Hi everybody

Is there anybody here expert in booting and in particular dual booting?

My aim is to dump MS

I started out having a dual-boot Windows 7 / Linux Mint system with a view to ditching MS in favour of Linux

Something went wrong, I think MS tried forcing an update on me.

on trying to boot I got the message "Operating System Not Found"

I used the Rescue Disk which eventually told me that it had fixed the boot partition

report at http://paste.ubuntu.com/15502896/

On trying to boot I got:-

Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon 64 bit
Advanced Options for Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon 64 bit
Memory Test (memtest86+)
Memory Test (memtest86+, serial console 115200)
Windows 7 (loader) (on /dev/sda1)
Windows 7 (loader) (on /dev/sda2)

I have tried all combinations with no joy

I loaded a Mint system from CD (same one as loaded original system) and put the disk into an attached caddy
I can load and navigate the 455 GB volume which has the entire file system and data of my Windows 7 system
I can load and navigate the 41GB volume which has the entire file system and data from my Mint system

results from 'disks' command from accessories:-

500 GB Hard Drive
/dev/sda
Partitioning Master Boot Record

Volumes
Partition 1 105 Meg - /dev/sda1 - HPFS/NTFS(Bootable) contents NTFS-Mounted

Partition 2 Filesystem 455GB - /dev/sda2 - HPFS/NTFS contents NTFS- Not Mounted

Partition 3 Extended Partition 45 GB - /dev/sda3 - Extended Extended Partition
Partition 5 Filesystem 41GB - /dev/sda5 - Linux Ext4 (version 1.0) - Mounted
Partition 6 swap 4.2 GB - /dev/sda6 - linux Swap Swap (version 2) - Active
1.1 Meg - /dev/sda - Unallocated Swap

results from disk check

fsck /dev/sda1
fsck: fsck.ntfs: not found
fsck: error 2 while executing fsck.ntfs for /dev/sda1

fsck /dev/sda2
fsck: fsck.ntfs: not found
fsck: error 2 while executing fsck.ntfs for /dev/sda2

fsck /dev/sda3
fsck.ext2: Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read while trying to open /dev/sda3
Could this be a zero-length partition?

fsck /dev/sda5
/dev/sda5: clean, 217501/2506752 files, 3946730/10016256 blocks

fsck /dev/sda6
fsck from util-linux 2.20.1
fsck: fsck.swap: not found
fsck: error 2 while executing fsck.swap for /dev/sda6

contents of /etc/fstab
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
# / was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=f5f2eab8-e23a-4e99-807c-ab570a342d79 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# swap was on /dev/sda6 during installation
UUID=702fadb0-363c-4819-8e79-ceca327a022b none swap sw 0 0

grub.cfg file attached as grubcfg.txt

If I put the disk in a caddy and connect it to a windows 8.1 machine I get a System Reserved disk with 69.5 MB free out of 99.9 and a
'disk' (un-openable and size unknown)and MS Disk Manager hangs when the caddy is attached.

Is there somebody who knows the intricacies of linux and windows booting who could help me restore my boot

This is really frustrating as I can see every scrap of files and data on both the Mint and Windows installations but just can not
load either system. I have lost no data

My plan is to restore my windows system on this disk and then load Linux onto its own PC, so it doesn't matter if the Mint gets wiped
out, as long as I can boot into windows for now so that I can gradually migrate to Linux and then dump windows for good.


Thanks very much in advance for any help that this forum can give me

Attached Files

grubcfg.txt (8.6 KB, 10 views)

If you have access to another pc, you can download and burn a boot repair disk. The single handiest tool I have ever used.
Available here.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/boot-repair-cd/

Thanks offgridguy

Unfortunately didn't work for me.

It is the same ISO that I mentioned in my original post as "Rescue Disk" It gave me the menu as mentioned but

Thanks anyway

You have Grub installed to the MBR pointing to sda5, the Mint partition with the Grub boot files necessary to boot. The entries for Mint and windows are there and are pointing to the correct partition. The UUID for each partition is correct so it should boot.

Do you get the message above on boot when you are trying to boot windows? When you are trying to boot Mint? Both? Do you actually see the Grub boot menu when you boot? After using the repair disk, did you change the boot priority back to the hard drive?

If you can access the data on the Mint partition, why not just copy it to another drive and then use your windows isntallation media to restore the windows boot code to the MBR?

thanks yancek


This was the message before I used the rescue disk

The menu that I posted in my first post is the one I get al of the time now, and nothing I do will boot into any system

I have managed to retrieve some important files that created since my last backup. But ----- to copy files I need to run Mint from a cd and then I have to try to write them to an attached disk. Unfortunately this can only be done at around 200k a second so it would take a few month non-stop to copy everything (plus the problems with NTFS v FAT32 problems)

I have tried every rescue disk and technique for Windows and Linux.

Thanks to Mr. Gates I have no installation disk for Windows 7. I will find one on torrent sites, download it and see if that will do anything