Can't Boot Windows after dual-boot installation with Lubuntu

[arius88]

Okay!

Ran testdisk. All went according to plan (for once, finally)!
Refreshed the devices and the little yellow warning triangle of doom is gone and sda 1 is flagged as boot. Excellent.

Should I run boot-repair now?

Follow up question: do I run it off the live gparted install... or how does that work? I typed "boot-repair" into a terminal there and it said "command not found."

[arius88]

oops posted that last one twice by mistake

[oldfred]

Boot-Repair is not a standard Ubuntu application. And live installers do not save changes, unless you created one with persistence and saved it.

You just need to add ppa again to reinstall it each time you reboot with live installer. If in your install then you can just run it.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

[arius88]

Quick follow up question: do i need to run boot-repair from a live cd, or can I just run it from within Lubuntu?

Update: the Boot-Repair article says I can run it from within my Lubuntu install, so that's what I'm trying right now. (Sorry for asking an unnecessary question.) Will post here if it works (or not).

[arius88]

Ran Boot-Repair. It didn't work. The pastebin is here: https://paste.ubuntu.com/p/fXr8JNCmMn/

Boot menu contains two options for Windows 7.

Selecting Windows 7 (on /dev/sda1) takes me to a blinking curser.
Selecting Windows 7 (on /dev/sda2) takes me to the same error that started all this:

"Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause.

"Status: 0xc0000225

"Info: The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible."



Dang. What do I do now?

[oldfred]

Do not remember if it was Windows 7 that would get you into an internal repair console with f key like f10? You had to hit that before it starts to boot, but after starting Windows.
Grub only boots working Windows.

The real disadvantage of BIOS/MBR installs is you only have one MBR with boot files. Grub boots working Windows, but to make Windows repairs you often have to directly boot Windows and then need a Windows boot loader in MBR.
You then use Windows repair flash drive or install Windows boot loader (or maybe Boot-Repair & generic (syslinux) boot Windows & make Windows repairs. Then restore grub to dual boot.

Boot-Repair copied bootmgr & BCD which are the essential boot files in sda1 Windows boot partition to main install sda2. That is now why grub gives two boot options. But files were copied, so boot errors should be the same?
Did you run chkdsk on both sda1 & sda2?

[arius88]

TBH I don't remember what I ran chkdsk on. I thought it checked all the partitions, but I can do it again to confirm.

Is there a way to get a Windows boot loader in the MBR?

[oldfred]

See post #5.
Either Boot-Repair or your windows repair/recovery flash drive.

[arius88]

Thing is that running boot-repair is the most recent thing I did that would have made any changes, and it didn't fix it. And apparently I don't have a windows disk that will do the job either.

I had downloaded a Windows 7 disk. It comes with an option to either install or repair windows. I've been selecting the repair option. It gives me a System Recovery Options screen. There's two options there.

The second option is no use to me, because it involves restoring the computer with a system image I never created.

The first option is "Use recovery tools that can help fix problems starting Windows. Select an operating system to repair." It would then show me a blank window with no operating systems. It suggested to load drivers, which I don't have and didn't know how to do. Since making some recent changes, either with Gparted or boot-repair, it seems we've made some progress because Windows 7 now shows up in the window! When I click on Next, it detects something wrong and offers to fix it, but then I get an error:

"This version of System Recovery Options is not compatible with the version of Windows you are trying to repair. Try using a recovery disc that is compatible with this version of Windows."

Any idea where I might acquire such a thing?

NeoSmart sells a Windows 7 Professional recovery disk for $59.99 here: https://neosmart.net/EasyRE/#buy, but I'm hesitant to drop money on something if I don't even know if it will work. And I also don't particularly trust this website, although it WAS recommended here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Re...7%20Partitions

[oldfred]

Are you using Boot-Repair's advanced mode? And choose Windows & sda?
That should install the generic (syslinux) boot loader).
But that will not make any other Windows repairs.

Windows 7 is so obsolete, I would not spend any money on it.
There used to be a free Windows 7 repair disk. Maybe 15 years ago, I used it to fix my XP install, it ran a better chkdsk than XP.
And you could make your own repair disk from with a Working Windows.
A newer Windows repair disk may work?

Windows 10 repair disk
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1156...925839_1156795
https://www.tenforums.com/software-a...scue-disk.html
http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/4...dows-10-a.html
http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/3...dows-10-a.html
Repair/backup/restore
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...recovery-drive &
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/w...covery-options