Ubuntu Installation :: Recovering Windows Vista Partition
May 26, 2011
I recently accidentally corrupted my windows vista partition whilst trying to extend it via gparted under ubuntu 11.04 and then cancelling it shortly after starting. Resulting in me being unable to boot into vista (I don't have another copy of any windows OS so I'd really like not to have trashed this one )
Looking on gparted now my partition is Fat32(?) and apparently only has 36mb used =/
Two days ago I repartitioned my laptop HD and added the latest Ubuntu (2.6.35-25-generic) to the existing Vista and existing Ubuntu (2.6.32-28-generic via upgrades from 9.14(?)). Prior to this install it was using Grub with menu.lst from the old/upgrade Ubuntu. After the install the boot menu labels the partition with Vista as the Windows Recovery partition and the recovery partition item is no longer present.
At first I wondered how I could get Vista to boot. I found that SuperGrub cd would boot it OK. Then, it dawned on me that the boot menu item was not the recovery partition, but instead the Vista OS partition mislabelled . Vista loads just fine from it. The recovery partition is no longer listed as it was with Grub/menu.lst. SuperGrub will not boot the recovery partition, showing an error "missing BOOTMGR".
I installed XandROS on my vista machine. I can access the Windows partition from Linux but in Vista I cant see the Linux partition...is there anything I can do about that?
So far I've been dual-booting Vista and Intrepid, and I decided I'd shrink down the Linux partition a bit, expand the Windows partition and reinstall Ubuntu fresh from a Live CD. I booted up from a Live CD, mounted the old Linux filesystem to check that I hadn't missed any documents to back up before I wiped the partition, and then cued up the relevant operations in GParted.
The key mistake I made was not to unmount the old Linux partition first, which led GParted to bug out and, apparently, stop my Windows partition from working. GParted no longer recognises the partition as NTFS - it tells me it's an unknown filesystem, and refuses to move or resize it.
sudo fdisk -l recognises the partition as HPFS/NTFS. Running chkdsk from a Vista recovery disk has been, so far, unsuccessful. What else can I do to either make the partition bootable again, or at least access it from Linux so I can pull my files off?
Last week I installed Ubuntu 10.04.1 on his Windows Vista machine, it has a 200GB hard-drive and he wanted 100GB for Vista & 100GB for Ubuntu on there. So instead of selecting the default partition I split it to 100GB each.
Now, however, I can't boot back into Windows and when it loads I am taken to the 'Recovery Tools' options. Have I 'cked up his partition? I can still view all the files/folders on his Windows partition from within Ubuntu however, so maybe there is a chance I can shrink down the Ubuntu partition again and restore his Windows partition?
I recently upgraded my Ubuntu from 9.10 to 10.04 and now it's messed up my Windows Vista partition. When I try to load Windows it boots to a strange login menu with low resolution. It then takes me to a screen with options like Repair/Fix, Recovery, Complete Recovery... I'll click Repair and and then it will say No errors found, Shut down, Restart.
I have understood that Vista does not always play nice with third party partitioners and that it was best to use the tools *within* Vista to change its size.
I do not know, but the same might apply to Windows 7? Anyway I understand Windows 7 also has its own resize tools.
My advice to newcomers with Vista (or Windows 7) has been to use the Windows inbuilt tools to resize and then to leave un partitioned space on the drive, because until recently the Ubuntu Live CD has included an option 'Install into un partitioned space' or similar. Which was very easy.
However, with Ubuntu 10.10 Desktop CD the same option does not exist, so for beginners, or any nervous newcomer, the only practical option in most cases is to use the 'resize' facility in the Ubuntu installer.
This is a circular situation, if the Ubuntu facility resize is recommended to be avoided.
I would very much like to avoid having to tell them to use the 'advanced' option. Most of them are pretty jittery, from having used Windows for years.
I am aware that the 10.10 Alternate CD still includes 'install into un partitioned space'. Do I now tell people they need both a Live CD for initial tests and then also an Alternate CD for install?
They would see the install invitation in the Desktop CD live session and have to disregard it.
The Ubuntu 10.10 installer is, on the face of it, getting more friendly towards nervous newcomers.
Are the warnings about third party partitioners still relevant?
Device for boot loader installation /dev/sda ATA ST3320820AS (320.1GB)
what to do next? *UPDATE: I think my HD is bad, I went ahead with the full install and get; Error: Input/output error during read on/dev/sda. The reason I started this was problems with HD and Vista OS, but after running Ubuntu live CD and being able to see the HD contents which showed Main partition with a boot exclamation and the recovery partition I thought it might be OK still.
I have a Gateway PC, that came with two partitions(not it is more): Vista + Recovery
I just downloaded and installed Fedora(latest image found on the website)
1. Re-sized Vista Partition to 650 Gb(using utility that came with installation), got 50 Gb free space
2. Installed Fedora on Free space
Decided to boot back to Windows(to check if it was left intact) , Windows boots into Recovery mode. It can't find the partition !
Fedora boots up fine. When my PC starts, it give me message that I have 3-5 seconds to choose what system to boot. Disk Utility shows that my HD is split into multiple partitions.
Really need to get back my Windows Partition. All my work is on it.
I have a 64-bit HP G60 Notebook and I installed Ubuntu 10 The problem is that if i want to recover Windows 7 from the Partition I can i pressed Esc and selected Recovery but it said wrong filesystem then when booting Ubuntu i wend down to Windows Vista Loader and it opened HP Recovery but said there was a problem. I want to get Windows 7 back with all HP Factory software installed
install fedora 11 on Vista I want to keep the windows boot loader and also install on a usb drive or a seperate partition that has 10GB free "install doesn't see partition's". Recently I installed ubuntu and had a major problem with booting, without having the usb drive connected I couldn't boot windows so uninstalled it. I'm trying to install now but install does'nt give me any option to select partitions from my drives one 320GB "portable, 3 partitions" and 80GB "main os 2 partitions one partition has 10GB free"
I have a single hard-drive on a spare computer and I decided to try out Ubuntu on recommendation from a friend. I really like it now but at first I just dual-booted it, and now I want Vista gone. I know it's unnecessary to have just one OS but my hard-drive isn't particularly big and I'd prefer to have Ubuntu by itself. Can anyone tell me how to eliminate vista and leave Ubuntu as my sole operating system (I've all my files from computer on another computer so I don't have to worry about losing anything).
i have recently started my masters degree program and i have to install fedora 11 for one of my courses. The problem is when i try to install fedora 11 on my laptop, it wipes out my windows vista installation. I want to keep vista. I have a sony vaio laptop model VGN-FW340D. 4GB RAM and 400 GB HD. i first shrink my hard drive to free up around 100 GB. Then i run fedora 11 DVD and let it make the partitions on my free space.. I have tried everything.. I chose use free space the first time, but i didnt work, it wiped out my vista, next time i chose custom layout and defined boot, root and swap partitions , but again it wiped out my vista.. I have read many guides to dual boot vista and fedora and have carried them out step by step, but nothing works.... Also i dont have vista installation DVD, i just have the recovery CDs, so everytime it wipes out my vista, i have to do system recovery, ive been trying for a week now, and its driving me crazy, i asked a friend of mine to help me out, he has dual boot system, and he tried it and it did the same thing, wiped out my vista... i just have one drive C: with two partitions, one small partitions which contains recovery files, and the rest of the partition has vista.......
I had a tri boot of Win 7 /XP and Mint...I was using EasyBCD 2.0 as a boot manager...I booted Mint by configuring the NeoGrub option in Easy BCD..I wanted to uninstall Win 7 and so what I did was the following
1. Edited BCD bootloader settings ...Marked XP as my default and deleted Win 7 entry...
2. Logged out and wiped my Win 7 partition
With my fingers crossed , i rebooted but Easy BCD booted flawlessly with 2 choices XP and Mint(GRUB)...As Easy BCD is not meant for XP, I thought of restoring original NTLDR of XP so that things would be in place and thinking that this cud avoid problems of detection by other Linux OS I deleted manually the Easy BCD menu.lst file and NeoGrub.mbr in my root...That was it , after I rebooted, I got boot screen of EasyBCD but whichever option I select,I got an error message that address not Valid-NTLDR not found or something like that I booted my XP live CD and like many times before ran
1.Fixmbr 2.Fixboot 3.bootcfg /rebuild
After that , now when I reboot , I am getting "Invalid Partition Table" On booting from a linux CD , I can see the files are in place..I have to get boot sector and partition table fixed...
I am having trouble automounting the ntfs partition. When I try to access the mounted partition, I get an error saying that I don't have permission to view the files. Also, I am not able to change the permissions as root.
I'm using a friend's wireless connection. Unfortunately, she can't remember what the security key is. I've used it before on vista and that is how I can access the internet now, but I would rather be using ubuntu. Is there a way to read the key from windows, so I can put it into ubuntu? When I open the security tab of the connection's properties dialogue, the key is obscured and the "show characters" option greyed out. Even opening the admin account doesn't change this.
I am trying to transfer files from a SATA hard drive with Windows Vista (Home Premium) installed on it. Some files I can easily copy over, others just say Access Denied.
I'm sure permissions is part of the issue, unofrtunately Windows is unable to boot at all (surpise surprise) so I can't adjust anything from within in. I know with XP drives I can easily copy and paste onto my Ubuntu machine. I'm using a SATA to USB converter that let's me plug it in and my desktop reads it like an external hard drive.
I've gone into the properties and under permissions it shows my account as having access to Create and delete files under folder access amd "---" under File access. My group and others show None and --- for Folder and File access. I can post a link to a screenshot tomorrow. I've tried to also select Read and Write for File access but it goes back to the dashes before I can apply it.
I am running 64 bit Ubuntu 9.10 and do not have the sharing aspect installed. Any questions please feel free to ask me.
When I run out of space on my Ubuntu partition, which will probably happen with me being the untidy person I am, is there a way to resize the partition in Windows or Ubuntu that will allow the other to boot? As I've heard stories of using Gparted to resize a Windows partition doesn't allow Windows Vista to boot up as it removes a crucial part of the operating system? I have adequate space to give to Ubuntu on my NTFS partition. May I also add that to install Ubuntu I had to use the partitioner that came with the installer, because the Windows Disk Manager wouldn't let me partition the NTFS drive, because it Denied my Access.
Does Ubuntu 10.10 allow you to resize your windows partition and install ubuntu on the resized partition? I'm trying to get ubuntu installed on my laptop but the only option it's giving me is to delete all partitions and install ubuntu. I don't want to delete any partitions because I have backups on my second partition and the first partition has windows on it and I would like to keep it.
I've tried 10.04 and it doesn't give the option for resizing but I thought that one of the versions gives he option for this, is it 10.10? I've tried to manually resize but it won't let me because I have to many primary partitions, so I would have to delete the last partition to get it changed to extended correct?
I have a dual boot machine (Windows 7 and Debian). W7 and debian are on the same HD but on different partitions. The debian partition is an LVM encrypted one.
The W7 needs reinstalling, and as I understand the process will overwrite the debian bootloader (grub).
Question: Is there a way to save the current bootloader and recover it after I've reinstalled W7, so I wont have to reinstall debian from scratch?.
I plan to re-install W7 on the same partition it is now, without overwriting the debian partition.
I'm dual booting windows vista and ubuntu hardy on a multi-partitioned Dell D630. I created a partition using mkfs -t ntfs. Linux has no trouble reading/writing to it, but every time I boot into windows, chkdsk tries to "fix" the partition, fails, and tells me that the partition is corrupted. Can anybody suggest a way to convince vista that the partition is indeed ok, or else another way to create the partition so that vista can recognize it?
I'm running Debian Squeeze AMD64 with full disk encryption and LVM. After reinstalling Windows 7 I lost GRUB from the MBR. I managed to install GRUB after following this guide and using an Ubuntu 10.04 graphical installation disc, but I only get to a GRUB CLI when booting, so I can't actually choose an OS there.
I tried following this guide but I'm stuck after "# Mount the partitions to /mnt/root" and don't know what to do.
Does anyone know how I can fix GRUB so I get to choose between Debian and Windows 7 there?
I had 9.10 installed and I did an upgrade to 10.04. However I cannot see anymore my Windows Vista partition with grub.. I have a Toshiba laptop Satellite p305.This is my boot script output:
Boot Info Script 0.55 dated February 15th, 2010
============================= Boot Info Summary: ==============================
=> Grub 2 is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda and looks on the same drive in [code].......
Now however its not letting me resize the Windows partition, mounted or unmounted. It currently occupies the whole disk. I would rather not reinstall the whole thing over again, but I will if I have to. Isnt there an easy way to shrink a Windows partition? I swear Ive done this before and it wasnt this hard. Could it be a problem with the Mint installer that now asks me if I want to unmount my disks before it goes into install mode? On this PC I would like to have
Windows XP Mint Ubuntu-Studio Edubuntu One of the E17 OSs Puppy Linux (to create a remix)
I am probably going to put most of the linux partitions on the second laptop drive but I want to install files on a non WIndows NTFS partition.
I installed fedora 10 on my laptop as a partition with vista. However i'm now not able to boot into my vista partition as everytime I try it comes with an error saying "bootmgr" is missing. Below is whats in my grub.conf file. However I am able to access my vista partition through fedora.