[Boot-Repair] Graphical tool to repair the PC boot in one click

[oldfred]

Moved posts to this thread, since Poutrathor started his own thread. Yann if you get a chance, stop in on this thread as he seems to be a native French speaker.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2081220

[Poutrathor]

Hi all,

Just to thank YannUbuntu, Oldfred, Drmrdg and everyone kind to help us!

My config was Asus N76VZ, 2 hard drive 750G (no sdd), W7 on sda, Linux on sdb. I wanted dual boot with grub at start and the following thread gives clear explanation if the boot-repair does not solve (still a great tool to diagnosis if you don't know all the command)

Boot repair: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair (read the text, then copy paste the two lines)
Solution for manually configuring the pointers: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2031836&page=2

Good luck if you are reading this, but I am a noob & I (they) make it work, so hope

[YannBuntu]

Thanks to Pouthrator feedback, i found a bug introduced in the boot-repair3.194~ppa50 package. This bug was preventing boot-repair to create Windows UEFI entries.

This is fixed now.

[bcbc]

Yannbuntu, boot repair is still replacing the Windows bootloader and (re)setting the boot flag to the same partition e.g. http://paste.ubuntu.com/1332180/

In this case, it reports the problem fixed, but the problem is actually the corrupt/missing root.disk.

I thought that you were going to add something that asked if Windows boots okay, and then prevent modification? Maybe a message stating that chkdsk is required will help more in this case?

=================== fdisk -l:

Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xa8e4c5de

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048      409599      203776    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2          409600   599171071   299380736    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3       599171072   624928767    12878848    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda4       624928768   625140399      105816    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)

Disk /dev/sdb: 31.9 GB, 31914983424 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3880 cylinders, total 62333952 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1            8192    62333951    31162880    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)


Partition outside the disk detected.

=================== Recommended repair
Recommended-Repair
This setting will restore the [(generic mbr)] MBR in sda, and make it boot on sda1.
Additional repair will be performed: unhide-bootmenu-10s  repair-wubi fix-windows-boot


Quantity of real Windows: 1
mount -o loop /mnt/boot-sav/sda2/ubuntu/disks/root.disk /mnt/boot-sav/wubi1
Failed to read bootsector (size=0)
Failed to mount '/dev/loop1': Invalid argument
The device '/dev/loop1' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS.
Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a
partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way around?
The file browser that just opened will let you access your Wubi (Linux installed into Windows) files. (/mnt/boot-sav/wubi1/home) Please backup your data now! Then close this window.
xdg-open: file '/mnt/boot-sav/wubi1/home' does not exist
umount /mnt/boot-sav/wubi1
umount: /mnt/boot-sav/wubi1: not mounted
This will try to repair Wubi filesystem. Please backup your data before this operation. Do you want to continue? no
 Will restore the MBR_TO_RESTORE : sda (generic mbr) into sda
dd if=/usr/lib/syslinux/mbr.bin of=/dev/sda
0+1 records in
0+1 records out
parted /dev/sda set 1 boot on

                                                                          
Information: You may need to update /etc/fstab.


Boot successfully repaired.

You can now reboot your computer.

[YannBuntu]

Yannbuntu, boot repair is still replacing the Windows bootloader and (re)setting the boot flag to the same partition e.g. http://paste.ubuntu.com/1332180/

Thanks for reminding, i will try to fix this today.

In this case, it reports the problem fixed, but the problem is actually the corrupt/missing root.disk.

I thought that you were going to add something that asked if Windows boots okay, and then prevent modification? Maybe a message stating that chkdsk is required will help more in this case?

That's something i had not time to work on, partially because i am not sure this is the best way to handle this situation.
In a general way, i try to follow KISS principle and avoid popups/questions when possible.
So IMHO, the best solution here would be to remove the popup asking if the user wants to perform Wubi filesystem repair (fsck on root.disk). This way, we would not need any popup at all. (i initially added this popup because the "Wubi filesystem repair" was a new feature, but now, after several months, it looks stable so i think i will simply remove the popup)
What do you think?

Remark: when root.disk is missing, B-R will display the following final message:

A broken Wubi has been detected. Please fix it this way: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WubiGuide#Ca...ot_into_Ubuntu

[bcbc]

Sounds good to me. I haven't run boot-repair personally so I don't know about the popups... but it's obviously very popular so keeping it simple makes sense.

Thanks!

[spyros83]

Hello,

I have used boot-repair in the past and it's a great tool so I would like to say thanks to YannBuntu!
I only have a minor question (which I hope that hasn't been answered before - sorry I didn't read all messages in this topic):
I use only linux for many years now but for some stupid reason I had to temporarily install also windows on my laptop. So I want to use boot-repair in order to recover grub. I have an ubuntu live-CD but unfortunately I have no internet connection at home at the moment, so I want to download the program and bring it home in a USB stick. My question is: why are the installation files so large? The boot-repair-disk is 350MB and the secure-mix is even more since it has also ubuntu inside. When I used boot-repair in the past, I installed it using ubuntu live-CD, apt-get and an internet connection and I remember that the download and installation took only a few seconds. Obviously the installation files shouldn't be more than a few MBs, so one should be able to download them without the rest of the contents of the live-CDs, save them in a USB drive and install the program offline. I think it would be nice if in the installation instructions there was also a link with the program alone for such cases.

[oldfred]

Those are full repairCD.

You can install Ubuntu's installer with persistence and then add some info like Boot-Repair.

Pros & cons of persistent install over direct install to flashdrives - C.S.Cameron
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1655412

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCD/Persistence
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LiveUsbPendrivePersistent


With grub2 persistent C.S.Cameron 12.04
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2042965

[YannBuntu]

one should be able to download them without the rest of the contents of the live-CDs, save them in a USB drive and install the program offline. I think it would be nice if in the installation instructions there was also a link with the program alone for such cases.

This exists: you can download the following packages:
1) glade2script-gtk2.deb (or glade2script.deb for Ubuntu12.04 and later) https://launchpad.net/glade2script/+download
2) then boot-sav.deb https://launchpad.net/boot-repair/+download
3) then boot-repair.deb https://launchpad.net/boot-repair/+download

put them on your USB key, then boot your broken PC onto your Ubuntu liveCD, choose "Try Ubuntu", get the DEBs files from your USB key, and install them (in the order: 1 then 2 then 3).

Why i didn't mention it before:
- you are the 1st Ubuntu user to ask it in 2 years.
- it is more complicated for the user than downloading Boot-Repair-Disk or Ubuntu-Secure
- i don't update the DEBs as often as Boot-Repair-Disk or Ubuntu-Secure.
- this method won't install the Suggested dependencies, nor the Recommended ones. --> some minor functionalities are not available

[spyros83]

Thank you both guys!
I will follow YannBuntu's instructions for now, but I will also make a persistent ubuntu USB for future use , it sounds good and I haven't tried it yet.

(It's so cool to talk with the people who actually make the programs I use and enjoy everyday I hadn't tried the forum before.)