ath-secondary
May 30th, 2015, 05:54 PM
I had a laptop with Ubuntu 14.04 alongside Windows 8.1.
I heard about the new release for Ubuntu and wanted to upgrade my Ubuntu 14.04 to 15.04. Did the do-release-upgrade command, got an error midway through upgrade to 14.10. The version was recognized as 14.10 but many apps were corrupted, like all the system settings (could not view Software & Updates). The Grub Bootloader no longer showed my dual-boot options and just loaded Ubuntu so I couldn't go back to windows. It also couldn't show the normal Ubuntu either, saying something like a low-graphics mode (like this (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PnFRiv7-WQs/UL-oVayYxQI/AAAAAAAAAOM/webTu83iqdA/s629/error-1.png), but I couldn't see the text)
This is where I decided to reinstall ubuntu 14.04 using the same USB I used to initially install it. I went through BIOS and got to boot through USB and installed Ubuntu 14.04. It asked to replace the current Ubuntu 14.10 version. After a successful install, update (from 14.04 to 14.10, then to 15.04) and reboot, the Grub still wasn't showing. I used Boot Repair (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair) to reinstall the grub (pastebin here (http://paste.ubuntu.com/11445462/)), and that worked.
So on the renewed grub it no longer showed my Windows 8.1. Obviously I panicked and went through the BIOS again looking for boot options, and this time I saw a Windows Boot Manager. Selected it faster than lightning but was met with "failed to load image" messages that were shown on the screen for a very short time, then returned to the Grub menu.
I went through so many askubuntu questions, ubuntuforum threads, youtube videos and websites in general to try and regain my Windows 8.1. I used TestDisk but it found no NTFS partitons:
Disk /dev/sda - 500GB
EFI System
Unknown Type, only shows my Linux files when opened
Linux Swap
Disk /dev/sdb - 3995MB
FAT32, with bad ending heads
I used Foremost (http://askubuntu.com/questions/3883/how-to-recover-deleted-files/3903#3903) to recover files from the /dev/sda disk and populated those into my /lost+found folder, which it actually found much of my Windows files, but it left me with no free diskspace while it was recovering and I had to search some more for ways to access the /lost+found folder since apparently it is hidden. None of the filenames were recognizable, and I had to delete the files in it to re-free the disk space.
So basically, a simple upgrade ended up breaking my Windows. The files are still there but I can't boot into the Windows and TestDisk can't detect the partition. I had a factory version of my Windows 8.1 on my Win7 desktop but apparently that was removed (even though I don't remember deleting it, it isn't appearing in the filesystem search).
Is there any hope beyond buying a new Windows 8.1? Although there wasn't too much data on it that I also didn't have on my Windows 7 desktop, having Windows on my laptop is quite the necessity for Windows-only programs on the go.
I heard about the new release for Ubuntu and wanted to upgrade my Ubuntu 14.04 to 15.04. Did the do-release-upgrade command, got an error midway through upgrade to 14.10. The version was recognized as 14.10 but many apps were corrupted, like all the system settings (could not view Software & Updates). The Grub Bootloader no longer showed my dual-boot options and just loaded Ubuntu so I couldn't go back to windows. It also couldn't show the normal Ubuntu either, saying something like a low-graphics mode (like this (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PnFRiv7-WQs/UL-oVayYxQI/AAAAAAAAAOM/webTu83iqdA/s629/error-1.png), but I couldn't see the text)
This is where I decided to reinstall ubuntu 14.04 using the same USB I used to initially install it. I went through BIOS and got to boot through USB and installed Ubuntu 14.04. It asked to replace the current Ubuntu 14.10 version. After a successful install, update (from 14.04 to 14.10, then to 15.04) and reboot, the Grub still wasn't showing. I used Boot Repair (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair) to reinstall the grub (pastebin here (http://paste.ubuntu.com/11445462/)), and that worked.
So on the renewed grub it no longer showed my Windows 8.1. Obviously I panicked and went through the BIOS again looking for boot options, and this time I saw a Windows Boot Manager. Selected it faster than lightning but was met with "failed to load image" messages that were shown on the screen for a very short time, then returned to the Grub menu.
I went through so many askubuntu questions, ubuntuforum threads, youtube videos and websites in general to try and regain my Windows 8.1. I used TestDisk but it found no NTFS partitons:
Disk /dev/sda - 500GB
EFI System
Unknown Type, only shows my Linux files when opened
Linux Swap
Disk /dev/sdb - 3995MB
FAT32, with bad ending heads
I used Foremost (http://askubuntu.com/questions/3883/how-to-recover-deleted-files/3903#3903) to recover files from the /dev/sda disk and populated those into my /lost+found folder, which it actually found much of my Windows files, but it left me with no free diskspace while it was recovering and I had to search some more for ways to access the /lost+found folder since apparently it is hidden. None of the filenames were recognizable, and I had to delete the files in it to re-free the disk space.
So basically, a simple upgrade ended up breaking my Windows. The files are still there but I can't boot into the Windows and TestDisk can't detect the partition. I had a factory version of my Windows 8.1 on my Win7 desktop but apparently that was removed (even though I don't remember deleting it, it isn't appearing in the filesystem search).
Is there any hope beyond buying a new Windows 8.1? Although there wasn't too much data on it that I also didn't have on my Windows 7 desktop, having Windows on my laptop is quite the necessity for Windows-only programs on the go.