I dungoofed. Help.

starlightartist · Feb 15, 2013

Ok, so some people may have seen my previous post about wanting to dual boot Windows 8 and Ubuntu, and I did that, without wiping my hard drive. I then restarted hoping to access windows 8, however I booted straight into ubuntu. I went into the BIOS and straight away re-enabled the Secure Boot settings. It says there are no available boot devices. Now I can only boot into Ubuntu. Help.

danice123 · Feb 15, 2013

You boot only into Ubuntu? No Grub?

Hybrid Trainer · Feb 15, 2013

Whilst in Ubuntu when you open a file manager do you see a separate drivce partition that you can open and see all the windows program files? If not then chances are you installed Ubuntu over it and maybe just imported files or something.

starlightartist · Feb 16, 2013

Hybrid Trainer said:
Whilst in Ubuntu when you open a file manager do you see a separate drivce partition that you can open and see all the windows program files? If not then chances are you installed Ubuntu over it and maybe just imported files or something.

Yes, all the Windows program files are there. It's only the bootmgr.dll that is missing.

danice123 said:
You boot only into Ubuntu? No Grub?

Sorry, I boot into GRUB and get a choice to boot to:
Ubuntu
Ubunu Advanced Options
Mem Test
Mem Test (Load of numbers)

twocows · Feb 16, 2013

Add Windows to GRUB. For some reason GRUB didn't detect it automatically. http://erickoo.wordpress.com/2009/0...partition-to-grub-2-ubuntu-9-10-karmic-koala/

danice123 · Feb 16, 2013

Make sure you find the right partition also, many times windows creates two partitions, a boot and the actual windows partition. You cannot boot the actual partition, so if you have a separate boot partition for windows, you have to point GRUB at that. It should be around 100MB in size (or something similar).

Megan · Feb 16, 2013

Check your grub-directorys. One of them has scripts in it in a particuliar form like "10_headers" and stuff. There should be a script like "10_os-prober", if there is no file with os-prober in it, than thats the reason your Windows isn't recognized, since this script is looking for active operating systems. Try 'sudo apt-get install os-prober' followed with 'sudo grub-update' and that should do it.

Catalyst. · Feb 17, 2013

You could give the "easy way" a try too:

Boot into Ubuntu.

Open up Terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T).

Type:

Code:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair && sudo apt-get update

Press Enter.

Then type:

Code:

sudo apt-get install -y boot-repair && boot-repair

Press Enter.

Now, launch "Boot Repair" from the Unity Dash, and hit recommended repair. Your problem should be fixed.

twocows · Feb 17, 2013

Catalyst. said:
You could give the "easy way" a try too:

Boot into Ubuntu.

Open up Terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T).

Type:

Code:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair && sudo apt-get update

Press Enter.

Then type:

Code:

sudo apt-get install -y boot-repair && boot-repair

Press Enter.

Now, launch "Boot Repair" from the Unity Dash, and hit recommended repair. Your problem should be fixed.

That's hardly much easier than the ways already described. Also, I prefer using aptitude CLI over apt-get. It's not much different these days, but it removes unused dependency packages when you remove a package and you don't need to remember half a dozen different names for apt-get to do various things.

Archenoth · Feb 17, 2013

twocows said:
That's hardly much easier than the ways already described. Also, I prefer using aptitude CLI over apt-get. It's not much different these days, but it removes unused dependency packages when you remove a package and you don't need to remember half a dozen different names for apt-get to do various things.

I beg to differ really... There is a lot more "automagic" going on with those two commands than there would be with the above methods. You type two commands and then run a program.

How is that not easier than playing with GRUB settings if the guy is just starting out playing with Linux? I think that his initial impression likely isn't the greatest because of this little "hiccup". So telling him to add something to GRUB is something I doubt he wants to hear.

Additionally, apt-get will tell you what it will remove if it removes unneeded dependencies... It also warns you when there are packages that are no longer required and allows you to autoremove them. I hear you on the multiple apt names though like "apt-get", "apt-cache", or "apt-add-repository", etc... But I never had much of a problem with that.

twocows · Feb 17, 2013

It's not that hard to add like one line to GRUB that points at Windows manually.

starlightartist · Feb 17, 2013

Tried every single method offered in this thread now, and I can say with all honesty, none worked. So I guess I'm stuck with ubuntu. forever.

Archenoth · Feb 17, 2013

Hm... Well, what about this..?

Code:

sudo grub-install --recheck /dev/sda
sudo update-grub

This should re-run the detection process and hopefully detect your Windows partition...

Additionally, could you go to a terminal and post the output of the above commands and "df" here if that doesn't work?

twocows · Feb 17, 2013

The Explorer Of Destiny said:
Tried every single method offered in this thread now, and I can say with all honesty, none worked. So I guess I'm stuck with ubuntu. forever.

You could copy/paste the terminal output here, you know. That way we'd actually be able to say where you went wrong.

starlightartist · Feb 17, 2013

Archenoth said:
Hm... Well, what about this..?

Code:

sudo grub-install --recheck /dev/sda sudo update-grub

This should re-run the detection process and hopefully detect your Windows partition...

Additionally, could you go to a terminal and post the output of the above commands and "df" here if that doesn't work?

Didn't detect my windows; Heres my output

harvey@harvey-Aspire-V3-571G:~$ sudo grub-install --recheck /dev/sda
Installation finished. No error reported.
harvey@harvey-Aspire-V3-571G:~$ sudo update-grub
Generating grub.cfg ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.5.0-17-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.5.0-17-generic
Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.bin

and for "df"

harvey@harvey-Aspire-V3-571G:~$ df
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2 7689384 5031412 2267368 69% /
udev 2955724 12 2955712 1% /dev
tmpfs 1185972 940 1185032 1% /run
none 5120 0 5120 0% /run/lock
none 2964924 224 2964700 1% /run/shm
none 102400 36 102364 1% /run/user
/dev/sr0 226938 226938 0 100% /media/harvey/Recovery
/dev/sdb1 390708800 288671832 102036968 74% /media/harvey/100C8B2A0C8B09C4

Archenoth · Feb 17, 2013

The Explorer Of Destiny said:
/dev/sdb1 390708800 288671832 102036968 74% /media/harvey/100C8B2A0C8B09C4

Aha! There's your problem..!
I got you to type a command to detect OSes on your first hard drive, not your second.

Try:

Code:

sudo grub-install --recheck /dev/sdb
sudo update-grub

starlightartist · Feb 18, 2013

Archenoth said:
Aha! There's your problem..!
I got you to type a command to detect OSes on your first hard drive, not your second.

Try:

Code:

sudo grub-install --recheck /dev/sdb sudo update-grub

Normally that would work, but I'm pretty sure my "second hard drive" is my C: backup connected by USB.

Megan · Feb 18, 2013

The Explorer Of Destiny said:
harvey@harvey-Aspire-V3-571G:~$ df
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2 7689384 5031412 2267368 69% /
udev 2955724 12 2955712 1% /dev
tmpfs 1185972 940 1185032 1% /run
none 5120 0 5120 0% /run/lock
none 2964924 224 2964700 1% /run/shm
none 102400 36 102364 1% /run/user
/dev/sr0 226938 226938 0 100% /media/harvey/Recovery
/dev/sdb1 390708800 288671832 102036968 74% /media/harvey/100C8B2A0C8B09C4

That's some strange layout you have there. So I guess your partitions are as following:
/dev/sda Harddrive
/dev/sda1 Windows 8
/dev/sda2 Ubuntu

Normally there should be another layout (at least what I experienced)
/dev/sda Harddrive
/dev/sda1 Windows Bootloader
/dev/sda2 Windows 8
/dev/sda3 Ubuntu

Is 'sudo fdisk -l' showing you the above layout? if so, then maybe you somehow crashed/deleted your Windows Bootloader

starlightartist · Feb 18, 2013

R.F. said:
That's some strange layout you have there. So I guess your partitions are as following:
/dev/sda Harddrive
/dev/sda1 Windows 8
/dev/sda2 Ubuntu

Normally there should be another layout (at least what I experienced)
/dev/sda Harddrive
/dev/sda1 Windows Bootloader
/dev/sda2 Windows 8
/dev/sda3 Ubuntu

Is 'sudo fdisk -l' showing you the above layout? if so, then maybe you somehow crashed/deleted your Windows Bootloader

for sudo fdisk -l i get:

harvey@harvey-Aspire-V3-571G:~$ sudo fdisk -l
[sudo] password for harvey:

WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sda'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted.

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x375fed77

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 976773167 488386583+ ee GPT

Thanks for all your help guys, but I eventually just got a windows recovery disk anyway. This thread can now be closed.

twocows · Feb 18, 2013

If you want to be able to boot into your Ubuntu partition after doing a Windows recovery, you might be able to use EasyBCD to do it.

I dungoofed. Help.

More options

starlightartist

danice123

Hybrid Trainer

starlightartist

twocows

The not-so-black cat of ill omen

danice123

Megan

Catalyst.

Nothing of significance

twocows

The not-so-black cat of ill omen

Archenoth

(cozy)

twocows

The not-so-black cat of ill omen

starlightartist

Archenoth

(cozy)

twocows

The not-so-black cat of ill omen

starlightartist

Archenoth

(cozy)

starlightartist

Megan

starlightartist

twocows

The not-so-black cat of ill omen