Wubi megathread

[bcbc]

I used Wubi to install ubuntu9.10(later upgraded to10.04) on a partitioned hp-tablet running vista. Ubuntu is installed in a different partition from windows. My machine dual booted fine for more that a year. After mistakenly doing the grub update, my machine goes straight to ubuntu without seeing grub and no option for vista. I have tried other solutions before finding this thread. I think I should be trying problem 1 solution 2(no windows CD).
I’m not sure if vista is installed in sda or sda1.
I have attached my "result.txt"(as a .doc due to file size)
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks,
K

This isn't a Wubi install, so this thread is not the right place for you.

Just glancing at your grub.cfg the timeout is set to 0. So you can change that to get the menu to show, or just hold down the SHIFT key after you turn the computer on and it will show. Then you can select Windows on /dev/sda1 (that's the partition with the boot flag set).

[Lodajames]

hello!
my name is james,I'm Very pleased to join you.
now,I just want to say hello!!

[kai1]

This isn't a Wubi install, so this thread is not the right place for you.

Just glancing at your grub.cfg the timeout is set to 0. So you can change that to get the menu to show, or just hold down the SHIFT key after you turn the computer on and it will show. Then you can select Windows on /dev/sda1 (that's the partition with the boot flag set).

I forgot that I eventually installed ubuntu.
I changed the timeout to 10 and was able to get the grub menu.
Now I am able to choose between:
many different Linux 2.6....,
Memory test (memtest86+)
Memory test (memtest86+, serial console 115200)
Windows Recovery Environment (loader) (on /dev/sda1)
Windows Vista (loader) (on /dev/sda4)
When I choose Windows Vista (loader) a System recovery starts.
When I choose Windows Recovery Environment something like Jo7sASJo7sAS in the upper left hand corner of the screen.
Any ideas on what to do next?

[bcbc]

I forgot that I eventually installed ubuntu.
I changed the timeout to 10 and was able to get the grub menu.
Now I am able to choose between:
many different Linux 2.6....,
Memory test (memtest86+)
Memory test (memtest86+, serial console 115200)
Windows Recovery Environment (loader) (on /dev/sda1)
Windows Vista (loader) (on /dev/sda4)
When I choose Windows Vista (loader) a System recovery starts.
When I choose Windows Recovery Environment something like Jo7sASJo7sAS in the upper left hand corner of the screen.
Any ideas on what to do next?

So just to understand the situation. You said:
1. Vista was booting normally with Ubuntu until you 'mistakenly did a grub update'.
2. Now, after setting the grub timeout you get two recovery environments and the first of these gives some garbled text.

So what exactly do you mean by "did a grub update" because the grub menu reconfigures all the time (e.g. with kernel updates) and it's not supposed to cause any issues. When the grub packages (grub-pc, grub-common) are updated (less frequently) they're not supposed to cause any issues either, and certainly not on a windows partition.

How long ago did you successfully boot Windows Vista and is there anything (windows related) you've noticed that could have caused any issues?

I'll take a look at your bootinfoscript again, but this doesn't seem to make a lot of sense on the surface... I think your best bet would be a windows vista repair disk (but backup your data first and prepare to reinstall grub as it will likely be removed during the repair process - and then you'll not be able to boot Ubuntu until you reinstall it).

[kai1]

When I wrote “update”, I meant the the grub package updates(grub-pc, grub-common) using Update Manager(not the terminal command “update-grub”).
For about 1 year I was able to choose between ubuntu 10.04 and vista when I re/started the machine. The default after 10 or 15 seconds was vista.
The problems started on the first reboot after the grup-pc and grub-common updates. When I restarted, the machine went straight to ubuntu with no grub menu showing.
I don’t remember any windows related issues around the same time.
I am starting to agree that my best bet may be to start with the repair disks.

[bcbc]

You have /bootmgr and /boot/bcd. I think there should also be a /Windows/System32/winload.exe as well.

(Bootinfoscript looks for these three files on a windows partition - there may be other problems but they wouldn't show up in the script results.)

[believekevin]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to this thread but a fairly experienced Ubuntu user. My laptop recently ran out of batteries and shut itself down. As many others have discovered, this can hose a Wubi installation. I'd REALLY like to recover a small amount of data that is now stuck in root.disk limbo.

I tried chkdsk but it found nothing.

I can access all the Wubi files using a live USB installation of PuppyLinux but check out these bizarre file sizes:
* root.disk 0 bytes
* swap.disk 268435456 bytes

Unsurprisingly, I am not able to mount this root.disk:

$ sudo mkdir -p /media/root.disk
$ sudo mount -o loop root.disk /media/root.disk/
mount: you must specify the filesystem type

$ sudo mount -t ext2 -o loop root.disk /media/root.disk/
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/loop0,
       missing codepage or helper program, or other error
       (could this be the IDE device where you in fact use
       ide-scsi so that sr0 or sda or so is needed?)
       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail  or so

$ sudo mount -t vfat -o loop root.disk /media/root.disk/
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/loop0,
       missing codepage or helper program, or other error
       (could this be the IDE device where you in fact use
       ide-scsi so that sr0 or sda or so is needed?)
       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail  or so

$ dmesg | tail -n 4
EXT2-fs (loop0): error: can't find an ext2 filesystem on dev loop0.
FAT: utf8 is not a recommended IO charset for FAT filesystems, filesystem will be case sensitive!
FAT: invalid media value (0x0f)
VFS: Can't find a valid FAT filesystem on dev loop0.

Unfortunately, I've also had to use this machine (from Windows) for work so if the blocks were freed up, they are almost certainly overwritten by now.

What do you think, WubiMega, is there any hope of recovering my data?

[bcbc]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to this thread but a fairly experienced Ubuntu user. My laptop recently ran out of batteries and shut itself down. As many others have discovered, this can hose a Wubi installation. I'd REALLY like to recover a small amount of data that is now stuck in root.disk limbo.

I tried chkdsk but it found nothing.

I can access all the Wubi files using a live USB installation of PuppyLinux but check out these bizarre file sizes:
* root.disk 0 bytes
* swap.disk 268435456 bytes

Unsurprisingly, I am not able to mount this root.disk:

$ sudo mkdir -p /media/root.disk
$ sudo mount -o loop root.disk /media/root.disk/
mount: you must specify the filesystem type

$ sudo mount -t ext2 -o loop root.disk /media/root.disk/
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/loop0,
       missing codepage or helper program, or other error
       (could this be the IDE device where you in fact use
       ide-scsi so that sr0 or sda or so is needed?)
       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail  or so

$ sudo mount -t vfat -o loop root.disk /media/root.disk/
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/loop0,
       missing codepage or helper program, or other error
       (could this be the IDE device where you in fact use
       ide-scsi so that sr0 or sda or so is needed?)
       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail  or so

$ dmesg | tail -n 4
EXT2-fs (loop0): error: can't find an ext2 filesystem on dev loop0.
FAT: utf8 is not a recommended IO charset for FAT filesystems, filesystem will be case sensitive!
FAT: invalid media value (0x0f)
VFS: Can't find a valid FAT filesystem on dev loop0.

Unfortunately, I've also had to use this machine (from Windows) for work so if the blocks were freed up, they are almost certainly overwritten by now.

What do you think, WubiMega, is there any hope of recovering my data?

Make sure you ran chkdsk properly. Use the /f or /r option (or if run from the gui interface select: 'Automatically select file system errors' (/f) and/or 'Scan for and attempt recovery of bad disk sectors' (/r) if you think you might have some disk damage - although in this case it sounds just like the hard powerdown.
Chkdsk has to be run on the partition with the root.disk and if that is C: then it has to be rebooted to complete (or run from a repair prompt). Then you'll see it run at bootup and let it complete. If you've done all that and the root.disk is still 0 bytes then I don't know of a way to recover the data.

more info if you get some recovery: http://ubuntu-with-wubi.blogspot.ca/...-rootdisk.html

[smartboyhw]

Hi.

Let me say that the Wubi installer is very bad.

I downloaded the Wubi Installer using Wi-Fi and when I was doing the installation process (downloading the packaging) it cuts my connection. Other things work fine.

Also, Wubi 12.04 has performance issues very heavily. Indeed, it crashes completely when I even tried to click anywhere.

However, 12.10 fixed that, and I'm very happy.

Please improve.

Regards,
Howard Chan
Ubuntu Studio Team member in https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuStudio/TeamStructure

[bcbc]

Hi.

Let me say that the Wubi installer is very bad.

I downloaded the Wubi Installer using Wi-Fi and when I was doing the installation process (downloading the packaging) it cuts my connection. Other things work fine.

Also, Wubi 12.04 has performance issues very heavily. Indeed, it crashes completely when I even tried to click anywhere.

However, 12.10 fixed that, and I'm very happy.

Please improve.

Regards,
Howard Chan
Ubuntu Studio Team member in https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuStudio/TeamStructure

The developers don't read this thread. You need to file a bug on launchpad to get a wubi problem fixed (although what you described doesn't sound like a wubi issue).