Lost (access to?) Windows partition after Gparted wiped the old Linux one!

pofadda · 03-21-2011, 02:30 PM

I realise that this is not a pure Linux Q, but I am hoping for tolerance and even help!

After removing the partitions (/,/home) that held an older Linux installation, gparted showed the original Windows XP partition followed by the new unallocated space. On rebooting, there was a Grub rescue error (text not noted, sorry). A live install running gparted shows a totally empty disk!

The removed OS was booted via Grub2 and I imagine that it is choking when there is no secondary(?) file to be found since it was vaped. I also imagine that this is a fairly straight-forward matter, something like replacing the MBR but I am so far from Windows these days that I am unsure how to progress with rescuing the partition. The machine has no floppy - that's how I would have initially booted it way back when. Is this something that I can do either through a Linux live distro or via a Windows CD?

syg00 · 03-21-2011, 02:41 PM

Boot the XP install CD, and hit "r" for Recovery console when indicated. Then run fixmbr.
If all is well with your XP install, all will be fine. Else we'll get a second installment of this story.

pofadda · 03-21-2011, 04:28 PM

Many thanks for the speedy response,syg00. I ran 'fixmbr', read the dire warnings and it did its bit and... rebooted with a GRUB> prompt.
Rebooted with CD and dropped to root from which all other directories but Windows were 'Access is denied'. It's good to see that they are probably there!

pofadda · 03-21-2011, 04:32 PM

Bootcfg /list says of XP list item: "OS Load Options: /noexecute=optin /fastdetect.

In case that helps...

EDDY1 · 03-21-2011, 04:33 PM

sudo update-gub

pofadda · 03-21-2011, 04:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EDDY1

sudo update-gub

Seems unlikely to be of use as the Linux partitions have been removed. I suspect that the running of fixmbr - twice now - has destroyed Grub's code.

Slackyman · 03-21-2011, 05:34 PM

From the Recovery Console of the Windows CD run the map command.
Take note of the output then run
fixmbr <output of map>
Try to reboot now.
Sometime you need also to run FIXBOOT.

pofadda · 03-22-2011, 06:41 AM

Drat! After map, fixmbr \Device\HardDisk0\Partition1 and fixboot c: I am still getting a lonely-looking GRUB _

Do I admit defeat???

syg00 · 03-22-2011, 09:51 AM

From a linux liveCD, go here, get an run the script and post the RESULTS.txt
That way we can see the actual boot setup on your machine (no personal data).

pofadda · 03-22-2011, 02:03 PM

Syg00, here are the RESULTS...

Code:

                Boot Info Script 0.55    dated February 15th, 2010                    

============================= Boot Info Summary: ==============================

 => Windows is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda
 => Windows is installed in the MBR of /dev/sdb

sda1: _________________________________________________________________________

    File system:       
    Boot sector type:  Windows XP
    Boot sector info:  
    Mounting failed:
mount: unknown filesystem type ''

sda2: _________________________________________________________________________

    File system:       Extended Partition
    Boot sector type:  Grub
    Boot sector info:  Grub is installed in the boot sector of sda2 and looks 
                       at sector 66840304 of the same hard drive for the 
                       stage2 file, but no stage2 files can be found at this 
                       location.

sda5: _________________________________________________________________________

    File system:       
    Boot sector type:  Unknown
    Boot sector info:  
    Mounting failed:
mount: unknown filesystem type ''
mount: unknown filesystem type ''

sda6: _________________________________________________________________________

    File system:       
    Boot sector type:  Unknown
    Boot sector info:  
    Mounting failed:
mount: unknown filesystem type ''
mount: unknown filesystem type ''
mount: unknown filesystem type ''

sdb1: _________________________________________________________________________

    File system:       vfat
    Boot sector type:  Unknown
    Boot sector info:  No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
    Operating System:  
    Boot files/dirs:   

=========================== Drive/Partition Info: =============================

Drive: sda ___________________ _____________________________________________________

Partition  Boot         Start           End          Size  Id System

/dev/sda1                  63    62,026,964    62,026,902   7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2    *     62,027,774    78,139,391    16,111,618   5 Extended
Extended  partition  linking to another extended partition
Invalid MBR Signature found
/dev/sda5     ? 4,356,995,009 4,356,995,008                   Unknown
/dev/sda6     ? 4,356,995,009 4,356,995,008                   Unknown

/dev/sda5 ends after the last sector of /dev/sda
the logical partition /dev/sda5 is not contained in the extended partition /dev/sda2
/dev/sda6 ends after the last sector of /dev/sda
the logical partition /dev/sda6 is not contained in the extended partition /dev/sda2

Drive: sdb ___________________ _____________________________________________________

Disk /dev/sdb: 4063 MB, 4063232000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 493 cylinders, total 7936000 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Partition  Boot         Start           End          Size  Id System

/dev/sdb1                  63     7,920,044     7,919,982   b W95 FAT32


blkid -c /dev/null: ____________________________________________________________

Device           UUID                                   TYPE       LABEL                         

/dev/loop0                                              squashfs                                 
/dev/sda2: PTTYPE="dos" 
/dev/sda: PTTYPE="dos" 
/dev/sdb1        99A5-4EE9                              vfat       Data4GB                       
/dev/sdb: PTTYPE="dos" 
error: /dev/sda5: No such file or directory
error: /dev/sda6: No such file or directory

============================ "mount | grep ^/dev  output: ===========================

Device           Mount_Point              Type       Options

aufs             /                        aufs       (rw)
/dev/sr0         /cdrom                   iso9660    (ro,noatime)
/dev/loop0       /rofs                    squashfs   (ro,noatime)
/dev/sdb1        /media/Data4GB           vfat       (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=udisks,uid=999,gid=999,shortname=mixed,dmask=0077,utf8=1,showexec,flush)

=========================== Unknown MBRs/Boot Sectors/etc =======================

Unknown BootLoader  on sda5


Unknown BootLoader  on sda6


Unknown BootLoader  on sdb1

00000000  eb 58 90 50 41 52 41 47  4f 4e 23 00 02 08 20 00  |.X.PARAGON#... .|
00000010  02 00 00 00 00 f8 00 00  3f 00 ff 00 3f 00 00 00  |........?...?...|
00000020  6e d9 78 00 28 1e 00 00  00 00 00 00 02 00 00 00  |n.x.(...........|
00000030  01 00 06 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000040  80 00 29 e9 4e a5 99 44  61 74 61 34 47 42 00 00  |..).N..Data4GB..|
00000050  00 00 46 41 54 33 32 20  20 20 8c c8 8e d0 bc ff  |..FAT32   ......|
00000060  7b fb 8e d8 8e c0 fc bf  20 00 33 c0 b9 15 00 af  |{....... .3.....|
00000070  75 05 af 75 04 e2 f8 47  47 81 7d fe 00 c0 72 0a  |u..u...GG.}...r.|
00000080  e2 ed 81 3e 02 01 00 c0  73 0f be 88 7d e8 3f 00  |...>....s...}.?.|
00000090  33 c0 cd 16 3d 00 3b 75  f7 be a7 7c bf a7 7e b9  |3...=.;u...|..~.|
000000a0  71 00 f3 a5 e9 00 02 bb  00 7c b9 01 00 be e1 7e  |q........|.....~|
000000b0  e8 1c 00 33 c0 cd 16 b8  01 02 33 d2 50 cd 13 58  |...3......3.P..X|
000000c0  cd 13 72 e3 81 3e fe 7d  55 aa 75 db e9 31 fd 50  |..r..>.}U.u..1.P|
000000d0  53 51 ac 3c 00 75 04 59  5b 58 c3 b4 0e cd 10 eb  |SQ.<.u.Y[X......|
000000e0  f1 0a 0d 4e 6f 6e 2d 73  79 73 74 65 6d 20 64 69  |...Non-system di|
000000f0  73 6b 20 6f 72 20 64 69  73 6b 20 65 72 72 6f 72  |sk or disk error|
00000100  0a 0d 49 6e 73 65 72 74  20 44 4f 53 20 64 69 73  |..Insert DOS dis|
00000110  6b 65 74 74 65 20 61 6e  64 20 70 72 65 73 73 20  |kette and press |
00000120  61 6e 79 20 6b 65 79 20  2e 2e 2e 0a 0d 00 00 00  |any key ........|
00000130  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
*
00000180  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  0a 0d 50 6f 73 73 69 62  |..........Possib|
00000190  6c 65 20 62 6f 6f 74 20  56 49 52 55 53 20 64 65  |le boot VIRUS de|
000001a0  74 65 63 74 65 64 21 0a  0d 50 72 65 73 73 20 3c  |tected!..Press <|
000001b0  46 31 3e 20 74 6f 20 63  6f 6e 74 69 6e 75 65 00  |F1> to continue.|
000001c0  0d 0a 50 57 2f 44 42 20  62 79 20 4b 49 52 20 56  |..PW/DB by KIR V|
000001d0  2e 20 28 43 29 20 50 61  72 61 67 6f 6e 20 31 39  |. (C) Paragon 19|
000001e0  39 37 2d 31 39 39 39 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |97-1999.........|
000001f0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 55 aa  |..............U.|
00000200


=============================== StdErr Messages: ===============================

hexdump: /dev/sda5: No such file or directory
hexdump: /dev/sda5: No such file or directory
hexdump: /dev/sda6: No such file or directory
hexdump: /dev/sda6: No such file or directory

I hope you can make sense of this...

Many thanks,

syg00 · 03-22-2011, 02:44 PM

That looks particularly ugly. You didn't mention you were using Paragon.

If it were me I'd wipe the lot and re-install XP from scratch. You could try deleting all but the first partition, and marking that active (i.e. with the boot flag) and then try the XP install disk again. The fixmbr might work then.
Maybe.

pofadda · 03-22-2011, 04:37 PM

You said:
If it were me I'd wipe the lot and re-install XP from scratch. You could try deleting all but the first partition, and marking that active (i.e. with the boot flag) and then try the XP install disk again. The fixmbr might work then.
Maybe.

Very maybe. The Paragon bit must be left over from resizing, etc. from long ago. It wasn't even in the now-lost XP Program Files folder! Gparted shows the whole HDD as 'unallocated' so fiddling with any of it will be problematic without a specialised tool to maybe set the boot flag of an 'invisible' OS and also restore its visibility. Any last ditch tool come to mind - one I have some hope of using to some effect?

I wish I'd paid more attention to the down-and-dirty bits of Windows/DOS when I used it...

AwesomeMachine · 03-22-2011, 05:08 PM

Grub uses the normally forbidden 63 sectors after sector 1. So, you can't get rid of it using Windows rescue tools. When you get the grub prompt, hit e. If you see some lines of text, which you probably won't, just type:

chainloader (hd0,2)+1

where 0 is the drive and 2 is the partition where XP resides. You must adjust those for your specific system. Then, what's left of grub should point to NTLDR in the XP partition. But, if you only require the data on the XP partition, get a USB flash drive, boot with Knoppix live linux CD, mount the NTFS partition, and save the desired files to the flash drive. If you have a CD drive and a DVD recorder in the same machine, you can boot knoppix from the CD and use k3b to copy the windows data to a DVD.

If you rescue the C:\Documents and Settings directory, you can reinstall XP and restore the entire configuration.

pofadda · 03-22-2011, 06:49 PM

Now getting 'error with directory enumeration'! Grub prompt was totally unresponsive.

Time to go, I guess. Thanks again for all the help, people.