[SOLVED] Dual booting debian 8.2 and windows 8.1 failure
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Hello everybody, first time to post here, I hope to find at last some guidance!!
Previously I had dual booted windows8.1 and debian7.9 using grub. Because I messed up with my debian I decided to make a new partition to load my home folder there and install from scratch debian8.2 overwriting existed partition of already installed debian7.9 (and mount as home folder the partition previously mentioned in order not loose my data).
During installation of debian8.2 I came to the point where it asks me to install grub and do it only if I see all of OS'es in my system. Because I was seeing only FreeDos(name of the very first partition of my only drive where I suppose lives in the bootloader for windows and debian(grub), correct if i am wrong), I decided to skip this step and the next step was to install lilo. I moved on according to the instructions and complete the debian installation. I reboot and logged on flawlessly in debian8.2. When I decided to log in windows after reboot, I chose FreeDos from lilo menu and windows hang at splash screen (showing the blue window with the rotating cursor). I have to mention here that FreeDos was the option to choose from grub menu i order to boot windows, also at previous set up. I tried to fix boot from windows CD, doing recommended repair but with no luck.
Fortunately after checking disk from windows cd, I am able to see my data at windows partition mounting the windows partition at linux file system.
So the problem is that I cant boot windows normally
What did I do next:
I saw from lilo.conf that lilo is installed in MBR cause this line
boot = /dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC.....
so I supposed that I have corrupted MBR and I set this line to
boot = /dev/sda6 where my linux partiotion is and run lilo to make the appropriate changes.
Also I booted from windows cd and through the cmd I executed bootrec.exe /fixboot and bootrec.exe /fixmbr successfully, but windows still wont boot. To boot again debian I booted from a supergrub flash usb and I changed again the same line of lilo.conf to boot = /dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC...
Now every time I choose FreeDos from lilo menu windows splash screen will not even show up.
I did the above procedure once more with no luck. Occasionaly my windows partition got hidden but using fdisk I managed to unhide it and get access to data from debian
One strange thing that happened was that the very first partition I think got corrupted because nor its label (FreeDos) is visible nor it's accesible through debian.
I tried also to use bootsec /nt60 sys though windows cmd (windows cd) but was also unsuccessful (reported something like "no valid name of volume").
One more strange thing is that I made the new partition for home folder through gparted live flash usb but now I cant make gparted through live usb run cause it starts for a while and then closes itself. Maybe is the corrupted first partition I suppose.
What should I do to get windows boot again along with debian without risking my data.
To clarify my partitons:
/dev/sda1 (FreeDoS about 1GB) boot flag on
/dev/sda2 windows partition
/dev/sda3 home_partition
/dev/sda4 extended partiotion
|__/dev/sda5 linux logical
|__/dev/sda6 swap logical
To catch up early clarifications I made home_partition shrinking windows partition and windows boot normally after that.
Notes: FreeDos was the only partition came with my notebook after purchase, no windows was inside
Phew that was a lot of details but i am trying to be specific.
I don't use any of the operating systems you mention so I don't know this will be much help. It's a pretty non-standard setup with Freedos along with more recent operating systems. You indicate that you previously had Grub from Debian booting and with the new installation of Debian you are now using Lilo. Any particular reason for that? Not that it shouldn't work but it is non-standard as Debian hasn't used Lilo for years.
Just to clarify that I understand, you are now able to boot the new Debian and Freedos but unable to boot windows 8, is that correct? One thing I would suggest you could do which will show more details for you is to boot Debian and go to the site below and download and burn the boot repair to a CD, run it and select the Create Bootinfo summary option and review the output. If that doesn't help, you could post it here and someone more familiar with those OSs might be able to help.
yancek thanks for your response. To clarify some things i am able to boot only Debian and not windows 8. FreeDos I think does not exist in my system since my initial installation of windows 8 but the name FreeDos was the name of first partition of my disk, (till the partition got corrupted for some reason) I never tried to boot FreeDOS OS and i dont care about it. Now, i think FreeDos exists only as name
When I had debian7 and windows8 in dual boot the grub option for windows had the name FreeDos.
Debian8 installation cd asked me to install grub and show me a list with OSes in my system, and told me to intall grub only if all of my OSes are in that list. That list had only the name FreeDos and i supposed this is the windows OS but I could never see anyware debian. So I "scared" a little bit and skipped that step. Next step was intallation of lilo, so I moved on with that option. I don't think this is a lilo problem though.
Now I will try boot-repair and post back the results
If you have windows 8 installed, the default I believe if you are using GPT partitioning is to use UEFI. UEFI and CSM or legacy BIOS are not compatible so if windows was UEFI, Debian would need to be UEFI. If you post the boot repair output someone should be able to point you in the right direction.
I tried to use boot-repair but seemed to stuck at os-prober. The reason was the first partition of my hard drive was corrupted.
So I did a format (through debian) at first partition. Then I booted from windows cd and executed via cmd the command bootrec /fixboot and
bootrec /rebuildbdc in order to write at first partition a new bootloader for windows. Partition2 where my windows installation is, was not detectable
through diskpart, select drive 0, select partition 2, detail partition commands because partition 2 had errors due to forcibly shut down via power button.
So I made a diskcheck through gparted at partition 2 and then I was able to add this partition at bootrecord via bootrec /rebuildbdc. (If run this command once more
the result will be no OSes found because this command reports only OSes that are not added at bootrecord).
After these moves I still was not able to boot windows but I was able to run boot-repair which installed grub.
Then after selecting windows from grub menu finally I was able to run windows normally!!
So I think the problem was originally lilo itself or its configuration. In trying to repair boot problems somehow first partition got corrupted so
I had an extra problem(with that problem windows splash screen was not even showed up).
So if anyone has similar problems I suggest these, as a rule of thumb:
Try first boot-repair.
If boot-repair gets stucked at os-prober verify that partitions are ok.
If system partition* of windows is corrupted, format it.
At this stage maybe boot-repair fix the problem(I don't know)
Try to write a new boot record at system partition through bootrec /fixboot and bootrec /rebuildbcd commands via cmd of windows cd
If boot partition* of windows has no volume name associated with it, this is just due to errors in filesystem due to forced shudown during booting. Repair these errors through gparted and try again bootrec /rebuildbcd
At this stage splash screen of windows will show up again at next reboot.
Now try again boot-repair.
*Note system partition is partition where bootloader of windows lives in, and boot partition is where windows installation lives in
If in any odd case you write the command bootrec /fixmbr a new boot configuration will be written at first sector of disk (MBR) overwriting lilo. In this
case you will not able to boot linux either. Don't panic use another pc to write supergrub in a flash drive and booting from it you will be able to run
your linux distro again. Now from there run /sbin/lilo in order to rewrite lilo at MBR.
Every time you try to boot windows with no luck lilo will hide the boot partition of windows. You can unhide it using fdisk, and if is not accesible
you can fix partition for errors using gparted. Normally after that windows partition and your data will be available again
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