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ohnoplus
February 7th, 2012, 08:20 PM
I am unable to start my laptop after dual partitioning with windows 7 and Ubuntu 11.10.
More specifically:
I had windows 7 professional installed on my computer; it worked fine.
I partitioned my hard drive and installed Ubuntu on a new partition. Restarted the computer, selected Ubuntu through GRUB and had no problems.
Restarted the computer and started windows 7 through grub. It ran check-disk as the repartition caused it to "detect problems or some such" and then started up.
I then tried reboot the computer, which is when the problems began. Now when I boot from the hard drive I get the HP logo and the message press ESC key for startup menu and a picture of a battery with a plug. [I am running an HP Probook 6445b]. That stays on for maybe half a second and then goes off. Then flashes back up, then off and on again ad infinitum.
I can boot from a CD no problem. I tried reinstalling GRUB2 (not 100% sure it woked though). The reinstall didn't seem to do anything. I also tried reinstalling Ubuntu, no luck there either.

I am happy to provide any more information you all may need. Thanks in advance for any assistance.

jerrrys
February 8th, 2012, 08:48 PM
You may have to settle for repairing windows until you find an answer.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RecoveringWindows#Resizing%20Windows%20Vista%20/%207%20Partitions

http://www.googlubuntu.com/results/?cx=006238239194895611142:u-ocqbntw_o&q=dual+boot+windows+7&sa=Search&cof=FORID:9

oldfred
February 9th, 2012, 12:44 AM
You should be able to reinstall grub2 to the MBR to boot Ubuntu or install the Windows boot loader to boot Windows.

How to restore the Ubuntu/XP/Vista/7 bootloader (Updated for Ubuntu 9.10 - grub2) - talsemgeest
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1014708

Are you running any DRM software, HP software or agressive virus checker that thinks grub is a virus? Grub2 has since added a workaround on flexnet but not others that I know of.

http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/bootinfoscript/index.php?title=Boot_Problems:Windows_Writes_To_MB R
http://www.supergrubdisk.org/wiki/WindowsErasesGrub
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/10/08/28/2112208/Some-Windows-Apps-Make-GRUB-2-Unbootable
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/ucgi/~cjwatson/blosxom/debian/2010-08-28-windows-applications-making-grub2-unbootable.html (http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/ucgi/%7Ecjwatson/blosxom/debian/2010-08-28-windows-applications-making-grub2-unbootable.html)
In Windows 7, had to remove Windows 7 DataSafe.
HP ProtectTools, Dell Recovery, flexnet and a few others write into MBR meierfra.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/441941
https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/441941?comments=all
Dell Media direct or Uninstall Dell DataSafe issues with MBR
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9330849&postcount=9

If you have to run your DRM software you can boot with Windows and use EasyBCD. It becomes a work around on grub2/Uubntu that is less reliable. On grub udates you may have to reinstall grub to the PBR.

I have not used this, asa I prefer grub2, but a few that primarily boot Windows have said it works:
http://neosmart.net/blog/
http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/Linux
http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/Ubuntu

Edit - an older post had this:

I have a Compaq netbook -- HP product. Turns out they have HP Recovery tools that will overwrite parts of the MBR. The thing is, I uninstalled every single piece of their recovery software, sync software, etc, cuz I didn't want any of that ****. I went into services, and lo-and -behold -- there was the hpqwmiex service running. So I disabled it, did the update-grub thing again, logged into Windows then back into Ubuntu, and all is well!