Ubuntu :: Use A Windows-based Recovery Partition On A Dual-boot Computer To Overwrite Partition And Remove GRUB Loader?
Mar 9, 2010
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 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 tried to install linux on hard disk and it installed without any problem. However, when i boot i directly get the windows boot loader screen and no grub screen. I reinstalled linux. I tried to fix grub, but still no grub screen.
I having a problem getting my grub loader to see one of my hard drives. I added a drive, and my grub loader lost track of where everything was. I couldn't get my old linux (Red Hat 9) so I installed SuSe on my new hard drive. But I need my be able to boot from my old hard drive because it has apps that only run on the earlier version. From /proc/partitions the old hard drive is sdd
major minor #blocks name 8 0 976762584 sda 8 1 2104483 sda1 8 2 20972857 sda2
I let a 'friend' use my laptop over the weekend. Now when I turn it on, it loads the BIOS details, then says no active partition, then no OS cannot be found.
It looks like they have deleted the partition with SuSE with the Grub Loader.
I cannot load up SuSE or Windows 7!
Any ideas on how to recover the boot to load Windows 7?
I have tried using the Windows 7 install disc to repair - but it does not recognise that Windows is installed and wants to do a clean install only.
Is it worth trying to reinstall SuSE and hope it detects Windows on the other partition? (I assume it is still there!)
I installed ubuntu using wubi and then I tried installing grub 2 but it failed. I need a way to reinstall the mbr sp it will load the windows 7 loader from the first partition.
I've recently left Windows behind for good and have come to Linux (Ubuntu.) However, I've run into problems after trying to dual boot windows 7 and ubuntu. When I restarted my computer, I got a black screen with white text reading "Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported". I have the Ubuntu live cd and was able to try Ubuntu without having to install it, but after I put in a flash drive with Windows 7 on it, the Ubuntu CD has stopped working entirely.
The weird thing is, the computer that I installed Ubuntu on, already had Ubuntu and Windows 7 on it. And every OS was booting successfully. The reason I deleted the Ubuntu that was already on the computer, is because there were many different versions. I wanted to do a clean sweep and only have Ubuntu and Windows 7 installed on the computer. I know that if you try to dual boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu, Windows will overwrite the GRUB file, making it unable to dual boot.
One thing I notice and hope someone here can steer me in the right direction. When I start up my computer I have the list of options to choose from, if I choose to boot into Win 7 I am the presented again with another boot menu from windows. I would like to remove the Windows boot loader.
I want install 10.10 Maverick on a new partition alongside my OS X and 10.04 Lucid installs to see if it works on my machine. I'm a little unsure about some things.
1)Do I need to install the GRUB boot loader on this new partition?
2)Can I use the same swap space or is recommended to create a new swap?
A few days ago my Laptop wouldn't hibernate in Windows 7, I managed to fix this problem by going into Windows' Disk Management tool and setting the C:/ Partition as the active partition, this fixed my hibernation issue, however I have just noticed that now when I boot my laptop my GRUB menu no longer appears, instead it just loads Windows straight away as if it was the only OS on my laptop.
I've confirmed it's something to do with my recent Disk Management change as I booted up GParted, removed the boot flag from Windows and when a rebooted my GRUB menu reappeared.
Not sure on how I can both have Windows as the active partition while being able to keep GRUB working also.
My Partition Setup is as follows:
/dev/sda1 C:/ Windows 7 (NTFS) (Boot Flag Set) /dev/sda2 D:/ DATA (Documents and stuff) (NTFS) Unallocated 1 MB /dev/sda3 Extended 146.49 GB (LBA Flag Set) /dev/sda5 Linux Swap 2.01 GB /dev/sda6 ext4 20.00 GB /dev/sda7 ext4 124.46 GB Unallocated 10.00 MB
I just got a new acer laptop that came loaded with Win 7, and I want to dual boot with Ubuntu. Naturally the laptop didn't come with a Win 7 disc, but instead has the stupid recovery partition. I've made the recovery DVDs from the eRecovery program but....
From what I read the acer recovery setup is extremely picky and will refuse to work after the partitions have been messed with. Apparently the ALT+F10 to start the recovery process on boot won't even work if acer's MBR is overwritten. What's worse, even the recovery DVDs won't work without the MBR! (At least from what I've been reading... I guess if you install a different HD you are SOL) So how does one get around this? I couldn't care less about acer's stupid recovery partition, but if I ever need to send the computer in for service I think they actually charge extra to restore their crap.
I just made my system unbootable... Here is what i did.. I have two sata HDDs
160 GB (Contained Windows 7) 500 GB
I copied entire 160 gb as an mirrored image to 500GB HDD using Acronis Disk Director. I deleted entire 160 GB HDD.. Removed the 500 GB HDD and kept it seperate.. Installed ClearOS Enterprise 5.2 Worked a little bit... The i wanted to delete ClearOS.. So i connected 500GB HDD and booted again in Acronis Disk director Formated the entire 160GB HDD.. Copied back the entire 160 from 500GB HDD.. Now my sytem refuses to boot... Just 4 letters "GRUB" appears on the screen... I tried booting using XP CD.. It gives a blue screen.. I tried Windows 7 CD.. It says unable to fix due to MBR problem..
I'm thinking of buying an Acer Aspire D250 loaded with Win7 and then adding a version of Ubuntu.
The netbook will come with the Acer recovery facility to reinstall Win7 from a recovery partition in the event of OS failure. This means that the MBR and subsequent loaders need to be preserved for this function to remain (I don't have a Win7 disc and don't want to have to buy one).
I'm happy with a basic Win/Linux dual boot setup but I'd value any comments/suggestions as to how to preserve the recovery function when I add Ubuntu.
I have Windows 7 and Ubuntu 10.04 dual-booted on my machine. grub was aautomaticlu installed as the primary loader. Soon i want to nuke my ubuntu partition but i know that will delete grub. Can i remove grub or at least make Windows boot loader default.
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 tried installing Ubuntu 10.04 LTS on my girlfriend's lenovo using a live disc. First we tried it out to show her the wireless would work fine (her previous lenovo was not ubuntu friendly at all). She's interested in keeping her windows 7 partition along with the lenovo recovery partition, so I tried doing a dual boot install. I manually moved the cursors setting the disk space on each partition, and we allowed Ubuntu to do the rest. Much to my dismay, the installation failed.
I've done some reading over the internet, and I think in our case it would be best to use a Wubi installation. We're interested in using 10.04, so where can we find a wubi installer of Ubuntu 10.04?
Also, any ideas why the installation might have failed? The iso was downloaded off the ubuntu main site, and we burned it using infrarecorder.
I'm running SuSE 11.2, dual booted with Windows 7. SuSE installed fine, but when I rebooted, it went straight to windows and didn't give me the option of booting into SuSE. I reinstalled SuSE and went into the boot settings in Yast. When I rebooted, neither Windows nor SuSe would boot. I ran a system repair from the SuSE disk, at the boot loader settings, it displays the SuSE Linux partition and the Failsafe Linux recovery partition. I did not format any drives in the system repair. How do I add the Windows partition to the boot loader settings?
My set up is a dual boot between windows 7 and ubuntu 10.04. This laptop used to have vista on it. See image below for my partition set up. pretty obvious where ubuntu should be.I accidentally selected the wrong entry in grub and booted into an acer windows recovery partition. despite exiting as soon as it loaded, the long story short is that it has goodbyed linux.On booting i now just get a grub rescue prompt.I have eventually managed to boot into a liveUSB (cd drive is botched too )As you can see from the screenpic, testdisk shows linux is still there but there are quite a few entries from the upgrades.So, if i can restore the partition around this linux partition will grub come back with it and will all be merry?
I havent mounted any volumes on the drive yet, but i think i need to back up my data before messing with the partition table. is it cool to mount them to pull some data off?general advice for how to proceed would be great.Im not too hung up on keeping the linux install itself. whats gunna be easier? install into that 16gb space and then re add windows to grub, or try and recover this partition?
I have windows xp on dual boot, however I do not use it anymore also something happened to the boot sector so now it wont work. I want to remove it so that I can have ubuntu reclaim the partition and have grub removed from startup. How does one do this?
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 know this is a familiar looking question, but please hear me out.
I want to dual boot Fedora 15 with Ubuntu 11.04 (to try out GNOME Shell whilst not breaking Unity, which I quite like). As it's mostly to just to try out, I'll probably want to remove Fedora and go back to just Ubuntu, so I wan to ask how to remove the Fedora partition without doing any damage, and how to remove it from the GRUB menu at boot.
I have a gateway laptop that I have attempted to dual boot, but the computer only sees the Ubuntu OS and the Vista Windows Recovery Partition. (Actually, gnome reports 3 separate Ubuntu OSs... part of the problem?)
When I type fdisk -l, I get the following message code...
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 dual boot drive, one is WinXp the other Ubuntu 10.04. I don't know why, but my ubuntu partition became corrupted (booting from live cd and inputing fdisk -l in the terminal, shoes my partition as unknown type) My Grub was on this partition, and therefore I cannot boot neither one of my two OSs. I would like to recover my linux partition, I figure I can do that only from my WinXp partition, but I don't know where and how to install Grub.
Also, If anyone knows how I could recover from the live CD without booting Windows, please speak up, that would make everything much easier. Another thing, it would be just super if I could recover my whole partition, not just the data, because I would hate to reinstall all the stuff that I had on my Ubuntu.
I had a dual boot machine with fedora 12 and windows vista and I could use grub boot-loader to switch between two. Few days ago windows got corrupt and I have to reinstall it. I put windows 7 now and as usual it erased grub. So to reinstall I put the fedora 12 installation CD on and followed some usual setup steps. When I got the command line I issued the command "grub-install /dev/sda" (sda not hda because It showed bunch of sda, sda1..) but surprisingly it said grub command not found. I remember doing it before while it worked fine.
I have an Acer Aspire Netbook running a dual boot with Xp and Ubuntu Netbook Version (Lucid Lynx if I am not mistaken?) Anyway I plan on selling this netbook and I need to remove the Ubuntu Partition and go back to just a full Windows Xp partition with it's recovery partition also.
Here's what I want to do. I have two separate HDD HDD 1 : 160 GB (dedicated to windows, already working) HDD 2 : 500 GB Will be using dedicated to ubuntu (not partitioned yet)
I want to use the HDD two only for linux and this HDD is not partitioned yet. What I want to do is - A dedicated Grub partition (/boot) on HDD 2 (Do I really need it when I am using just two os? Will it work on second HDD?) - / root partition - /home partition - /swap partition - /fat32 partition (do I need it to share files with win?)
