Ubuntu Installation :: Installed Grub On Windows Partition?
Mar 8, 2011
I just installed ubuntu on a partition on my laptop that already had a windows7 partition. First I had Kubuntu installed, but I decided to just try Ubuntu instead. I did things the right way when I installed Kubuntu and I could switch between OSes on reboot. Then when I installed Ubuntu I accidentally put grub on /dev/sda1 instead of /dev/sda. I didn't even notice for a while because I never felt like I needed to go back to Windows until I felt like playing starcraft 2. That's when I noticed that when the boot options screen appears and I select Windows, the screen goes black, a cursor flashes in the upper left corner for about a second, then the boot options screen reappears.
If I boot using my windows 7 cd and go into recovery, get a command prompt and type Bootrec.exe /FixMbr and Bootrec.exe /FixBoot, the options appear to complete successfully, but then when I reboot, I get a permanent flashing cursor.
If I follow that by inserting my parted magic cd and running testdisk and overwriting the mbr, I get back to the first situation where the boot options screen will appear, but the windows boot loader just returns me to the boot options screen. I can get into ubuntu, at least. Whenever I run testdisk I can't replace the boot with the backup boot because I'm pretty sure it's identical to the flawed one.
I've been serching the forum for hours and every thread related to "GRUB error: no such partition" that i've read relates to fixing the issue for users with windows OS also installed or trying to get windows to boot.
How it happened: I edited partitions and now I get GRUB error: no such partition. I ONLY have Linux installed.
I was able to boot the OS by typing:
Code: set partition=(hd0,1)/boot/grub set root=(hd0,1) insmod normal normal
Ive been running windows 7/Ubuntu dualboot for some years now and never had any problems.Some months ago I got a new Patriot Inferno ssd. Ofc the first thing I did was to installl windows 7, it had no problems, ran fast and smooth. Then when I reinstalled grub I started to get error when trying to start windows, the logo never apeared and all I got was the message "Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software"Status: 0x00.00F" "Info: The boot selection failed because a required device was inaccessible.". It does not matter what order I install windows and ubuntu in, or how many times Ive tried to reinstall grub. Windows 7 will not work while I have grub/windows installed. Right now Ive got them installed on separate drives, ubuntu on the ssd and windows on a partition on a 1tb hdd. Unfortunately I need to have windows for .net programing and gaming..
I am not been able to re size the partition. Can anyone please help. I tried to re size and install ubuntu 10.04 on two machines but it did not work. Details are HP mini ( windows xp pre installed with new ntfs partition). Lenovo thinkpad ( windows vista pre installed).Is new windows partition is non - re sizable?
I recently installed Windows 7 on Virtual Box (running within Ubuntu Karmic 9.10), and it runs great. However I want to also add Windows 7 to the Grub Menu, so I can choose at the start between the Ever-Glorious Ubuntu and the Depressingly-Drab Windows 7.
I am currently running a dual boot machine with Ubuntu 11.04 and Windows Vista.Is there any way I can delete the Linux partition and Grub boot loader without affecting the Windows partition at all?I would also like to be able to repartition all of the space that was previously occupied by Linux.
I had Windows 7 ultimate installed on my netbook and installed Ubuntu 10.10 using the 'Install alongside other OS's' option which put windows onto another partition and created one for ubuntu.
Anyway I've tried reinstalling the grub but I never get a grub boot menu when I boot it up and the grub won't recognize the windows install
I'm a complete newbie, trying to get away from Windows Vista! I had some issues installing Ubuntu, but finally got it sorted - so I thought. I wanted to view a dnl file, so tried to boot into Windows, and I got a white screen with big red letters saying "ERROR". So I held down the off button for 5 seconds, and then tried to reboot. But now all I get is the words:
error: no such partition grub rescue>
Before I go further, I'll summarise the problem with my install. Basically it would only get partway through, if at all, and then all the options would freeze...I could move the mouse, but that was it. Similarly with running Ubuntu on the LiveCD. After a lot of hassle, and some helpful members of the community, it turned out that all I needed to do was use the option "nomodest" when installing, and it all went fine. Well actually I had to retry it again in recovery mode because I think maybe a driver wasn't loaded (?), but after that everything seemed alright. So as mentioned before, I've come to my present issue. Typing "Is" gives "Unknown command" (or maybe "invalid"...I can't remember). And if I type "set" I get something like "prefix=..." and something else...sorry I can't remember and I don't want to turn off the computer now just in case things don't work again.
Anyway I managed to boot and run Ubuntu using the LiveCD, and started looking for solutions. Note that I used the "nomodest" option again to boot. Anyway all the solutions involve first using "fdisk -l" to find the partitions. Here is the output:
I recently have installed Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Netbook Edition in my personal netbook. The thing is that I had installed Windows 7 in the hard disk drive so I decided to install Ubuntu alongside with it. After the process of installation everything was cool but I hadn't the Grub working. I then pressed the Shift button during the booting process so I got the Grub menu but it didn't show the Windows 7 partition. The Windows installation was not erased because its file system is present in Nautilus. I have tried reinstalling the Grub a thousand times but nothing changes. I have attached the results of the boot info script so you can have some info about my booting configuration.
I have two partitions on my HDD. A Windows XP (hd0,2) and an Ubuntu 9.10 (hd0,1).I have been using the Windows mainly and ran a program that changes the HDD's serial number. Now when I boot up and Grub loads, I try to access the Windows partition and get the following error:
Error: No Such Device: 2e3857fb3857c08f
I am still able to boot the Ubuntu partition but can not seem to get grub to point to the Windows partition any more. This is very frustrating as I really need to get back into that partition soon.
I got ubuntu 10.04 lucid lynx along with windows (dual boot) and using Grub. On my computer, I have my C:/ (programs) and D:/ (data). I've never used my D:/ before that day that I've lost my windows partition on my grub menu. I usually use my D:/ with windows. The first time I used my D:/ to store data with linux, I lost my windows option in my grub menu. I'm not sure what I did wrong but I do want to restore my windows option in my grub menu.
After "fdisk -l",
I checked in /boot/grub and there is no menu.lst to modify. how I can get back my windows option in my grub menu ?
I have triple boot machine Windows 7 + Ubuntu + Mac OS X in a single HDD.
Windows 7 -- /dev/sda1 Ubuntu 10.10 -- /dev/sda2 (In same Partition grub 2.0) Mac Snow Leopard -- /dev/sda3
I have installed GRUB 2.0 in same partition where current ubuntu is installed ie /dev/sda2 and basically Windwos Boot manager is installed within MBR.. & I have added GRUB 2.0 and Mac OSX entry into windows boot manger with some freeware from windows 7. So practically when I start my computer First Windows Boot manager comes up and asks me which OS to start first. I set up this type of installation with the thought that when grub 2.0 is not installed within MBR, I can format the whole /dev/sda2 partition without any difficulty and reinstalled any future release distro of ubuntu. So is it practically possible? If I format /dev/sda2 and reinstall new ubuntu release there.. Old grub won't affect the installation of new one.
is it possible to use a Windows-based recovery partition on a dual-boot computer to overwrite the Ubuntu partition and remove the GRUB loader? For instance, if you booted up your computer, accessed the hidden recovery partition and used it to reset the computer to it's factory default settings, would that effectively remove the Ubuntu partition and the GRUB loader? Would a completely new installation of Windows overwrite/uninstall Ubuntu and GRUB automatically?
I need to reinstall my windows 7 partition, but I don't want to lose my ubuntu partition. Currently I just have both installed and grub is dealing with my booting options.Is there any way I can reinstall windows without messing up grub or my ubuntu partition?
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 have two distros and windows installed. I only want one distro (I have decided on Ubuntu) and windows. But, the other distro, the one that I want to eradicate is the last one installed and it is its GRUB in the MBR.
I know what happens from experience if I just delete that partition with a liveCD - GRUB won't boot anything on reboot.
What do I need to do from within Ubuntu or the other Linux before deleting the partition of the second distro so that I have a working GRUB when I reboot ?
I did it long time with LFS but I don't remember how. the "root" option of the kernel in grub except only the partition. How do I set the "root" as a directory in a partition?
3 partitions (in order): Windows 7, CentOS and shared data partition.
I need to increase the size of the Windows 7 partition (c:windowswinsxs seems to be something not easily remedied).
GParted didn't work in moving things around (bad sector) so I wiped out its partition (# 2 out of 3) and I was able to increase the size of the Windows 7 partition (I can reinstall CentOS easily and not much work lost).
Except ... no more grub menu (unsurprising). This incantation does allow me to boot into Windows 7.
Is there any way of rebuilding the grub menu short of reinstalling CentOS (5.5)?
I am very new to Linux and trying to setup a Ubuntu server in my Windows 7 PC. that means, I am trying to have a dual boot system. While starting, my PC had 500GB and only one drive C. 18GB of it is used and rest was free.
I have gone thru the following step.
1. Downloaded Ubuntu server on a USB using "Universal USb installer" 2. Booted the PC from the USB and started the Install Ubuntu Server 3. After a few steps the install showed 4 partition options.
I specified the guided partitioning options using free space. (The other options where : Using entire disk, using entire disk with LVM, Manual) Next step it asked me to enter the disk space- it told me it will take at-least 19 GB and maximum available is approx 450GB. My intention was to use the full free space as much as possible. So I specified "max". It told me that it is going to overwrite and create the new partition. Then it progressed fine.
4. I also chosen to install the LAMP stack /Postgress etc.
The installation completed fine When rebooted I logged back in in windows 7. When I opened explorer, I still see that the C drive has around 18GB and 396 GB free space. t seems some of the space has been used by the linux server install. I again started my PC and now I logged in to Ubuntu. I tried command $ df -h . But it is showing the following:
10 yr old Dell laptop with NO WORKING DRIVES. i was dual booting xp and xubuntu when i decided it was time to cut the cord. so i installed gparted and deleted my windows partition. now it won't boot. my assumption is that i never installed grub. i got a usb to ide cable so i can access the hard drive from my desktop (xp home edition). i read that grub should be in a folder called "boot". i see on my hard drive that i have: "disks", "winboot" "install", "uninstall-wubi.exe", and "xubuntu.ico". if i expand the "disks" folder, there is a "boot" folder containing another folder called "grub", but the folder is empty. is this where i install it? am i an idiot and missing something stupid? where do i download grub if i need it?
I originally had my full hard drive as a full Ubuntu partition but I then re-sized that and installed Windows on a new partition. Now I guess the boot sector got overwritten and I don't have a choice to boot either Windows or Ubuntu. I know I have to reconfigure GRUB or another boot loader to allow the choice but I am not sure of how to go about that.
I wanted to check what version of GRUB I have installed. I went to terminal and typed grub --versionI got this message back: The program 'grub' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing: sudo apt-get install grub
I am running Ubuntu 10.10 alongside windows xp pro. When I turn my pc on I have the option to boot to ubuntu or xp and at the top of the window it says that the version of grub running is "GNU GRUB Version 1.98+20100804-5Ubuntu-3" how I shold go about installing GRUB 2 or just leave it as is.
I have already done the installation process following the guide on Ubuntu's site, got everything up and running but the partition that I made in the installer was too small. I was then directed by a friend (a slightly less inexperienced newbie) to modify this through Easeus Partition Manager. I shrunk the Windows 7 partition to only the space that was in use, giving the newly unallocated space to the Ubuntu partition. Set the changes and rebooted the computer, then got the message "unknown filesystem, grub rescue". Now have no idea what to do with this. What happened??
I've been scouring the forums for something helpful but I can't find anything that is a comparable circumstance.I can still access Ubuntu through my flashdrive.
I was installing Ubuntu on my new laptop (with plans to dual boot with Win 7) and, I'll admit, I did something stupid. You see, there was a 1 meg free space before the Windows 7 'hidden partition' and it was driving me nuts. So, what I did, was use gparted to move the hidden partition to the start of the drive (yes, a 1 meg move). Install of Ubuntu went off without a hitch, but after reboot things went a bit differently. The Recovery partition shows up as a possible boot partition in GRUB, in Windows 7 I can now see the recovery partition as a normal NTFS drive, and I can no longer use the features that the partition gives. I know this might be more of a 'ask on a Windows forum' question, but I was hoping someone else had done something like this and knew how to restore the hidden partition to being, well, hidden.
I messed up my mbr by deleting my other drive which I guess had the MBR for both my OS (2 Windows 7's). So i installed Ubuntu in an attempt to fix it all hoping to get the GRUB. It then booted directly into Ubuntu.So I ran bootsect.exe tx the mbr and it said success.Still boots into Ubuntu directly without and grub.
I ran sudo update-grub Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.35-22-generic Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-2.6.35-22-generic Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.bin done
I have a dual boot system. a 200gb hd with ubuntu 10.10 and windows pro on 100gb hd. the problem im having is the 'black screen' error.
When i boot ubuntu, it boot fine but it shuts off my screen cause its not supporting my video hardware which is a geforce 6100 or something.
I know the fix is to change grub to support older video architecture. Something like changing line 'GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="QUEIT SPLASH NORNODESET"'
But how do i change the grub when the screens off? i can't, right. Is there a way i can change the boot parameters of ubuntu from my windows boot or maybe from the ubuntu virtual desktop?