dual boot laptop can't boot windows, possibly damaged hard disk
Apologies in advance for my verbosity.
This old HP G61 laptop has been dual-booting Ubuntu 12.04 and Windows 7 until Windows suddenly could not boot and prompts us for a system rescue CD. Having no such thing -- this computer was a refurb came with nothing but itself -- and not wanting to confront endless voicemail menus and hold times with HP Support, I have been trying to fix it myself. Ubuntu is still doing fine, but could no longer mount the windows partition. GParted says: I was able to make images of the two Windows ntfs partitions (one of them is apparently the boot partition, the other has data and programs) with ddrescue, storing them on a removable USB drive. I then tried deleting the afflicted partition sda2 and re-creating it. So far so good. I was also able under Linux to mount the newly created partition. Next I tried restoring the disk image back onto the partition using dd, and got a vague "dd: writing to `/dev/sda2': Input/output error." I attempted this without mounting /dev/sda2, thinking that was probably the way to go. When I do try to mount it now: Code:
mount -t ntfs /dev/sda2/ /media/windows I have googled and read a good deal but I am hitting the limits of my skills and knowledge. I have no further clue how to diagnose this problem -- if it's a corrupt NTFS boot sector I don't know how to repair it. One hypothesis is a physically damaged drive that needs replacing. I could replace the drive and try to restore the Windows with my disk images. But I am not sure that's the case and I wonder what I should next try to do. The weird stuff all over the Windows partition suggests some kind of malware. Could it have trashed my partition table or something? Note that re-installing Windows from an installation disk is not really an option because this thing came with no installation media. It had some kind of backup partition with an copy of the original windows install but I got rid of that to make room for Linux. So: what do you think the problem may be and what should I try next? In deepest gratitude, David |
The problem here seems to be that when you have re-created the partition you created a smaller partition than initially was the case, so that the file-system doesn't fit anymore into it. The best thing would have been if you had made a backup copy of the partition table before messing with partitions. But your real problem is that the file-system was corrupted, so your backup copy of the partition is good for nothing else than maybe copy over some files that you still need, and that you have removed the recovery partition, so that you now are unable to install a fresh copy of Windows. I would recommend to contact the vendor and ask for an installation medium, but it may be possible that you have to pay a fee for that.
Apart from that, if you want to test the harddisk for failure you can use the command Code:
smartctl -a /dev/sda |
You can download an installation-iso from anywhere. As long as it is the exact same version as you have a license for, it is legal.
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Be careful with such advices, LQ is an international forum and in many jurisdictions it is not legal to download an illegal copy of Windows and use it. Besides that you can never know if an ISO you get from third parties is possibly infected with malware of any kind.
The security paradigm "Never install software from sources that you can't trust!" is also valid for operating systems. In any case you should get an official and legal ISO to make sure that you get what you want, not some backdoor on your system. |
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Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on And: do you think it is not a case of physical hard disk damage? How did could my partitions have spontaneously gone bad? Thanks again. |
Without further diagnostics it is impossible to say if a failing harddisk is the cause for your problems. But there can be other reasons for the corruption, from a bug in drivers over a power-outage to faulty RAM. Since your image is already corrupted no one can say if the OS on that image is able to boot or work correctly, that is why I recommended a fresh install.
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btw I ran a smartctl short test and got the following. It says the overalled health "passed" but then reports a number of errors. Somewhere I read that if the number of errors is "large," that's a problem. I don't know whether 1106 is considered large -- especially when you're a physicist who studies inflationary cosmology and gravitational waves. Code:
smartctl 5.41 2011-06-09 r3365 [x86_64-linux-3.2.0-35-generic] (local build) |
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OK. Thanks for your help. I think I see a new drive and a call to HP in my future.
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http://www.mytechguide.org/10042/win...iver-download/ |
Wow, that is extremely interesting. But it gives rise to another question. I don't think I have any means of knowing the exact version of the Windows 7 that this laptop came with, other than my memory -- hence no certainty as to which image I should download. I ~believe~ it came with Windows 7 Home, 32-bit but can't say as to whether it had SP1. Since I can mount the partition images and look at everything, I wonder if there's a way to ease out the version information.
I know we're getting a bit far afield of official forum topic. Thanks for your indulgence and thanks again for all the help. |
Find the windows version:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/w...erating-system More detailed info on the computer: Click the windows Menu button, mouse up to Computer, right click and select Properties. |
The sticker underneath the machine also says what os & should have your wins product key
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Are you sure that what you call the boot partition is not in fact a recovery partition, to reset Windows to its factory condition? If it is and is undamaged, you could try putting it back in its original position and try to boot it (F8 during startup, I believe). Obviously you need the Windows partition back in place. This will overwrite GRUB, of course.
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Having just been through something similar (re-furbed HP Ultrabook), some comments:
- Win7 ships with 2 partitions (boot and system) and HP has a recovery and (in my case) "HP tools" partitions. - documentation is shipped "on disk", and includes a procedure to create a recovery DVD/USB so the recovery partition can be safely deleted. Needed just over 11 Gig on a 16 Gig USB for me (Win7 Pro). Note this recovery is a HP tool, not a copy of the M$oft disc. - looking online I'd say you had Win7 Home Premium. Given you can mount the disk image, but not copy it back to the original disk, I'd have to agree the disk is on its way out. Worry about your data first - get it copied off to some other media (from the image). HP should be willing to help - if the disk is dead, the recovery partition would be no good anyway; no need for them to be told you deleted it. Edit: didn't realise this was a 2 week old thread that had been re-opened. Hopefully helps anyway. |
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