Solved Dual Boot Linux preventing Windows boot

barcanez

New Member
Messages
3
Hi

I recently felt the urge to experiment with Linux and installed Ubuntu Mint and tried to set up dual booting.

However I seem to have only suceeded in preventing Windows booting at all. I cannot get into the recovery drive to undo my wrong doing.

How can I reset the windows boot manager without access to windows or recovery partitions?

Many thanks in advance from a frustrated fool!
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Linux Centos 7, W8.1, W7, W2K3 Server W10
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Monitor(s) Displays
    1 X LG 40 inch TV
    Hard Drives
    SSD's * 3 (Samsung 840 series) 250 GB
    2 X 3 TB sata
    5 X 1 TB sata
    Internet Speed
    0.12 GB/s (120Mb/s)
Unfortunately I do not have an installation disk as this is stored on a partition and the recovery partition is unavailable?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
Then you can download a repair disc from the internet. For Windows 7 I used a Lenovo recovery disk. But any legal/illegal installer media will do that.
You will need to do a boot repair.
There is a chance that it might not work though.
With hiren's boot CD you can start a BOOTMGR and start windows. Also, what's the problem with grub? In most cases, it becomes the default bootloader and you can select windows from there.

Also, before multibooting with Win8, YOU MUST TURN OFF THESE:
Hybernation
quick boot
and you must set legacy bootmenu
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Enterprise x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    CPU
    Intel Xeon L5420
    Motherboard
    Gigabyte G41M-ES2L
    Memory
    3GB DDR2
    Graphics Card(s)
    Gigabyte GTS450 GDDR5 1GB
    Sound Card
    ALC 887
    Monitor(s) Displays
    LG L1753
    Screen Resolution
    1280x1024
    Hard Drives
    HDS728080PLAT20 ATA Device (80 GB, 7200 RPM, Ultra-ATA/133)
    IOMEGA ZIP 100 ATA Device
    TOSHIBA DT01ACA200 ATA Device (2000 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA-III)
    WDC WD5000AAKS-00UU3A0 ATA Device (500 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA-II)
    HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH22NS50 ATA Device
    PSU
    XFX pro 450v2
    Case
    Mercury
    Cooling
    Stock Intel NIDEC
    Keyboard
    Logitech
    Mouse
    Kolink
    Internet Speed
    15MBit/s
    Browser
    chrome
    Antivirus
    NOD32v7
Can we assume your Windows 8 install was configured as UEFI? If it was, have you checked the bios to see if the Windows Boot manager is still an option you can select?

There are some Linux distros that work fine with UEFI and Windows 8 secure boot, such as Ubuntu 14.04, but being aware of these configurations before you install is very helpful in achieving the result you want.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home Grown
    CPU
    i7 3770K
    Motherboard
    ASUS P8Z77 -v Pro, Z87-Expert
    Memory
    16 G
    Graphics Card(s)
    EVGA GTX 680 Classified (2)
    Hard Drives
    Kingston SSD 240 GB
You need to provide what error?

Mint is fine with UEFI but not secure boot - If you can boot Mint I doubt the latter is the problem.

Is GRUB chainloading from the correct partition?

You can download Grubcustomiser and rebuild it to make sure... if that's the problem.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    PC-DOS v1.0
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    IBM
    CPU
    Intel 8088, 4.77MHz
    Memory
    16K, 640K max
    Graphics Card(s)
    What's that?
    Sound Card
    Not quite
    Screen Resolution
    80 X 24 text
    Hard Drives
    dual 160KB 5.25-inch disk drives
quailstorm
- Grub is working fine but the windows options shown fail with the following error:
File \BCD
Status Oxc0000098
Info: Boot configuration data file doesn't contain valid information for an operation system


Saltgrass
as above windows fails with above error.

Superfly
Grub is working fine but the options listed do not. How do i check if
GRUB is chainloading from the correct partition?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
Search for Disk - check which partition Windows has been installed (sda0..sdb1 whatever) and compare with Grub windows menu entry

You may wanna rebuild MBR from terminal prompt like this as well...
Mini-Howto: Restore Windows MBR/Bootloader with Linux | Robert Penz Blog

Code:
[B]1. Solution[/B]
 
sudo apt-get install syslinux

 if the package got installed use following to write the MBR.
 
sudo dd if=/usr/lib/syslinux/mbr.bin of=/dev/sda

 [B]2. Solution[/B]
 
sudo apt-get install mbr

 if the package got installed use following to write the MBR.
 
sudo install-mbr -i n -p D -t 0 /dev/sda

NB you still need to check for correct windows partition.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    PC-DOS v1.0
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    IBM
    CPU
    Intel 8088, 4.77MHz
    Memory
    16K, 640K max
    Graphics Card(s)
    What's that?
    Sound Card
    Not quite
    Screen Resolution
    80 X 24 text
    Hard Drives
    dual 160KB 5.25-inch disk drives
quailstorm
- Grub is working fine but the windows options shown fail with the following error:
Maybe it wants to load the recovery partition. I'm not used to work with laptops, and I hate those recovery partition thing...
Life was easier without them... Like the HP pavilion DV5, a packed PC.

Solving the problem of missing Windows 7 entry in grub2 on Fedora 18 | (mostly) Boring Talk

This could be helpful. But the first thing I do in such situation is a Windows boot repair. If it's successful, I add the grub menu shortcut to the windows bootmanager via easybcd and that's all.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Enterprise x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    CPU
    Intel Xeon L5420
    Motherboard
    Gigabyte G41M-ES2L
    Memory
    3GB DDR2
    Graphics Card(s)
    Gigabyte GTS450 GDDR5 1GB
    Sound Card
    ALC 887
    Monitor(s) Displays
    LG L1753
    Screen Resolution
    1280x1024
    Hard Drives
    HDS728080PLAT20 ATA Device (80 GB, 7200 RPM, Ultra-ATA/133)
    IOMEGA ZIP 100 ATA Device
    TOSHIBA DT01ACA200 ATA Device (2000 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA-III)
    WDC WD5000AAKS-00UU3A0 ATA Device (500 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA-II)
    HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH22NS50 ATA Device
    PSU
    XFX pro 450v2
    Case
    Mercury
    Cooling
    Stock Intel NIDEC
    Keyboard
    Logitech
    Mouse
    Kolink
    Internet Speed
    15MBit/s
    Browser
    chrome
    Antivirus
    NOD32v7
Back
Top