Dual boot problems...

[unyikabonya]

Hi everyone,
I'm not entirely sure if i post this thread on the right website, but since i'm trying to solve my problems using ubuntu 10.04(Lucid Lynx), it might still be the right place.I wanted to set up a dual boot configuration on my computer(ubuntu and windows7), for which i already installed windows 7, but with the help of another hard drive(I borrowed it.), so the boot files are missing, and it's own boot repair couldn't fix it, because it didn't recognise the installation. I have installed ubuntu after this, and that one works fine, except I can't get it to recognise that windows partition and so I can't set up a dual boot configuration. I guess it could be solved by starting all over again, but i want to avoid that, if it's possible. To be exact, i want to avoid installing windows again, because i hat doing that, but if reinstalling ubuntu makes any difference, it's no problem...

[darkod]

No, reinstalling ubuntu won't help if windows boot files are missing. That's the problem with win7 asking you where to install but in some cases actually putting two of the boot files on another partition. Linux always puts them together.

Open your win7 partition from ubuntu, and take a look at the files. First look for:
bootmgr
Boot/BCD

Then look for:
Windows/System32/winload.exe

My guess is the first two are missing. Not sure if you copy them from another installation can help. In winXP it usually works if you have standard setup.

[unyikabonya]

Thanks for the quick reply.
I looked for the files you mentioned, and was very surpised to find all of them at their place...now i know these files are there, i really can't see why the windows boot recovery won't recognise it's installation...

[Mark Phelps]

Need more details ...

Do you have two separate physical drives?

If so, is Windows on one drive and Ubuntu on the other?

If so, have you tried having only one drive at a time connected, and then, can you boot both the Windows drive and the Ubuntu drive?

If you have Windows on its own drive and it's not booting, to repair with a Win7 CD or DVD, you often have to run Startup Repair three times -- ignoring any errors that you see. It takes that many passes to completely repair the boot operation because that utility only finds and repairs one thing at a time.

IF you go through all that and the standalone Win7 drive still does not boot, then you may have a more serious problem with Win7.

[darkod]

Did you try running update-grub anyway?
Since you had two disks at one point, and now only one, maybe all you need to do is update the config. In terminal try running:
sudo update-grub

and see if that locates win7.

[unyikabonya]

No, I have only 1 drive with 3 partitions(one for windows/ntfs/, one for ubuntu/ext4/, and one for storage/fat32/). I tried updating grub before, made no difference.

[Cavsfan]

No, I have only 1 drive with 3 partitions(one for windows/ntfs/, one for ubuntu/ext4/, and one for storage/fat32/). I tried updating grub before, made no difference.

You need 2 for Ubuntu 1 - EXT4 and one for swap - about 2048MB. You can have a max of 4 on a HD.

[unyikabonya]

Yep, i have a swap partition, just forgot to mention it...i also have a home partiton...

[darkod]

Ubuntu can function without a swap partition, no problem about that even if you didn't have one.

But your win7 seems messed up good. Even the windows repair process not discovering it is a sign of that too.

If you follow the link in my signature and run the boot info script as explained there, and post the results here it might show us more.

[Cavsfan]

Yep, i have a swap partition, just forgot to mention it...i also have a home partiton...

That is good.


Ubuntu can function without a swap partition, no problem about that even if you didn't have one.

But your win7 seems messed up good. Even the windows repair process not discovering it is a sign of that too.

If you follow the link in my signature and run the boot info script as explained there, and post the results here it might show us more.

I did not know you could get by without a swap partition.
Darkod knows a lot more than I about this and you will get much help after posting the results of that script.
You might want to give the tutorial in my sig. a look once you have your system dual booting again.
The tutorial is for dual booting and it's pretty extensive but, straight forward too.
It makes your GRUB2 screen look good and you never have to do anything to it after it is setup.
There are several examples of what it will look like.
Good Luck!

[unyikabonya]

Ubuntu can function without a swap partition, no problem about that even if you didn't have one.

But your win7 seems messed up good. Even the windows repair process not discovering it is a sign of that too.

If you follow the link in my signature and run the boot info script as explained there, and post the results here it might show us more.

I ran bootinfoscript, and it appeared to recognise the windows7 installation, it gets weirder and weirder...
anyway, here are the results:


Boot Info Script 0.60 from 17 May 2011


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

=> Grub2 (v1.97-1.98) is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda and looks at sector
1 of the same hard drive for core.img. core.img is at this location and
looks in partition 1 for /boot/grub.

sda1: __________________________________________________ ________________________

File system: ext4
Boot sector type: -
Boot sector info:
Operating System: Ubuntu 10.04.3 LTS
Boot files: /boot/grub/grub.cfg /etc/fstab /boot/grub/core.img

sda2: __________________________________________________ ________________________

File system: Extended Partition
Boot sector type: Unknown
Boot sector info:

sda5: __________________________________________________ ________________________

File system: ntfs
Boot sector type: Windows XP
Boot sector info: According to the info in the boot sector, sda5 starts
at sector 2048.
Operating System: Windows 7
Boot files: /Windows/System32/winload.exe

sda6: __________________________________________________ ________________________

File system: vfat
Boot sector type: FAT32
Boot sector info: According to the info in the boot sector, sda6 starts
at sector 0. But according to the info from fdisk,
sda6 starts at sector 100149273.
Operating System:
Boot files:

sda7: __________________________________________________ ________________________

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

sda8: __________________________________________________ ________________________

File system: ext4
Boot sector type: -
Boot sector info:
Operating System:
Boot files:

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

Drive: sda __________________________________________________ ___________________

/dev/sda lemez: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bájt
255 fej, 63 szektor, 9729 cilinder, összesen 156301488 szektor
Egység: szektorok 1 * 512 = 512 bájt
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Partition Boot Start Sector End Sector # of Sectors Id System

/dev/sda1 * 2,048 19,531,775 19,529,728 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 19,533,822 156,296,384 136,762,563 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 48,939,008 100,147,199 51,208,192 7 NTFS / exFAT / HPFS
/dev/sda6 100,149,273 156,296,384 56,147,112 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sda7 19,533,824 25,489,407 5,955,584 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda8 25,491,456 48,932,863 23,441,408 83 Linux


"blkid" output: __________________________________________________ ______________

Device UUID TYPE LABEL

/dev/sda1 420c7bae-e3ae-4690-b740-018b3e44db4f ext4
/dev/sda5 26F0C9CBF0C9A203 ntfs
/dev/sda6 AE3B-5426 vfat cuccok
/dev/sda7 05f8137a-c45b-4d92-8c42-111fd461a192 swap
/dev/sda8 da282e68-0bdf-4158-b543-3ed2251bbd1b ext4

================================ Mount points: =================================

Device Mount_Point Type Options

/dev/sda1 / ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
/dev/sda8 /home ext4 (rw)
/dev/sr1 /media/Disc udf (ro,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=udisks,uid=1000,gid=1000, iocharset=utf8,umask=0077)


=========================== 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 $prefix/grubenv ]; then
load_env
fi
set default="0"
if [ ${prev_saved_entry} ]; then
set saved_entry=${prev_saved_entry}
save_env saved_entry
set prev_saved_entry=
save_env prev_saved_entry
set boot_once=true
fi

function savedefault {
if [ -z ${boot_once} ]; then
saved_entry=${chosen}
save_env saved_entry
fi
}

[oldfred]

Please use code tags to make it easier to read long scripts. You highlight what you want in the tags and click on the # in the edit panel above. Or click on tags and paste in between them.

You have Windows in sda5 which is a logical partition. Windows only boots from a primary partition. You probably had a primary partition with the Windows 7 boot files in it before and deleted it.

Multibooters, Pictures here worth 1000+ words
http://www.multibooters.co.uk/multiboot.html

Your sda5 is also in the middle of the extended partition so it is very difficult to convert back to a primary. It may be best to just create a 100MB boot partition for Windows formated NTFS with the boot flag and use Windows to install/repair that partition to be the boot partition. You should be able to shrink the extended and put sda3 at the end of the drive.

[darkod]

Earlier you said all three bott files I asked about are there. They aren't. Look at sda5, only windows/system32/winload.exe is there.

bootmgr and boot/bcd were probably on another, primary partition that got deleted. That's why it's not detected.
Further more I guess the automatic windows repair process is not working because win7 is on logical partition. Windows doesn't really like that although it can work like this if the boot files were on a primary partition.