Solved Deleted Recovery partition. Unable to boot into windows now.

[rajeshksv37]

Hi Friends,

Mine is Dell xps 13 ultrabook shipped with windows 7. I thought of installing ubuntu, so I unknowingly deleted recovery partition, formatted it and installed ubuntu. Now ubuntu is working fine. But in grub, I am not able to see windows. So I followed this tutorial How to Manually Repair Windows 7 Boot Loader Problems - How-To Geek to fix my windows. But it didnt work

In second screenshot, Windows 7 option didnt appear. I clicked next and did Startup repair which didnt help and then went to command prompt to execute the two commands

bootrec /fixmbr

bootrec /fixboot

The first command executed successfully but the second command gave me an error "the volume does not contain a recognized file system"

How can I recover my windows . Please help. I need windows badly

Thanks!

​

 

[jumanji]

Hi Rajeshksv37,

Welcome to SevenForums.

If you are in U.S.A, fill in the Media Request form and submit online. https://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dellcare/en/backupcd_form

Other than U.S.A., please contact DELL Technical Support in your country and request backup disc for your system.

DELL will send you the OS Reinstall Disk free of cost.

With it in hand, you may do a clean install and then install Ubuntu, Kubuntu or whatever.

Whatever other course you want to try, you are free to do it, but try to get the free OS reinstall disk from Dell. It will keep you in good stead.

 

[bassfisher6522]

What does it look like in your disk management window...can you post a screen shot of that please.

 

[rajeshksv37]

I cannot boot into windows Cannot post a screenshot

 

[kinghthood]

Hello,
Do you have an external DVD drive?
Because I believe that there is no DVD drive on this ultrabook to install windows on it, try to contact tech support check for the options that are available.

 

[whs]

Dell puts the bootmgr on the recovery partition. So when you deleted that, you lost the bootmgr.

What you can do is to activate the C partition - e.g. with the bootable CD of Partition Wizard. Then you can repair the bootmgr - best is by running a repair with the installation or repair disk 3 times.

 

[rajeshksv37]

I dont have a DVD drive but I can re-install windows 7 from USB. But I am trying to avoid reinstallation and try to fix things using system recovery tools (if exist)

 

[kinghthood]

bootmgr is deleted from the computer and last resort would to to reinstall windows on the computer

 

[whs]

bootmgr is deleted from the computer and last resort would to to reinstall windows on the computer

Not so - the problem of a missing bootmgr can be fixed relatively easily.

 

[MilesAhead]

bootmgr is deleted from the computer and last resort would to to reinstall windows on the computer

Not so - the problem of a missing bootmgr can be fixed relatively easily.

I wonder if someone made him a bootable USB key with Partition Wizard maybe he could just undelete the partition? All the stuff might still be intact.

 

[rajeshksv37]

Thanks whs for your suggestion. But I guess I tried the same - Restoring bootmgr using How to Manually Repair Windows 7 Boot Loader Problems - How-To Geek but still of no luck!

Can you please give me a good link/guide of restoring bootmgr ?

Or is it because I haven't marked C partition as active explicitly (donno if its active or not currently) but tried to restore bootmgr and so it failed ?

 

[jumanji]

OP has overwritten the Recovery partition with Ubuntu. So I think the recovery partition cannot be restored.

He has to try what whs has suggested.

The last option would be to clean install from the downloaded, same Wndows edition ISO and activate it using the COA-SLP key on the sticker.( He may also copy the recovery partition from a friend's lappie - same model, same Windows edition, if he finds one and provided he has not altered the partiton size.)

Whatever he does, I would recommend that he takes parallel action to get the free OS reinstall disk from DELL as in my post #2.

 

[rajeshksv37]

In many links (to restore bootmgr) it suggests to run only two commands

bootrec /FixMbr

bootrec /FixBoot


But in some links, it asks me to rebuild bcd also

bootrec /RebuildBcd
Do I need to do that as well ?

Do I need to run all the three commands or only some of them ? Please provide a good link for restoring bootmgr. Thanks

 

[dorruk]

Been through the same thing, and was too easy and took me 20 minutes to solve after 4 hours of research.
1- First install the operating system GParted Live on USB: GParted -- Download
2- Use the GParted app on the desktop to check your hard drive. If there's no NTFS allocated partition (probably C drive you installed Windows in) that is apparent, then the problem is obvious.
3- Close GParted and open Terminal on the desktop. Run the command testdisk. It can modify your hard drive. Just repeatedly press enter at every screen, without having to use up down arrows and different options. It will analyze and fix your drive and partition tables by default. It does not format the drive. No files will be lost.
4- Now close Terminal when done and check back to GParted. Your hard drives C: and D: will be back. Shrink/extend the volumes the way you like it and shut down GParted Live. Use another USB to install windows 7 back as it is.

I think this is the best you can do with a hard drive that is corrupt, as your PC says "file system not recognized"

 

[dorruk]

I know it looks like you've made progress with the boot files, but even if you had it fixed, how come you still expect to boot with this most likely corrupt drive? Having Windows 7 reinstalled will require less clicks and effort. After all, you're better off waiting 1,5 hrs installation rather than 1,5 hrs killing yourself playing around corrupt files.

 

[MilesAhead]

OP has overwritten the Recovery partition with Ubuntu. So I think the recovery partition cannot be restored.

Ok, I missed that on first reading. Every Linux I ever installed saved the MBR to a file. I would try putting it back and rebooting. Got nothing to lose at this point.

During grub install it should have saved MBR to a one sector file. 512 bytes. Check out dd command to write the 512 bytes to the disk. Also there may be a script for removing grub while restoring the MBR.

If there's no quick fix then the disk repair routine may be required.

 

[gregrocker]

Boot into Windows 7 DVD System Recovery Options or Windows 7 System Repair Disk to Mark Active Win7 or it's 100mb System Reserved boot Partition (preferred if you have it).

Then run Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times until Windows 7 starts and holds the System Active flags.

Be aware that sometimes GRUB can corrupt Windows 7 beyond repair when on the same HD. If problems persist I would delete it completely and then for any future Linux Dual Boots use separate HD's booted only via BIOS, or Dual Boot Ubuntu with EasyBCD - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki.

If this fails then everything possible to get unbootable Win7 started is in these steps for Troubleshooting Windows 7 Failure to Boot including the latest installer and tool to write to flash stick or burn to DVD to try repairs or reinstall.

 

[MilesAhead]

It's been a while since I did serious multiple OS on one system. Before giving up and doing a complete install I would check with these guys:
reboot.pro

Anything and everything about booting PCs in just about any OS you can find info there. I'm sure they've run into similar circumstances. There may even be a forum dedicated to backing out of bad dual boot scenarios.

 

[gregrocker]

SevenForums is probably the top resource on the web for consumer multi-boot issues, with over two million views and 1800 attended comments on our WIn7-XP Dual Boot tutorial alone. Nothing else including from MS even comes close.

 

[dorruk]

GParted guys, anyone? It does work!