menuentry "Windows XP Ultimate" {
insmod ntfs
set root=(hd0,2)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 2e3857fb8cc54bfb
chainloader +1
}

One other thing to note. You have this is your /etc/fstab:


# /windows was on /dev/sda6 during installation
UUID=D1B4-28B3 /windows vfat utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0 1

You do not have a /dev/sda6, nor a partition with the UUID D1B4-28B3. I guess you will be getting a "cannot mount" error on bootup.

[Enlightened Shadow]

Wow thanks for the quick reply. I'll go and switch back over to Ubuntu and update Grub. As for the not having a sda6 (which makes sense lol), should I remove that line from fstab? Or is that possible lol. Sorry for sounding like a newb, I just have basic knowledge of Grub. I am still in the learning process.

[Enlightened Shadow]

Thank you very much. I replaced the line and it worked perfectly. As for the cannot mount error on bootup you mentioned I may be getting, I haven't encountered to date. If I do I will see if I can't fix it.

Thanks for that Bootscript btw. it's very useful.