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installing mint 18.2 amd64 onto a dual boot windows 7 / mint 17 amd32 has lost windows 7

hi
i can no longer boot windows 7 when the os-prober ran to create my grub entries it didn't see windows 7.

i found a post some where on the internet to try the following, edit /etc/grub.d/40_custom and add the following

Code:

menuentry "Windows 7" {

        insmod ntfs

        set root='(hd0,1)'

        search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set FEC6CC72C6CC2CA9

        chainloader +1

}

I ran update-grub2 and now have a non working entry for windows 7.

fdisk -l yields the following

Code:

Disk /dev/sda: 931.5 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors

Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes

I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes

Disklabel type: dos

Disk identifier: 0x01853791



Device    Boot      Start        End    Sectors  Size Id Type

/dev/sda1  *          2048    206847    204800  100M  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

/dev/sda2          206848  389529599  389322752 185.7G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

/dev/sda3        389531646 1908662271 1519130626 724.4G  f W95 Ext'd (LBA)

/dev/sda4      1908662272 1953523711  44861440  21.4G 27 Hidden NTFS WinRE

/dev/sda5        389531648  391579647    2048000  1000M  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

/dev/sda6        449884160 1859620863 1409736704 672.2G 83 Linux

/dev/sda7      1877585838 1908662271  31076434  14.8G 83 Linux

/dev/sda8        429355008  444978054  15623047  7.5G 83 Linux

/dev/sda9        444979200  449867775    4888576  2.3G 82 Linux swap / Solaris

/dev/sda10      391581696  429353180  37771485    18G 83 Linux

/dev/sda11      1859622912 1877579775  17956864  8.6G 83 Linux



Partition 3 does not start on physical sector boundary.

Partition 7 does not start on physical sector boundary.

Partition table entries are not in disk order.

ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid yields

Code:

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Nov 28 09:48 20977d24-c15c-44f1-9dd1-949c6150e522 -> ../../sda9

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Nov 28 09:49 684af8b4-8eeb-405b-87af-efcec1d3c536 -> ../../sda8

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 11 Nov 28 09:48 8bc0b85d-6eb9-44ba-afec-dfdf9562945c -> ../../sda10

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Nov 28 09:48 AC3AD2103AD1D782 -> ../../sda5

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 11 Nov 28 09:49 b78e2e87-6f70-4939-aa26-65e23a6a72af -> ../../sda11

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Nov 28 09:48 C068AA4C68AA4150 -> ../../sda4

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Nov 28 09:48 c293246f-c440-4836-a4ad-c1a727ff2a54 -> ../../sda1

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Nov 28 09:49 e3fc0b4c-dbe1-472f-ac2c-81341632823c -> ../../sda6

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Nov 28 09:48 FEC6CC72C6CC2CA9 -> ../../sda2

when i select windows 7 I get the error message BOOTMGR missing press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart

The UUID you have in the menuentry for windows "FEC6CC72C6CC2CA9" points to sda2 and the set root line points to sda1: set root='(hd0,1)'
Change it to set root='(hd0,2)'. You only have two windows partitions and the other (sda5) is a logical partition so cannot contain the boot files as windows must have a primary partition for boot files.

If that doesn't work, google "boot repair ubuntu" and go to the site and download the boot repair software and run it from Mint. Be sure to select the option to Create BOOT Info Summary and do NOT try to make any repairs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by yancek (Post 5786320)

... run it from Mint. Be sure to select the option to Create BOOT Info Summary and do NOT try to make any repairs.

If i only create a boot info summary, what next

What happened when you followed the first suggestion from yancek?

Quote:

Originally Posted by yancek (Post 5786320)

Changing root='hd(0,2)' just gives error BOOTMGR does not exist press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart. That's why i got a paste.ubuntu etc pastebin with my boot-repair info

Quote:

Changing root='hd(0,2)' just gives error BOOTMGR does not exist press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart

If you look at the boot repair output, it should be obvious why you are seeing that error message. It's because the bootmgr file is missing from both sda1 and sda2. I expect that sda1 was the boot partition which was the standard for a windows install. The BCD folder and bootmgr file were generally on the boot partition and the winload.exe file would be on the system partition. You have the winload.exe file on sda2 but the other files are not on sda1. You do have them on sda4 which I expect is the recovery partition. You could have all these files on sda2, having a separate boot partition isn't necessary.

What I'm wondering is why sda1 is shown as ext2 since it was likely your windows boot partition. Scrolling down further, the fdisk output shows it as a windows filesystem and further down the lsblk output shows it as ext2? So did you make some change to this partition before you got this problem? Not sure why there is this conflicting information. Can you mount the partition from Mint to see what it on it? Not sure if copying bootmgr and the BCD folder to sda1 or sda2 would help as I don't use windows that often.

No never made any change to /dev/sda1. It definitely would appear to be an empty linux extened file system ext2?
ls -a yeilds

Code:

.

..

lost+found

should i just try boot-repair?

I've copied bootmgr, boot, boot-repair and EFI to /dev/sda2. It starts to boot and quickly falls over 3 options. Option 3 boot repair . I've backed up my data, so i feel ok about this. Should i use this windows boot repair or the ubuntu one.
I expect to have to usb boot , chroot , update grub . Hopefully all ok then.

Quote:

should i just try boot-repair?

I can't imagine that would do anything because you don't have the necessary boot files. You could try copying the bootmgr file, the BCD folder to sda2 although I don't know enough about windows to know whether that has any chance of working. Simple enough to do and no harm done if it doesn't work.

Where are you getting the EFI from? Your original post shows fdisk with an MBR install and there is no EFI partition and there are no EFI files nor should there be. What windows boot repair are you referring to, the Repair option on your Recovery Disk or Installation media?

I don't know what happened to your windows boot files and the filesystem has changed from ntfs to ext2. I don't think there is much help you can get at a Linux forum for a problem with missing windows boot files. You might try a windows forum or the support.microsoft site if copying the file/folder from the recovery partition fails.

Quote:

Originally Posted by yancek (Post 5786842)

Where are you getting the EFI from? Your original post shows fdisk with an MBR install and there is no EFI partition and there are no EFI files nor should there be. What windows boot repair are you referring to, the Repair option on your Recovery Disk or Installation media?

EFI (directory), bootmgr and /boot/bcd all copied from /dev/sda4 to /dev/sda2 didn't work but it gets closer to booting.

Would running windows recovery on /dev/sda4 get me back to a dual boot? I don't mind having to install mint again as my partitions could do with a little tweak.

Quote:

EFI (directory), bootmgr and /boot/bcd all copied from /dev/sda4 to /dev/sda2 didn't work but it gets closer to booting.

You have an MBR install so there is no purpose in copying the EFI files to sda2. What does "gets closer to booting" mean? Details.

Running the windows Recovery will set it to factory defaults which means no more Mint and as I understand it will NOT save any personal data/files on your windows partition.

Windows boot manager running and giving a useful error message
1. Insert windows installation disk
2. Choose language, then click next
3. Click repair computer

If you don't have this disk which i dont, contact your system administrator or computer manufacturer

Status 0xc000000f
Boot selection failed because required device is in accessible

Pressing esc takes me back to grub
Enter to a second menu 2 options
1. Samsung recovery solution 5
2. Windows memory dianostics

The link below is what microsoft says about your error. Not sure that will fix your problem, you probably need to get a Recovery disk or an installation disk of the same version of windows you have installed to replace the needed bootmgr file and BCD folder. You won't get that from any Linux.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...ec90562?auth=1