Hi,

(Attached, screenshot of GParted table to show what's on my ASUS 1005PE Netbook)

I hadn't used Windows in ages and need it for my girlfriend! I had modified partitions, done some installations, etc. since the last time I used it.

I used to get at least two entries for Windows in the grub menu when booting, and among them, Windows Vista as well as Windows 7. I then used "boot-repair-disk" to attempt to repair it all (reminder: "BOOTMGR is missing"). I tried several times, re-installing GRUB, re-installing the MBR (it was necessary to re-install GRUB because the MBR repair attempt gave no result whatsoever and deleted the linux entries / GRUB competely).

After doing all of this, the "Windows 7" entry no longer appeared! I only get one entry for Windows now: "Windows Vista" (and can't remember whether I actually had Windows 7 at some point or not).

According to the boot-repair-disk, Vista is on sda3. I think my Windows stuff is on sda1. Who knows?

I've attempted both MBR to boot sda1 as well as sda3 using the boot-repair-disk, however with no luck.

I know virtually nothing about the internal workings of all of this... Perhaps with the screenshots someone could give me a hand.

Ah, just one other detail, it is impossible for me to do an apt-get update with Ubuntu 10.04, it being so old... Also, I don't have a Windows Vista/7 recuperation disk/pendrive.

I'm also working on installing another Linux distro, more up-to-date, along side of all of this... but haven't done it yet.

Many thanks in advance,

RM

Attached Thumbnails

 

Looking at your screenshot your right, sda3 is your Windows partition.

The other 2 partitions you have are Linux.
Since Ubuntu 10.04 is no longer supported I suggest that you perform a fresh installation of the Linux distro of your choice and install the bootloader to the MBR. During the installation of Grub, if Windows is still a working partition, grub should see it and add it to the Menu. IF NOT boot into Linux and as root run sudo update-grub.

-::-Make sure during your fresh install that you make the ext 4 partition bootable adding the / sign to it.-::-

Unless you have already made a new partition you won't be able to install along side of what you already have in the screen shot.

You will have to delete the partition; either sda5 or sda6 to make room for your fresh install.

Without the Windows Recovery disks I'm afraid I won't be much help.

Go here and download the script. Do as the readme says and post the RESULTS.txt it generates. Then we will have some hard data to work on.

Many thanks to both of you.

syg00,
I've attached the output file. Many, many thanks.

Ztcoracat,
I've only got one Linux distro installed, Ubuntu 10.04 on sda5. The other ext4 partition (sda6) has nothing on it. I formatted it to ext4 so that I could install another distro on it. sda7 is also empty, I thought I'd use it as a common data partition (for all OS's).
I CAN install another distro on sda6, right? i.e., Can I install an OS on an extended partition?

Attached Files

output.txt (40.1 KB, 41 views)

1 members found this post helpful.

From my experience those 2 (primary) partitions at the end of the disk (sda3/4) will be vendor partitions - maybe recovery and offline media player, something like that. I would expect /dev/sda3 to be bootable, but useless in this context.

Looking at the output, you have no Windows boot code, or system for that matter - the script should have found a Windows executable. Windows installer would only install to primary partitions in the past (haven't checked recent releases) - and at 3G, it certainly isn't in /dev/sda1. Looks like it has been deleted/over-written, but you'd need to look at the contents of those partitions to be sure.
Without a Win install disk, not much I can suggest.

And yes you can install Linux to any partition - including logical partition /dev/sda6

Looking at the .TXT file:

Grub is installed to the MBR of /dev/sda. In otherwords Grub is already installed to your 320 GB HDD.

-sda1 is a Windows 7 partition
-sda2 is an Extended partition and if I'm not mistaken it's part of your Windows 7 partition so I would not recommend installing to the Extended partition.

-sda3 is the Windows 7 bootmgr and the boot files
-sda4 is a Windows 95 hidden partition

-sda5 is Ubuntu's ext2 10.04 partition so you can delete that unless you want to keep Ubuntu 10.04 around.
-sda6 is a Linux ext4 partition and yes you can install to that if you want to.

-sda7 is a file allocation table for Windows 95 for a 32-bit operating system.
-sda8 is a swap partition

I highly recommend that you wait for syg00 to read through the .TXT file and allow him the opportunity to tell you his view on it.

You could perform a fresh install of the latest version of Ubuntu to sda6 if you really want to.

Since sda3 is at the end of the drive, I expect it is a recovery partition and since vista was apparently the original system, it is probably a vista recovery.
You can see that you have a bootmgr file there as well as bcd but none of these file exist on the original install, sda1. You should also have a winload.exe file there which you don't. If you have a vista or 7 recovery disk you might try that. It will overwrite your other partitions as it resets to factory default so if you have data on the drive you want, move it. The recovery disks usually have a 'Repair' option which could repair the bootloader. You might be able to borrow or download some type of windows disk but it would have to be the same release as you have installed, windows home premium for example.

You might try boting the Ubuntu if you can or some other Linux system and mount sda1 and see if you can find any files for windows. There's nothing Grub or boot repair can do to repair the 'bootmgr is missing' error. Either it's there or it isn't and if it isn't boot repair can't fix it. Grub has never directly booted windows but rather chainloads it, basically pointing to where the windows files (including bootmgr) should be and turning it over to windows.

Actually, sda5-sda8 are logical partitions within sda2 which is the Extended partition and you have two Linux, two windows and one unknown filesystem type on those partitions.

Hi all!

Many thanks to yancek, Ztcoracat and especially syg00 for your replies.

I have successfully installed Lubuntu onto sda6, and, when I had a look at what was on sda1 (Windows partition, 100GB), I realized, to my surprise, that it was empty! I have no idea when or how that happened!

Question: I may have done a complete backup of that partition via my Ubuntu installation using "cp -ruv <source> <target>," i.e., hidden and system files included. You don't suppose that putting it all back onto sda1 could solve the problem, do you?

And, yeah, I confirm, there is a Windows Vista Recovery partition still intact.

The best news is that, just when I was losing faith in all new OS's, that have been far from intuitive, or should I say ABSOLUTELY NOT "simple, easy, efficient, convenient and a pleasure to use," I absolutely LOVE Lubuntu and the LXDE desktop environment. Perhaps I'm speaking to quickly given I just installed it late last night and that it's only mid-morning, however, my first impressions are very good.

On the downside, I don't even think I have the Windows recovery serial key. My beautiful 1005PE netbook still shines, but on the bottom of it, the Windows label has worn out completely!

Ah, perhaps this post simply reveals that my LQ pseudonym/ID is true to who I really am.

rm

Copying your vista backup to the empty sda1 might work, update-grub after to get a menuentry for windows. Only way to find out is to try and make sure you get the correct partition. There is software to access your product key for various versions of windows, see the link below for some examples. Not possible to tell from this article whether these are bootable from a CD or if you need a windows system to use the program making them useless for the purpose of installing.

https://www.lifewire.com/free-produc...ograms-2625119

Look at the bottom of the device and you should find a Microsoft product key sticker. That sticker will also tell you what version of windows was originally installed on the device. MS used to have a site where you could download installation media and use it if you had a valid product key. I've used this service for Win7; don't know about Vista. See this website for further details:

https://www.howtogeek.com/186775/how...media-legally/

Many thanks yancek and kilgoretrout,

kilgoretrout, my messages tend to be long, too long, and you probably didn't read them in their entirety(mea culpa, I tend to go on and on and on). The label on the bottom of my Netbook is completely faded. Impossible to even get a slight glimpse of the Windows product key.

yancek, I had a look at the link you sent me, downloaded belarc advisor, but the problem is that I don't have a working windows partition on my netbook. The ideal thing would be to be able to get the product key from the complete Windows backup partition I did via Ubuntu when all was working, which is on an external harddisk. Any idea how I might be able to do that? Or, is there similar Linux software? I could run it from Ubuntu to scan the Windows partitions...

Slowly but surely...

Many thanks,

rm

I don't think you can do it from Linux nor would I expect to be able to do that. Take a look at post 7 at the link below to Ubuntu forums where the person copied a specific folder from windows to a USB drive and then used software to access it which was installed on another windows machine. THis was on an XP machine so I don't know if it would apply to newer windows.

https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1249597

Update...

Simply copying my complete Windows 7 backup which I had done from Ubuntu (and so complete backup, hidden and system files included) onto the Windows partition didn't resolve the boot problem, however could provide us with further clues. Please read on...

So I put everything back onto the Windows partition via Ubuntu and tried to reboot. I got an error message (I didn't write it down, don't remember the exact message... A pity I didn't)... and then tried booting again and didn't get the same message.

This next bit is the surprising part. I then rechecked my Windows partition and all the data I had put on it was gone! Or, in any case, when I mounted the drive to look or ran commands, that was what was indicated.

So I am wondering if what I should have done in the first place, before touching that original partition that I "thought" was empty, might have been to run a check on the disk and try to recover data even though all seemed to say that the partition was empty (no data)!

In other words, now, I'm not totally convinced that the Windows partition was empty in the first place (I have no recollection of actually deleting all data from that partition). All commands and exploration indicated that it was empty, but perhaps that indication was because there was a problem with the file system or something??

The next time I find a system partition surprisingly empty, I'll run a disk scan and data recovery tools before actually trying anything else.

I don't know much about this kind of stuff and thought that maybe someone who does might comment on this.

In any case, I've decided to stop pursuing the problem and to install a legal version of XP that I have, hoping that I will also be able to find the appropriate drivers...

Again, what happened is that I put all data back on sda1, tried to boot, got an error message, tried to boot again, got a different message or reaction (don't remember exactly, didn't write it down), then checked sda1, which had previously had data, to find it "empty" again. I assume something strange happened during the attempted boots from the Windows partition.

Any ideas or comments?

rm

If you have your installed DVD/CD for windows, Or just a KEY to active it. (more on that later)

personally, I'd save all of my personal data somewhere. then wipe that entire drive. partitions: give Windows only enough to install and makes its other partitions, leave the rest of the hdd raw, install windows onto that. then either my windows application to create the partitions for Linux, then format then ntfs, which does not matter because Linux install process will just reformat it, the thing you save is creating your sizes you want for Linux ahead of time. or

using Linux install, go down to gparted then take that raw left over part then slice it up the way you want it. then install Linux. install grub which will over write Windows booter. update grub picks up all Installed OS's, done. the only thing left to do is install whatever you want/need on both OS's and replace your personal data.

If you are working on only one HDD. well well... if you got Linux working, and are willing to play with it. I Would created a partition on the tail end of the HDD big enough to save my personal data. move everything over there. the go to step one and do the same. only now you have a partition for your data to keep it separate, which can be removed.

Though I do know most People do not have an install OS DVD for Windows because they are cheap and no longer include that into the purchase of a PC/Laptop with their OS on it. Torrents : Windows OS, you most likely will find something there you can use, then add your KEY to activate it upon install.

if you want to take this approach I am willing to step you through it. It looks like you got a 300x GB Hdd. Windows 10 only takes 30x GB for the OS so any other Windows OS cannot take much more than that, so you've got plenty to play with.

Many thanks, BW-user. Very nice of you to offer your help.

I managed to install Windows XP. I actually do have several copies of XP, legal copies, because I was an IT student (not a very good one) some 10 years ago and we were offered free software, OS's and product keys.

One problem I had was that I had put the ISO's onto DVD's and didn't conserve the originals on hard disks (actually, read on, I did manage to find one original ISO)...

Question: Can you simply recreate an ISO converting a DVD (which was created from an ISO) back into an ISO? In other words, can I simply take the DVD, convert it into ISO form, then make a USB pendrive from that ISO to install a system using that pendrive (Windows)? I don't think so, because I tried (although my bios wasn't set right, so I'm not sure if it was because of the ISO or because of the BIOS setting). I got a message saying that Windows wouldn't install because it could damage my computer. I then found an ISO (original) on a hard disk and was able to install XP.

I suppose the other option, in my case, would be to buy an external CD/DVD drive to make it possible to install from these DVD's.

I was also able to find almost all drivers. I just got one "unknown driver," but it was perhaps because I had had an SD adapter (SD to micro-SD) in the SD slot and wasn't aware of it during the installation (an extra drive in "My Computer" disappeared once I removed this adapter from the slot). However...

My "C:" drive was and is labelled "G:" and I was brave and tried to fix this using this info: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...ter-in-windows

I made the changes, but "G:" reappeared when rebooting nevertheless. I then opened the command line tool as administrator and this time... well, I can no longer access Windows. I just get that blue screen forever and a cursor... I was brave because I knew I didn't have much to lose... no data on the Windows partition yet and could reinstall everything no problem.... taking advantage of the opportunity to learn...

Second question: Can i repair this from my Ubuntu system? If so, how? Where? Or must I simply reinstall Windows?

Again, many thanks BW-user, for your help.

What does BW stand for?