Ubuntu 14.10 and Windows 8 on Dell notebook

[Alexsandro_Santos_]

Hi all,

I have a Dell Inspiron 14R notebook with Windows 8 OEM installed. I followed
the tutorial here
http://nithinaneeshsct06bt.blogspot.com.br/2014/02/UEFI.html
to install Ubuntu 14.10 alongside Windows 8. Now, I have Ubuntu working, but I can't
boot in Windows any more.
I used boot-repair and my boot info is
http://paste.ubuntu.com/9694363/

Can anyone help me to boot in Windows again?
Thanks in advance for any answer.

[oldfred]

I do not see any error messages related to Windows.

Have you tried booting Windows directly from UEFI boot menu or one time boot key?
You must have UEFI on, and often better to have secure boot off.

Windows is installed in UEFI boot mode, but somehow you do have a Windows boot loader in the MBR for BIOS boot that will never work. Make sure UEFI/BIOS is set for UEFI boot.
It also looks like you originally installed Ubuntu in BIOS boot mode as you have the bios_grub partition. But you now have UEFI boot files for ubuntu entry.

Dell's UEFI seems very similar across models, just the different options.
Ubuntu on the Precision M3800 or XPS15 Nov 2013
http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/b/techcenter/archive/2013/11/14/ubuntu-on-the-precision-m3800.aspx
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupport/Machines/Laptops/Dell/XPS/15z
Dell 14z & 17r with Intel SRT
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2038121
Dell 17R Brightness
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2195650
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2204287

[Alexsandro_Santos_]

When I try to boot with UEFI on and Secure Boot off, I get this message from Windows Boot Manager:

File:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\BCD
Status: 0xc0000001
Info: The Boot Configuration Data for your PC is missing ou contains errors.

Is there any way to repair BCD from Ubuntu?

[oldfred]

No. BCD is a hive and there are not any utilities that can edit it.

Can you from UEFI press f8 and get into Window internal repair console?
Your really need your Windows repairCD or flash drive.
There are some third party Windows repair tools like EasyBCD that may work. Do not install EasyBCD as another boot manager with UEFI.

I think these all are similar instructions:
Windows 8 UEFI repair USB must be FAT32, not for reinstall, just repairs
http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/2855-system-repair-disc-create-windows-8-a.html
http://www.winhelp.us/create-a-recovery-drive-in-windows-8.html#USB
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/samsungpcgeneral/thread/e7ed293e-b565-44ee-a536-166dddf32205/
http://www.ghacks.net/2012/11/01/how-to-create-a-windows-8-system-repair-disc/


Repair BCD
https://neosmart.net/EasyBCD/

Partition Wizard - boot CD or flash also, chkdsk & other Windows repairs
http://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html
http://www.partitionwizard.com/partitionmanager/partition-fix.html

It pays to have several different repair tools available and current versions of all installed operating systems own repair. Or Windows repair flash drive and Ubuntu live installer.

[LostFarmer]

Will post your likely problem but due to my EFI laptop going south will let 'oldfred' post the solution.
from your pastebin:



Boot0008* ubuntu HD(1,800,f9dcd,***
Boot000A* Windows Boot Manager HD(1,800,fa000,***
/dev/sda1 2,048 1,025,484 1,023,437 EFI System partition The items in red is the start sector (0x800=2048) , that is good.
The items in blue is the partition size (1023437=0xf9dcd) , it is correct size for the ubuntu efi entire but wrong for the Windows boot entire , that is causing your Windows boot error.
You must have resized the EFI partition.

I think all you need to do is run "efibootmgr" , but not sure just what switches need used.

[oldfred]

@lostfarmer
You seem to understand some of the inner workings of UEFI better than me. I just learned something. :)

[Alexsandro_Santos_]

Thanks for the answers. But I never used efibootmgr before and I have no ideia about how to use it.
Can anyone help me?

[oldfred]

You may want to delete the Windows entry and recreate it, so it has correct parameters.

# from liveDVD or flash booted in UEFI mode and use efibootmgr
modprobe efivars
sudo efibootmgr -v
ls /sys/firmware/efi/vars
The "-v" option displays all the entries so you can confirm you're deleting the right one, and then you use the combination of "-b ####" (to specify the entry) and "-B" (to delete it). Examples #5 is delete:, with Ubuntu you need sudo, others must be at root.
http://linux.dell.com/cgi-bin/gitweb/gitweb.cgi?p=efibootmgr.git;a=blob_plain;f=README; hb=HEAD
http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/efi-shells-and-scripting/

Delete entry change XXXX to current Windows which was before 000A in pastebin.
sudo efibootmgr -b XXXX -B

This should create a new entry:
sudo efibootmgr -c -L "Windows Boot Manager" -l "\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi"

Check entry is there.
sudo efibootmgr -v

[Alexsandro_Santos_]

oldfred, I try your sugestion but I got the same error as before:

File:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\BCD
Status: 0xc0000001
Info: The Boot Configuration Data for your PC is missing or contains errors.

[oldfred]

Windows does require a BCD.

And the BCD is sync'd with the UEFI entries, so perhaps it is wrong.
Not sure with Windows 8 best way to repair BCD.

Can you load with f8 a Windows repair console and use bcdedit?
There also are third party Windows repair tools that may help like EasyBCD. But do not install EasBCD.

Remove Duplicate Firmware Objects in BCD and NVRAM
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc749510%28v=ws.10%29.aspx
UEFI NVRAM boot entries are cached in the BCD store
BCD has 1:1 mappings for some UEFI global variables
Any time {fwbootmgr} is manipulated, NVRAM is automatically updated

[Alexsandro_Santos_]

I buyed Easy Recovery Essentials from Neosmart and after an automated repair,
I could boot in Windows 8 again (just in Legacy Mode).
But, I can't boot in Ubuntu any more. How can I repair this problem now?

[oldfred]

Neosmart is a Windows company, and it does indirectly create a boot entry for Ubuntu in some cases. Usually not the Linux recommended way.

Know nothing about what modifications you now have done to system.

You can create a new summary report from Boot-Repair to see what it shows.

[Alexsandro_Santos_]

The new summary report is
http://paste.ubuntu.com/9701948/

I don't touch in anything yet. I'm just waiting...

[LostFarmer]

Do not ever use that program again. It has changed your GPT partitioning into MBR, a very bad thing. With your currect mbr partitioning you do not have any linux. But you can recover without much problem, the backup GPT information is still good.

You have lost the data on sda2 --DIAGS, my guess a recovery partition.

But first run chkdsk on partition 1 in Win 8, if you do not know how , bring up search and ask it. That might fix the other error (BCD).

To fix the GPT partitioning will have to use Linux and 'gdisk' , I only have a non GPT/EFI comp for now and do not have gdisk installed. I'm sure a google on gdisk usage will give good info.

[oldfred]

Gdisk is in the repository.
sudo apt-get install gdisk

http://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/

Converting to or from GPT
http://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/mbr2gpt.html

I do not understand what software you ran or why it would convert to MBR. Windows on gpt drives only boots from a gpt drive.
And others have used EasyBCD to fix BCD issues, without problems.
Not sure then what the Easy recovery essentials is or what its auto fix would do.

Again better to have Windows own repair tools, and make the Windows repair flash drive, so you have that to repair Windows.

[Alexsandro_Santos_]

I typed

gdisk -l /dev/sda

and the output was

[CODE]
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 0.8.8

Partition table scan:
MBR: MBR only
BSD: not present
APM: not present
GPT: present

Found valid MBR and GPT. Which do you want to use?
1 - MBR
2 - GPT
3 - Create blank GPT

Your answer:
[\CODE]

Which option will I use to fix the GPT?

[oldfred]

I was hoping the backup gpt was there, so you could easily restore from that.
You do not want blank gpt.
If you choose gpt #2 what do you get?
All your original partitions?

Unless it looks correct do not do a w or write the updated info. You can just exit, if not correct.

[Alexsandro_Santos_]

The output:



Your answer: 2

Using GPT and creating fresh protective MBR.
Disk /dev/sda: 1953525168 sectors, 931.5 GiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 795FE4D4-D0C2-443F-B6A5-6A323C191693
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 1953525134
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 4592 sectors (2.2 MiB)

Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name
1 2048 1025484 499.7 MiB EF00 EFI system partition
2 1026048 1107967 40.0 MiB FFFF Basic data partition
3 1107968 1370111 128.0 MiB 0C01 Microsoft reserved part
4 1370112 2394111 500.0 MiB 2700 Basic data partition
5 2394112 309594111 146.5 GiB 0700 Basic data partition
6 1938446336 1953523119 7.2 GiB 2700 Microsoft recovery part
7 309594112 310106111 250.0 MiB EF02
8 310106112 393992191 40.0 GiB 8300
9 393992192 1904891903 720.5 GiB 8300
10 1904891904 1938446335 16.0 GiB 8200


I think this is ok. How can I proceed?

[oldfred]

I do not know if you have to go into advanced mode or just from there can do a w for write.
I am not at a machine with gpt, so do not know for sure.
gdisk uses w for write which then saves the changes.

If you just use this I think you are in advanced mode.
sudo gdisk /dev/sda
Then p should show the same info as above, w then writes that info, if p not correct just use q to quit.

[Alexsandro_Santos_]

Problem solved. Thanks for your help.

[oldfred]

That was partition table.
Somewhere with Windows fixes, did a BCD get created?

[Alexsandro_Santos_]

Using an Windows Repair Disk an I typed in prompt

chkdisk C: /f

Then I boot again using an ubuntu live usb and after repair the GPT with

sudo gdisk /dev/sda

using option 2, then 'w' to write in disk,
I restarted the computer and then I chose boot in UEFI mode, Secure Boot off, Ubuntu option.
In Ubuntu I wrote a file named custom.cfg in /boot/grub/

sudo nano /boot/grub/custom.cfg

with the folowing contents:



menuentry "Windows (UEFI)" {
search --set=root --file /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
chainloader /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
}


saved it and I restarted again. This time the option
"Windows (UEFI)" was there and I could boot in Windows again.

[oldfred]

Glad you got it working. :)