Root Access - 2012-08-07 (page 2 of 5)

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9:02 AM

@Mahesh I just would to have my windows 7 partition works.. Originally, I choose to delete Fedora to reclaim the space, but when I deleted the bootloader explodes.. So I tried to install win 7 (two times) in the space where was fedora, but I can't repair the bootloader of my first win7 partition.. So, after trying some stuff with the live cd of lubuntu (ms-sys etc), I decided to install it where was fedora.

Now I have lubuntu installed, when I turn on my laptop appears the grub screen, but windows entry is not listed there..

state your ultimate aim.

have windows, nothing else?

wait.. if you are booted into lubuntu, try sudo update-grub from terminal.

@Mahesh Exactly

@Mahesh Got it

@unNaturhal okay. so i'll give you a tiny iso. download this

click the link to download. its super grub2 disk.

if possible, take a piece of paper and scribble what i say.

@Mahesh I'm ready

plug in your ub drive. note down its device id

/dev/sdc or something similar.

if you dont know, do tail /var/log/syslog |grep /dev to find out

got it?

9:08 AM

@Mahesh Wait

@Mahesh I'm empting it, just a minute.. sorry :/

no probs, carry on.

backup everything on usb.

umm... did you get device id?

@Mahesh I have to wrote this in the terminal?

yes

yup.

alberto@alberto-Presario-CQ62-Notebook-PC:~$ tail /var/log/syslog |grep /dev
alberto@alberto-Presario-CQ62-Notebook-PC:~$

9:14 AM

@unNaturhal or copy + paste

Nothing happened :/

umm.. if you find 'disk utility' in lubuntu menu, open it

@Mahesh File Manager?

@unNaturhal go to systems menu and look for any disk related application

@unNaturhal nope. okay, type sudo blkid and paste its output here.

9:16 AM

alberto@alberto-Presario-CQ62-Notebook-PC:~$ sudo blkid
/dev/sda1: LABEL="Riservato per il sistema" UUID="121E8D151E8CF2D1" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sda3: LABEL="Data" UUID="2A7CF2447CF20A79" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sda5: UUID="4cbe4e8a-682a-4330-acbe-cc853155b965" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sdc1: LABEL="OVER" UUID="F8D2-8FEC" TYPE="vfat"
alberto@alberto-Presario-CQ62-Notebook-PC:~$

@jokerdino There is any disk tool :/

@unNaturhal hm

Over is the usbKey

okay. sudo umount /dev/sdc1

So I think that the if is UUID="F8D2-8FEC"

huh

9:18 AM

i dont exactly need uuid. i just needed device node, /dev/sdc.

@unNaturhal (out of curiosity) what was your Windows partition named?

@Bob Mmmmh.. C:\?

@Mahesh Ok, wait :)

@unNaturhal I mean the label

@Bob It hasn't label

@unNaturhal and grab the iso i gave you.

@Bob /dev/sd1 must be his windows install.

9:20 AM

Riservato per il sistema seems like System Reserved, which is the standard active/bootloader partition

The actual Windows installation is not usually named that

umm...

@Mahesh Got it

@Bob Right

I guess Data is your, well, cross-OS data partition

that means..... he messed with windows install?

umm... still.. lets give it a try.

"Riservato per il sistema" is a partition of windows, large 100MB, but I dunno what it does

9:21 AM

So possibly the missing sda2 or sda4?

@Bob Exactly

@unNaturhal Yes, that's System Reserved

That's where the BOOTMGR and Boot Configuration Data normally lives

The actual Windows folder normally lives on another partition (and is over 100MB)

okay, i'm now skeptic. if your windows partition is not listed, things may not ork, but still....

@Bob Yeah, windows folder is about 20GB

@unNaturhal Can you find it?

Is it possible to mount some of those partitions and list the contents?

9:23 AM

@Bob Not from lubuntu as it seems... Yesterday, from the second installation of win7, I can find

okay. lets give things a try.

sudo dd if=/path/to/iso of=/dev/sdc

substitute the path there.

@unNaturhal ...you had a second installation?

@Mahesh However I got the sudo umount command, but nothing happened

...

you could have just created a repair disc from there :\

wait

@unNaturhal the disk should've got unmounted. no probs, proceed.

9:25 AM

you installed Windows again on the same drive?

uh.. even after getting GRUB to chainload BOOTMGR, there's a chance we'll have to fix the BCD - it might be pointing to the newer (and now destroyed) installation

nope. he said he installed it on the partition where fedora was, and then installed lubuntu on to the new windows.

@Bob i have a nice tool that can take care of that. :P

@unNaturhal done?

@Bob Yes, the laptop has an only one drive with more partitions

@Mahesh Yes

you should have got an output saying some mb copied, and average speed.

@Mahesh Yea, which is on the same drive.

@Mahesh yeah

alberto@alberto-Presario-CQ62-Notebook-PC:~$ sudo dd if=/home/alberto/Scrivania/super_grub2.iso of=/dev/sdc
14268+0 record dentro
14268+0 record fuori
7305216 byte (7,3 MB) copiati, 2,19436 s, 3,3 MB/s
alberto@alberto-Presario-CQ62-Notebook-PC:~$

9:28 AM

In any case, if Linux is no longer going to be installed, the end goal should be to remove all traces of GRUB

okay. now write things down.

@Bob Yeah _

@Bob and thats what i'll do. lets give things a try.

@Bob I tried su -u username but I just got the help content instructing me to use the proper syntax. Thanks for your help though :D

@Mahesh What? :o

9:29 AM

you will reboot and boot into usb.

@ShyamK sudo -u, not su -u

and then, you should see a menu.

the second entry should be.. 'Detect any operating system'

select it.

@unNaturhal Wait, are you chatting from a different computer? (you said you had a Windows XP installation)

it takes a minute or two, and should give you a list.

if you find windows in that list, select it. your windows should boot up.

login, and ping me then.

if you dont find windows in that list, probably i need to dig up something else.

@unNaturhal clear?

@Bob okay that worked.. but I was just able to create that user and not log in as the same user... which is what I want.. I wanna log in as that user.. I shall try something and get back to you.. Thanks :D

9:34 AM

@Mahesh Clear :) However, I try to steal the pc of my brother to connet here from it :p

@Bob ** create that folder... I mis-typed create that user

@unNaturhal okay, then tell me if you find windows in that list or not.

@Mahesh Okay :)

@Mahesh Ehm wait

I have to reboot with the usbkey plugged in?

yup

Okey!

9:38 AM

and, select boot options, and boot from usb

@Mahesh Okey perfect :)

I go, fingercrossed

@unNaturhal good luck :P

9:54 AM

i'm afraid he deleted his windows partition altogether, in which case, he should reinstall it totally.

umm... it should not've taken him this long.

I guess the aliens abducted him.

:P

@Mahesh He wants to keep the data on there

In which case, partition recovery may be required...

O.o

It kinda depends on how the second Windows installation was done

9:56 AM

yup.

on an unrelated sidenote, this is funny.

nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2012/08/06/…

2

The second windows was just an install, then remove?

if so he should find most of his data intact with recovery tools

as of now, I have no idea.

as it won't have all been overwritten :)(

no one knows what he actually did. o.O

he removed fedora, wrote windows over it twice and then installed lubuntu on it as well.

it's like a royal mess.

hehe true, then again recovery is always better than a repair in that kinda scenario... Getting his data is more important than repairing a very likely damanged OS install :)

recover, then nuke n pave

10:00 AM

yep

(love that phrase)

:P

wanna hear something cool - i posted something on serverfault

a couple of months ago, a certain website doesn't open on some PC's

yesterday i got a comment from one of the web guys that works on the website

on serverfault

woah

bear in mind i'd only included the name/URL on one of the logs i posted

10:02 AM

@HaydnWVN If the partition was intact, a repair is easy

@jokerdino u'll be around for a while, right?

If the partition is damaged, then no :P

@Mahesh yeah probably

okay. I GTG.

@Mahesh ok cya

10:03 AM

if he returns succesfully, i.e, if he booted into windows..

@HaydnWVN o.O

ask him to grab this and run it. I dont remember the options, but with no args, it prints usage help. use that to help him.

as he hadn't heard back from me (i only replied a few minutes ago)... He called me. Bear in mind I'd not contacted him... He must've got where i worked from my email address lol :)

@Mahesh ok depends on when he returns and when i knock myself out.

@HaydnWVN O.O

@Mahesh That's on the repair disc

10:05 AM

@bob hear what Mahesh said. :P I might doze off anytime soon :p

@Bob this is that website problem i was having a few weeks back serverfault.com/questions/405365/…

Along with other tools

Actually, from memory, bootsect isn't the correct tool to use... more like fixmbr

yup. All I dont understand is....

@HaydnWVN Yea, I saw :P

why didn't he make a recovery disk if he reinstalled windows?

10:07 AM

@Mahesh Well, he can either download a proper Win7 ISO or install Win7 on that partition again, boot into it, create a proper repair disc, uninstall Win7 and try that. This is ignoring non-Windows options.

umm.. from recovery mode, fixmbr is what should be used, but i stopped using windows long ago, and this one worked a good number of times in fixing friend's pcs, so i rely on this.

@Mahesh Probably didn't know it was possible/useful (a lot don't) or assumed the DVD has it (it doesn't for some reason)

probable.

okay, BBL. GTG.

@Mahesh bootsect is for switching between NTLDR (XP) and BOOTMGR (Vista/7). Ah well.

@Mahesh Bye..

meta.superuser.com/posts/5357/revisions

:/

10:12 AM

@Mahesh Oh, there it is. bootrec, with options like /fixmbr and /fixboot

@Sathya Answer: Get more badges.

@HaydnWVN It's fun when the developer/maintainer of software people ask about happens to be on SE :D

@Mahesh I'm from the stealed pc :p

I rebooted and now i'm in the menu

In the menu there are three entries:

Linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.35-32-generic-pae
Linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.35-32-generic-pae (single)
Windows Vista (hd1, msdos1)

Vista? o.o

@unNaturhal Both Vista and 7 use BOOTMGR (same bootloader)

@Bob Oh god..

And he said earlier, select Windows.

I selected the third entry but it gives a black screen with some errors....

10:25 AM

@unNaturhal What errors?

wut

user image

2

Windows failde to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause. To fix problem:
1. Insert your Windows installation disc and restart your computer.
2. Choose your language settings, and thhen click "Next".
3. Click "Repair your computer".
If you do not have that disc, contact your system administrator or computer manufactorer for assistance.
File: \Boot\BCD
Status: 0xc0000098
Info: The Windows Boot Configuration Data file doesw not contain a valid OS entry.

@unNaturhal Ah.. that's what we suspected

Your second Windows installation broke the BCD, which now has to be fixed :P

Well, let's fix it!

uhm

@Bob Only the BCD? The data are save?

@unNaturhal Should be. Unless you overwrote the partion at some point - I can't tell from here.

If you have a spare HDD, you should boot off a Live CD and back up your data

If the partition is missing... Uhm... That will have to be recovered.

@Bob I payed attention on this. I'm reasonably sure to haven't overwritten it..

@Bob I don't have an extern HD :(

10:32 AM

@unNaturhal Depends on how you installed Lubuntu/Windows

ok

two goals

verify the partition exists

and repair the BCD if it does

@Bob On the empty space where fedora was

I know @Mahesh's method detected a Windows bootable partition

@Bob Ye :)

But the Windows bootable partition is that System Reserved one, not the one that holds the Windows folder (and your data)

Mmmh

I tried another time, but the third entry don't wanna collaborate... same error

And now? :(

10:38 AM

hm

so, you have a live CD?

A lubuntu live cd, and the installed lubuntu

Try sudo fdisk -l to list partitions

Be very careful of typing mistakes here :\

From live, or from the installed?

Either..

I'm personally more comfortable with Windows :P

I reinstall windows on lubuntu? xD

Ok, got it

10:42 AM

Can you put the output in here?

@Bob Sorry, the mini pc doesn't work well..

This is the output: imageshack.us/photo/my-images/717/201208071242261366x768s.png

so

sda1, NTFS, 100MB. That'll be System Reserved

Yeah

Is helpfull if I say that my Windows installation was about 60GB?

sda2, NTFS, approx 60GB

partition is intact

yay

Yeeeeeeeeee!!!!

10:47 AM

so, now we need to fix the BCD...

hmm...

not many options for editing the BCD in Linux. Ideally, you'd have a repair disc, but you don't...

Mmmmh

If you assure me that the iso file I dowonloaded works, the download ends.. so I could burn it on a dvd

wait a sec

Yes

well

you have a couple of options

you can download the full DVD iso (~3GB) and burn that

you can install Windows again and burn a CD from there (be careful not to destroy that partition!)

@soandos I don't have Linux.

10:54 AM

Mmmh

you can run a virtual machine on your Lubuntu install, install Windows there and burn from that

So the .iso that I donwloaded doesn't works?

you can try to find a recovery image download (not officially offered by MS)

@unNaturhal Wait, what iso is that?

@Bob This is the safest way :D

Dropbox uploading bug

10:55 AM

@Bob The one that you linked me.. I take from that post.. do you remeber?

@unNaturhal So you have that iso already?

Yes..

Then burn it! :P

X17-59465.iso

This is the name

(3.3GB)

That should be fine

10:56 AM

Ok, I burn :)

...if I find the burn software...

K3b? This is the name?

yes, that should work

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