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Glad to hear you can access your files. I would advise copying off any important data files as top priority.
Do not give up on Windows yet. There are a couple of possibilities.
Tell me what version of Ubuntu you installed. I will install it on a test PC which I have with XP already installed. Perhaps I can duplicate the problem and work from there.
Second option is to repair the master boot record (MBR) and then hopefully Windows will boot although the Linux installation will no longer boot. I have done this using a DOS bootable diskette or CD. As those are hard to come by these days I have found a way to do this with a Windows XP install CD.
Boot the PC from the XP CD.
A menu will eventually appear to allow you to Install, Repair etc. Enter R to choose repair.
The Repair screen will ask you to log into Windows - enter the administrator password for your XP install on the hard drive.
You will get to a command prompt. Enter the command fixmbr and press the Enter key. I received some nasty warning messages but as this was a test machine I proceeded.
When done type exit and press the Enter key. The PC will reboot.
I have done this twice on my test XP machine. It booted OK to start with and still boots after performing the repair so I do not think it did any damage. I can not promise that this will work for you so please make sure you have backed up any important data from the PC first! This will prevent Linux from booting. You can of course install it again and overwrite the existing Linux install.
Distribution: Ubuntu 11.4,DD-WRT micro plus ssh,lfs-6.6,Fedora 15,Fedora 16
Posts: 3,233
Rep:
@taylorkh
no offense, but that's rather poor advice, everything so far indicates that things ARE working properly, it's just the menu isn't showing up for whatever reason, which is a default behavior of Ubuntu, newer versions of Ubuntu require you hold the SHIFT key instead of escape to see the grub menu.
grub2 documentation can be found here https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2
unless windows is crashing on boot, which the OP hasn't said is happening, then there is no need to repair the system from the windows end, the OP has posted to the effect that GRUB IS finding the windows install, from my interpretation it's just not showing the menu to let the OP CHOSE windows.
After holding the shift key windows wont appear;
It just appears Grub loading...And Linux starts;
I'm using ubuntu 11.10
I tried reinstalling windows but it tells me that it cant use the primary partition it was initially installed on.
my drive is awfully partitioned right now. I used GParted to scan my system and maybe its me but i don't think my computer should have so many partitions.
Quote:
Partition File system Mount point label size used unused flags
/dev/sda1 ntfs 38.95gb 24.40 13.55 boot hidden
/dev/sda2 extern 87.48 lba
/dev/sda5 ntfs Disk 69.564 58.07 11.56
/dev/sda7 ext4 / 13.84 7.31 6.54
/dev/sda8 linux-swap 2
/dev/sda6 linux-swap 2Gib
/dev/sda4 linux-swap 1Mib
unallocated unallocated 501.03 Mib
dev/sda3 ext2 LINUX 22.13 713 211.43
unallocated 2.49.mib
Now my question is were this things always in my computer and i didn't know about them or something just decided to go unbelievably wrong with my computer and just went nuts
I keep asking This and sory for the persistence but What should I do?....Is there any way to just fix this mess?
Try to find a linux user club nearby your town and ask them to support a bit.
Or ask a professional: here in germany you can call pc-specialist (see newspaper, google, call and describe what you wanted to do) and it cost few euros per hour.
Or ask a friend?
Go to your pc shop and ask?
Well I was hoping that it was just me being paranoiac and this problem had a nice and simple solution that I didn't know of. But thank you that will be my new plan since all this partition salad is out of my league.
The advice to restore the MBR in order to run Windows (which was the primary OS on the PC per the OP) is a last resort. Granted if the grub menu issue can be fixed that would be preferable. It looks like Esc or Shift may force the menu and I guess we will be hearing back on the results.
I do not do dual boot. If I want more than one OS I use multiple hard drives in hot swap trays or on my newer more powerful hardware I do virtualization. So I am not that familiar with all the current dual boot tricks. Hopefully Shift will remediate the issue. If not my suggestion was a possible approach to step back before Linux was installed.
So you don't see an entry in the menu for windows? Or you still don't see a menu? Have you used the down arrow key to check that you are seeing all the entries? Or can you? You shouldn't have that many but...
The only thing that looks strange about your partition setup is the three swap partitions when only one is needed.
Strictly as a test I installed Ubuntu 11.10 on some unused space on a drive containing Windows XP. Upon boot I see a text based menu on the ugly purple Ubuntu background offering to boot:
Ubuntu
Ubuntu in Recovery Mode
Memtest
Memtest with serial console
Windows XP
So back to Miday8 - please verify if you see a menu at boot time or you do not see a menu.
Ken
p.s. I will compare my grub configuration with the data provided by Miday8 and see if I can spot anything strange. Perhaps a grub reinstall is in order??? I have some instructions for that somewhere. I had to do that on this test PC when I installed Ubuntu 11.04 as grub would not install correctly during the Ubuntu install. I will see if I can find the instruction or at least the link from where I downloaded them.
I have compared the grub.cfg file provided by Miday8 and the grub.cfg file on my test PC line by line. I only find two differences both attributable to differences in the partitioning of our hard drives.
Quote:
Miday8:set root='(hd0,msdos7)'
My PC: set root='(hd0,msdos5)'
and of course the UUID numbers for partitions on my drive are different.
That leads me to suspect /etc/default/grub. Here is what is in the file on my test PC which dual boots OK. Miday8 please have a look at the file on your PC and tell us if you can spot any differences. Or copy the contents of the file to the thread and I will run it through my file comparison tool (Beyond Compare from Scootersoftware.com - my FAVORITE utility).
Quote:
# If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update
# /boot/grub/grub.cfg.
# For full documentation of the options in this file, see:
# info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration'
# Uncomment to enable BadRAM filtering, modify to suit your needs
# This works with Linux (no patch required) and with any kernel that obtains
# the memory map information from GRUB (GNU Mach, kernel of FreeBSD ...)
#GRUB_BADRAM="0x01234567,0xfefefefe,0x89abcdef,0xefefefef"
# Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only)
#GRUB_TERMINAL=console
# The resolution used on graphical terminal
# note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE
# you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo'
#GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480
# Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux
#GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true
# Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entries
#GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY="true"
# Uncomment to get a beep at grub start
#GRUB_INIT_TUNE="480 440 1"
So back to Miday8 - please verify if you see a menu at boot time or you do not see a menu.
the fact is that I do not see a menu indeed the only thing that appears while holding the shift key is:
Quote:
GRUB Loading...
And the suddenly Linux would start.
as for the grub file mine is the following:
Quote:
# If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update
# /boot/grub/grub.cfg.
# For full documentation of the options in this file, see:
# info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration'
# Uncomment to enable BadRAM filtering, modify to suit your needs
# This works with Linux (no patch required) and with any kernel that obtains
# the memory map information from GRUB (GNU Mach, kernel of FreeBSD ...)
#GRUB_BADRAM="0x01234567,0xfefefefe,0x89abcdef,0xefefefef"
# Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only)
#GRUB_TERMINAL=console
# The resolution used on graphical terminal
# note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE
# you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo'
#GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480
# Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux
#GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true
# Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entries
#GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY="true"
# Uncomment to get a beep at grub start
#GRUB_INIT_TUNE="480 440 1"
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