Son installed Linux Gentoo and now Windows won't boot!
 

Hi all! I know nothing about Linux, but am in desperate search of help.

My 14-year-old son decided it would be fun to install Linux and see how it works. So he made a disk of Gentoo from the Linux site and installed it.

But now, Windows Vista won't boot. When he takes the disk out and tries to boot, it just says "Error" disk missing.

I've tried to boot Windows in safe mode, but we can only boot Linux and only with the disk (I don't think it is on the hard drive.)

Family computer experts, say that the only fix is to reinstall the Windows OS. However, we bought the computer with Vista pre-installed and it came with no disk. I guess we were supposed to make our own recovery disc, but never did. (It's just like Microsoft/HP to save 10 cents by not including a disc...)

Are we out of luck? Can anyone help?

Thanks so much in advance,

Brenda

if your son is still alive, ask him if he made gentoo as a dual boot....keeping windows on its partition or did he overwrite windows.

if overwrite....your son will be sorry.

if dual boot, we can fix gentoo so it has a windows entry in the bootloader.

I use grub bootloader....when computer boots do you see grub on the screen and then linux start or what?

you can have a quick read of my signature but we can not help until we know what your son ....actually....did

find a friend and try this

http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/window...disc-download/

If you can boot Linux can you type in the console
or
If under the column "System" you see something like HPFS/NTFS then your vista might be still in there.

BTW your son really upgraded your computer. In the future if he wants to try Linux he can download a copy of knoppix http://www.knoppix.org. This way he can run Linux without messing with the hard disk.

wait on, maybe your son went into bios and changed the boot order to cd but forgot to allow a second device....hard drive....to be the next boot order

so instead of cdrom, hard drive.....he made it

cdrom.....

2) then thats why bios is looking for a disc?

Boot up into Gentoo and post the output of "sudo /sbin/fdisk -l"
If the first partition is NTFS then windows is probably still installed.
If there are one or two other windows partitions such as fat32, you may still have the files needed to create a rescue disk.

---

If you press escape at the grub menu. Look at the entry for Linux. Notice the line like "root (hd0,5)".
Enter the grub shell and try entering:
Where the "rootnoverify" value is the same that you saw for the linux entry.
If Vista is on the first partition, then the "chainloader" entry above should work.
The notation (hd0,5) means the fifth partition on the first drive. Grub counts from 0.
You can enter: chainloader (hd0,0)/[TAB] and see if the vista files on the C: drive are displayed. If so, the "chainloader (hd0,0)+1" entry is correct. This tab-completion allows you to try booting even if you don't know which partition Vista is on. Be sure to backspace over the "/" character and enter the "+1".

I don't have Vista, and I don't know if you need to run "fixmbr" or how to get into a repair console without an install disk.

Nice catch "aus9". It could be that simple. I started my post a while ago before post #5.

More information from original poster
 

Hi everybody! Thanks for taking the time to try to help. I did not get back online last night after posting. Just couldn't take anymore, I guess!

Anyway, I'm not sure I even know enough to answer your questions, but I'll try.

I seriously doubt that he knew enough to partition the hard drive or set up as a dual-boot. I think he is so used to Windows programs where you just load the disc, and voila, there it is, that he may not have known to do anything else. But he did consult several forums before doing it, so maybe he did. He is at school now, so I'll have to wait until he gets home to know for sure. He is still, for the moment, alive...

I am able to boot the computer with the disc to get Linux up. But I don't see a console to try to type in the information in the second post.

I restarted and watched all the type go by until I had options. First, I pressed "escape" as indicated to get to the boot menu to see if that contained the console. It didn't, but I had two options at that point.
The first was "HDD Group - 3rd master, WD2500JS-60NCB1" The second was "CD-Rom group, 1st master, Atapi DVD A DH16AYH"

So, I picked the first one, thinking that might take me to windows (since the Linux disc was in the DVD drive), but it did not. I got a message that read "Err2Err3".

So, I restarted and when I saw "boot:" with a flashing cursor, I tried to enter the fdisk-1/ dev/hda code, but nothing. So I pressed f2 for options. The words just kept scrolling (maybe I didn't hit f2 fast enough). The next place that I could enter anything was "load key map", but that didn't do anything either.

Next it launched Gentoo, and now here is what I have showing:

Across the top there is a footprint icon, APPLICATIONS, PLACES, & SYSTEM, along with two more icons.

The icons that appear on the desk top are:

gentoo's home
trash
gentoo linux handbook,
computer
gentoo Linux Installer (Command Line)
Gentoo Linux 2007 0amd64 LiveCD
Gentoo Li9nux installer (GTK+)

There did not appear to be a Grub interface and I looked under the system tab at the top of the screen, but didn't see anything like you described I should be looking for.

All in all, I don't think I have really answered your questions, because I can't figure out how to get the information! Does any of this help? At all?

thanks,

Frustrated mom...

P.S. I'm burning a recovery disc on another computer to try that. Thanks for that link, aus 9. I have a Mac, so I hope that doesn't create additional issues...

Brenda

Well, that didn't work either...
 

I downloaded the file for the recovery disc and dragged it to my Burn folder (mac) and burned the disc. But when I tried to boot the pc with it, I got the error message "Please insert system disc..."

So, I tried to download imageburn to see if I needed a different burner to burn an ISO image as the neosmart site suggested, but it is not a mac supported application, so no luck there.

Brenda

Seems like the first question about harddisk and the cdrom was some sort of BIOS question asking from which device you'd like to boot. Harddisk gave you an error, which indicates that the Master Boot Record (MBR) is probably not all right. Not the best sign there is, but not the worst either..

Then you seem to have booted Gentoo off the disc; the first prompt was to allow you to enter some special options to the kernel to be booted (usually simply pressing ENTER is ok). In the keymap you probably could have selected other than a regular US keyboard, but nevertheless in the end you got to the desktop, which from your post sounds a lot like Gnome desktop.

From the desktop you can access command-line easiest by clicking open the Applications menu and launching Terminal from the System-submenu (or if I'm wrong, some other submenu in Applications). Type there
or if it says sda doesn't exist (or something that sounds like that), try the same but replace 'sda' with 'hda' - this is because some distributions call all primary harddisks "sda", some call IDE disks "hda" and other disks "sda". Anyway when you get it right, you should get a few lines of information about the current partition setup, which you can post here if you can't figure out what it's all about. Primarily we're looking for NTFS (HPFS?) (partition type used by Windows), to see if the Windows partitions still were there and it was just the bootloader that got overrun - if they aren't there, it's possible that Gentoo overwrote Windows, and a reinstallation is the only way to get it back.

Since you faced an error after trying to boot from harddisk (rather than the cd-rom), and not the Grub bootloader menu, all the Grub-related stuff is not important as of now. Post the fdisk output if you can, and we'll see how it looks like.

P.S. I too hate the way they nowadays sell Windows computers without giving the setup disc with the machine even though you've paid for the licence and the software - some give a recovery disc that only fits that specific machine, and that's crap too, but giving no setup disc at all is just stupid - how are you supposed to fix the machine if the on-disk recovery data gets corrupted?

Ok...see if this tells you anything
 

I found the terminal command line and had to try a couple of things before anything other than an error come up. I had to change the "-1" to some squiggly line linux thing, but when I did, I got this:

Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
units = xylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot start end blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 13 104391 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 14 274 2096482+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda3 275 30401 241995127+ 83 Linux


Is that anything useful?

I am going offline now to get the offending teenager. I will check back later.

Thanks so much,

Brenda

The command is "fdisk -l" where l= the letter L and not the number 1. Looking at the output you posted, I see that the whole disk has been taken over by Linux. You have to reinstall windows. Or even better look at the bright side and keep Gentoo :D.

bgray;

First, some empathy with the teenager situation. My son at that age was the family systems admin. When something would not work, he would sit down and start twiddling things at an alarming rate. The system always wound up working, but I had to really fight to ever know what he did. At the ripe old age of 43, he's still doing this, but not to my machines....;)

Second, I wish I could get to every incipient computer buyer and warn them to never buy a computer without installation media for the SW.

Lastly, your ability to respond to the help given here tells me that would would be a candidate to convert to Linux. Why not treat this whole thing as an opportunity??
(Somewhat counter to this: Gentoo is the last version of Linux. I would recommend to a newcomer.)

Wow...I feel really stupid! It sure looked like a one to me! But, I was afraid this was the case when I saw Linux listed as the system in all three places.

When we reinstall Windows, I guess we lose all the data? Dear hubby has not backed up his. Son can live without his stuff and I usually use another computer. (You can see why...)

Thanks so much for the responses!

Brenda

That says it isn't just the Windows OS that is gone. All your data is gone as well.

There are some computer disasters in which you can reinstall Windows and find most of your data intact. But if you reinstall Windows from the above condition, you will have nothing but the reinstalled Windows (no data, no other programs, no bookmarks, etc.).

Since the drive is so big, it is possible some of that data is still there, and only the directories pointing to it are gone. But recovering anything that way takes extreme levels of expertise and effort that I'm sure are not cost justified.

It's cool, but...
 

I really like that my son is interested enough to want to learn another OS, and he is really good on Windows, but I sure wish he had talked to his grandfather (who uses Linux) before loading it!

I think that he would like to have both OS's on this machine, so which version do you recommend for a teenage Linux newbie and where can I point him to the proper way to install dual OS's?

Thanks so much!

Brenda

Yikes...
 

...I was afraid of that. My husband is going to be really steamed.

You don't burn the iso files the same way as you burn i.e. mp3 files. An iso file is the CD or DVD structure put in a file. I believe your burner application in Mac will have some option to burn iso images. I don't have any experience with a Mac so I can't say more but maybe someone more experienced can help.

Look at my first post. There is a link where he can download a Linux distribution that doesn't need to be installed on the hard disk. It runs completely from the CD-ROM disc and doesn't mess the windows installation. When he gets bored he can reboot the computer and remove the disc. This way he can return back to windows with no harm done.

You sure are taking it well!

I never tried Gentoo, but every Linux installer I have tried made very clear that you were about to destroy all previous contents before it would take over the whole disk that way.

I wouldn't say that someone who ignored such messages is ready to use dual OS's without a lot of supervision.

But as for version of Linux, my own opinion is all Linux newbies should be using Mepis. It has better documentation (which of course only helps if you read it) and it has simple GUI tools for several tasks that you need to deal with early when setting up a Linux system, for which some other distributions force you to dig through man pages to find the command line method.

Dual OS is simplest if you setup Windows first and tell its installer not to use the whole disk (I don't know how in Vista, but I'm pretty sure it isn't hard). Then you can install Linux in the remainder and have the Linux installer configure GRUB to preserve access to Windows (most likely the Linux installer will default to setting up GRUB to preserve access to Windows).

Thanks, I was able to get the info I needed from a Mac forum, and was able to make a sucessful recovery disk!!



Sorry that I missed that...I was so focused on the "fix" that I wasn't focusing past that. If I let him have two OS's, this may be just what he needs.


Now...onto the next question. I have the Vista recovery disk, and it wants to install, but should I set up partitions on the hard drive, or just follow the default installation? Anything else I should do differently?

You all are so amazing to help me!!

Brenda

That is only because my important files were not on that computer!!

Probably the best advice of all!

Thanks, I think I'll set up a partition just in case.

Brenda

Using just a liveCD is slow and has other problems. Since you need to install Vista from scratch anyway and you have a large disk drive, you might as well figure out how to leave part of the disk unused when you install Vista.

I've never installed Vista and I hope to keep it that way permanently. So I can't tell you where in the install process to do what in order to leave part of the disk unused.

If that is too hard, then it is possible for the liveCD used to install Linux to shrink Vista's disk usage as the first step of installing Linux. That was fairly easy in the Mepis installer (I shrank a pre existing Win2000 that had been the whole drive on one of my Mepis installs). But that shrinking step is an extra chance to get confused and trash Vista again, so it's nicer to install Vista smaller to begin with.

Your son is probably feeling guilty for losing all the data from the hard drive. Experience is the only way we learn how things work. We all have messed up our computers in some way or another. All the mistakes I made in the past has helped me in the future.

Right now, I have a good understanding of partition tables. Windows, linux and the BSD's have their ways of partitioning the drive and setting the partition tables. I've been there and done it all. Experience has helped me setup the partitions no matter which OS I used above.

Anyway, if your son plans to install linux again, backup your data in advance or get a secondary hard drive for him to practice on.

:)

Now that sounds like a gentleman I could have fun talking with as well!

Brenda

by now u can c we are nice people, well I am.

maybe before you try to do any installing, consider some things.

how do you really want to use this opportunity?
since you have another computer, dual boot is a very wise way of going.

but I do not pretend to be an expert on vista, and you still have no true install disc, the iso image is a bootable cd for recovery work....meaning recovery of the bootloader and simple stuff.....Linux offers free operating systems....free as in free to use free to download if they are GPL...(crudely freeware)...I am using Mandriva free as we speak and have used free distributions of Linux since 2001.

Your seller of that computer may be liable to provide you with a disc?...Being female I am sure you could communicate your desire in a friendly way

However, I do not expect to seduce you into the linux world yet.

Please consider joining a good microsoft forum. I suggest this one.
http://www.msfn.org/board/forums.html

There may be a Linux Users Group in your area....
http://www.linux.org/groups/
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...groups-lug-51/
You meet real people who will actually doing the install free of charge and the resizing.

speaking of resizing large partitions....Mandriva can do that.

There are ways of recovering data but I agree with John you are likely not to have the expertise ....hey maybe a 14 y.o. whiz kid could be found?

I hope I'm not coming in too late....LQ is crawling with info on dual-boot. In my links below, there is some help, but the real guru is Saikee. (His stuff is linked in mine, or you can just search here at LQ).

I don't agree with the notion that you would not have the expertise to attempt data recovery--my impression is the opposite.

Finally, why not give most or all of the problem to the kid? Show him how you got this far, get him to post questions where he needs more help---but basically give him the opportunity to finish what he started.

I bought a computer for my kids this last Christmas and shrinking vista did not work. Vista would not boot. I tried repair and that did not work either. I ended having to repartition my harddrive, install vista, then install Slackware.

If you want to install only vista, you will first need to reformat the disk to NTFS. If you try to install vista with the disk as it currently is, you will get an error that the disk is not readable with the entire disk formatted as ext3.

I found an easy repartitioning livecd called gparted. Download and burn the iso. Reboot the computer with the disk and you will see the partitions in a graphical format. Delete the current partitions, reformat with NTFS.

However, if you want to dual boot....

If you want 50/50, windows/linux, you can use gparted to do the following. You will need a minimum of 3 partitions. 1st half NTFS(windows), 2nd partition 1gig linux-swap, 3rd partition the rest of the disk to be ext3 (Linux).

If you are able to acquire a windows disk, pop that in first and install vista. It will be installed on the ntfs partition.

Next, as previouly said, Mepis or, Ubuntu should be a good selection for a linux newbie. Download and burn the iso. Once booted, carefully read the install instructions! Now I have never used Mepis so I am not sure about install instructions. I know in Ubuntu, you will want to install manually. If you do it automatically, it will once again overwrite the NTFS partition.

I hope this helps.

You have a "HP"
 

My HP came with a partition for the purpose of restoring the system. That's why it didn't come with discs. Press F10 during bootup to get to that if you haven't found a better solution yet.

A lesson well-learned
 

You are right...he feels terrible. And most of the lost data is his. LOTS of music, etc.So, I haven't been hard on him. I think the biggest lesson he learned is PATIENCE. If he had read everything, rather than just clicking through, he would have known what would happen. But you know teenagers...they know everything, so why read the directions??!!

But that recovery partition is gone too. Linux doesn't have any special protection for Windows recovery partitions. If you tell it to repartition replacing everything, that's what it does.

Even Windows doesn't have much protection for the recovery partition in the hands of a careless expert. My DELL system at work had a recovery partition. I didn't trust it and (before liveCDs were a clear alternative) wanted some insurance, so I repartitioned, leaving their recover partition intact but also creating a better one of my own design at the other end of the drive. Years later, I was trying to wipe out some problem contents in a usb drive, made a careless error and wiped both recovery partitions on my main drive. My main partition remains healthy, but if I ever need a recovery partition, I don't have one (the computer is now old and its replacement is supposed to arrive today, so problem almost over).

Yes, I can see that!:D

Well, for starters, I think we are going to take the opportunity to ditch Vista! My son loved the interface at first, but it is so quirky and doesn't like a lot of programs yet, that he had asked about going back to XP before this all happened.

I think that dual boot is a great idea. And having Linux would give him something to palaver with his grandpa about (keeping the focus off of his musical taste, long hair, etc...)

The recovery disc didn't work. It looked like it was looking for Windows on the D drive (the recovery partition on HP), but nothing was there, so we need a new install.


Fortunately, my brother-in-law is systems analyst and is going to hook us up with a spare copy of XP.


Thanks for all the great advice and the link to the forums. It is sometimes hard to find a good forum, so I appreciate the recommendation.


By the way, I have a Mac (I do graphic design work). My brother-in-law says that the new Leopard OS is Linux based. Do y'all know if that is true?

Thanks,

Brenda

Yes, I had tried the F10 at boot, so unfortunately, I had already discovered this.:( It was a good thought, though.

Actually BSD based, I believe ... The biggest difference is in the licensing. With BSD, you don't have to share your changes. Closed, proprietary companies like MS and Apple like that deal much better.

Look for Vista +1 to change over to a BSD kernel as well. Kernel maintenance has gotten too big for any one company, even one as big as MS to manage. That's why Linux has gained so fast on MS and Apple for the last few years.