Win 7 won;t boot after installing Ubuntu dual boot

[thebullfrog]

Hopefully I'm sticking this in the right forum, seems the closest to me at least. Sorry for the wall of text, but I'm trying to provide as much info as possible.

Anyway, I can't get Win 7 to boot after setting up dual boot (Ubuntu 10.10) on my GF's laptop. Been trying to solve this with help from the Ubuntu forums for several hours (I've been up all night) to no avail. I'll describe the problem and everything that has been tried so far. REALLY hoping somebody has an idea, I'm getting desperate.

I installed Ubuntu last night via the Live CD. Used the Live version to install alongside Windows and partition the drive, install Grub, etc. At reboot, after POST it would just go to a black screen with a flashing cursor. I could only run off the live CD. A forum member determined the Grub was trying to load from the wrong partition. We changed that and voila! Grub now loads properly. I can boot into Ubunto via Grub with zero problems. HOWEVER: when I try to boot into Win 7 from Grub, it just locks at the same flashing cursor of death screen. The 7 partition is till intact, I can see and access all the files on the 7 partition from within Ubuntu, however 7 will not boot. I have tried downloading and burning the Win 7 repair disk and doing all of the following:

Running the automatic Start Up Repair - several times. All it does is remove Grub, but booting still goes to the flashing cursor and I have to reinstall Grub again to be able to do anything after POST.

I have used the command prompt to run "bootsect /nt60 SYS /mbr". Has the same effect as above.

I have used all the bootsec.exe /fixmbr, /fixboot, and /rebuildBCD commands. Again, all have the same effect and I have to reinstall Grub to get anywhere.

I don't have an installation disk to try and just do a repair install because Asus apparently doesn't feel that I would need one of these. All I have is the recovery disks from the Asus AIRecovery application that want to just re-format the entire drive and start over. This isn't an option. It's my GF's laptop (mine gave up the ghost last week) and we both have WAY too much highly important data on here. Not to mention she would castrate me . Now from all my research the only other thing I've come across that sounds possible is that the boot flag needs to be set to a different partition. Somebody had a somewhat similar problem and it turned out the way Dell set up the system the boot flag had to be moved to a recovery partition and it worked fine. I'm wondering if Asus has something similar going on, but I can't figure out how to move the boot flag. I'm going on 12 straight hours of working on this now and really need some help.

 

[thebullfrog]

Figured out how to move the boot flag from within Ubuntu. Had no effect at all. That exhausts my last remaining idea. ugh.

 

[gregrocker]

Have a look at Barman's post here: http://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setup/83923-where-install-ubuntu-my-system.html#post733626

 

[thebullfrog]

That doesn't actually do anything to resolve the issue of Windows being unbootable.

 

[gregrocker]

You can recover Win7 by marking it Active, boot the Win7 DVD Repair console or Repair CD to run Startup Repair up to 3 separate times with reboots. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/105541-startup-repair-run-3-separate-times.html

Once it starts up, try adding the Linux install using EasyBCD 2.0 Add tab.

http://lifehacker.com/5403100/dual+boot-windows-7-and-ubuntu-in-perfect-harmonyIf this fails, here is the way Dual Boot is suggested to be done with Ubuntu: http://lifehacker.com/5403100/dual+boot-windows-7-and-ubuntu-in-perfect-harmony

 

[thebullfrog]

I did all that. Several times over. To no avail. I tried to reinstall windows a while ago which not only didn't work (hit an error about missing files part way through), then BOOTMGR disappeared altogether. I gave up and restored back to the factory imageusing Asus revocery disks from a different laptop. Thankfully, they didn't seem to notice lol. I managed to backup all our data onto an external drive using the Linux Live CD. I'm now working on getting everything re-updated, configured, etc. And my GF is going to make me reinstall and reupdate her copy of WoW. I'm in for another long night.

 

[thebullfrog]

Oh and BTW if you read my first post, Windows could NOT be made active. It was unable to boot at all. The bootloader was gone. Linux worked, Windows was as good as non-existant.

 

[gregrocker]

Oh and BTW if you read my first post, Windows could NOT be made active. It was unable to boot at all. The bootloader was gone. Linux worked, Windows was as good as non-existant.

I have read your first post again cannot see where you marked Win7 partition Active.

That followed by running Startup Repair up to 3 separate times is how to repair it's boot.

However we see many cases here where GRUB corrupts Win7 to where it is irreparable and the drive needs to be wiped for reinstall. For this reason it is best to keep Win7 and Linux on separate HD's if at all possible.

I'm assuming you found a System Repair Disk or were using WinRE from the F8 Advanced Boot Tools menu, but in case you need the Disk in the future here is the link: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2083-system-repair-disc-create.html

Here is how to reinstall factory OEM using any retail installer: http://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setup/125874-re-install-windows-7-a.html#post1086729

 

[thebullfrog]

Sorry, this was after about 24 hours of non-stop trying to fix the damn thing so I was a bit edgy. But yes I did try both of those. I also tried with the repair disk. Did nothing. I wound up using system restore disks from a different Asus laptop (same model) which thankfully didn't notice the difference. Trying to reinstall from a Win 7 install disk resulted in an error halfway through the install, after which BOOTMGR disappeared entirely. That's when I gave up and just re-imaged the drive. And yes, my GF is pissed at me lol.

 

[gregrocker]

Did you wipe the HD before reinstall? You might have infected code on the HD.

Formatting doesn't erase anything. Wiping with zeroes is all that will overwrite infected or corrupt code including in the boot sector.

For future reference: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/91339-ssd-hdd-optimize-windows-reinstallation.html