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#11
I've got to go out. Let's see if anyone else has any ideas.
In post# 1 you mentioned doing a backup and cleaning up the drive to reclaim disk space.
In the quoted post above, you also say that the machine was given to you.
Did you complete the backup?
What does the COA sticker on the bottom of the laptop (or in the battery compartment) tell you about the version of Windows originally on the machine. Does it say Windows 7 or Windows XP?
You want Windows 7 on the machine - correct? If the machine wasn't originally Windows 7, do you have a valid license key?
If you have a good backup of your data and a valid Win7 COA or license, then the easiest and probable best thing to do is perform a clean Reinstall. Everything is well defined in the tutorial.
Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7
If the backup wasn't completed:
Do you have much on the machine (it is old and it was given to you). I don't know how long you've had the machine or if the data on it is important to you.
You might be able to backup the data using a Linux boot, if you have a external device to store the backup.
If you do NOT have a valid Win7 license, there is nothing I can do to help you put Windows 7 on the machine.
The two key points are:
is your data safe?
and do you have a valid Win7 license (COA or Retail disc)?
Let's assume someone installed GRUB to boot Linux which is how that would have gotten there. If it was within the past two years then the newer GRUB should not require wiping the hard drive to avoid interfering with WIn7 repairs, but we'll have to see.
So boot into Win7 installation media or System Repair Disk to confirm that the 100mb System Reserved partition (if you have it) or C is Partition Marked Active,
then run Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times until Win7 starts.
If this fails boot the Partition Wizard boot disk (also a method to mark Active above) to take a camera snap of the drive map and listings, attach the picture file in Reply Box using the paper clip icon.
If you decide to skip to do the Clean Reinstall Windows 7 now it shows how to rescue your files in that tutorial, and I would add the step to wipe the hard drive before reinstall using Diskpart Clean Command from the System Recovery Options Command Line in case this is older GRUB which interferes with Win7 boot until its code is wiped.
We'll I've giving up going to pass it on to someone that no's a lot more than me so can I just thank everybody that gave me advice and time to help me thank you all very much I'm hoping that I will never have to trouble your good selfs again but I carnt see that happing so thanks again. I'm going to close the thread... but I will pop back to let you no the out come of this adventure that I find myself hopefully with some good news and answer thanks again:)
I just gave you steps that should resolve the problem for you as they have for many others with Grub bootloader asserting itself like it has here. Are you going to quit before trying these steps?
I never been that technical myself I no you have put more advice so what I'm doing is giving that advice to him. as I no he will understand it a lot better than me he as the disc and tools to hopefully solve the issue so not giving as such just delegating it ...
OK keep us posted and let us know if you need any more help.
I've seen something similar myself (during the past week).
I rebuilt my system last month and I re-purposed the old OS drive for data (i.e. deleted all partitions and then Quick Formatted the entire drive as NTFS).
Whilst I was playing around with another HDD, I discovered that the old OS drive still contained GRUB-Rescue, which kept popping up at inconvenient times.
That is interesting. So Windows could not delete/format that portion of the hard disk?
Would we need to use a Linux program to do that (Partition Wizard)?
I assume that a Full Format would have deleted GRUB-Rescue, but I'm not sure and who has 3 days to spare to do that in any case.
My Linux-using friend looked up some info and he said that the code was apparently placed in the "empty" space between the MBR and the start of the first partition.
You can get a tool to remove it ("boot-repair").12.04 - Grub rescue after removing Ubuntu? - Ask UbuntuHere is what you need to do:
- Burn an Ubuntu ISO image onto a USB Drive or a DVD to make a Live USB/DVD.
- Boot into Live mode ("Try Ubuntu" option).
- After it boots up, press "Ctrl + Alt + T" to bring up the Terminal.
- Put these codes ONE AFTER ANOTHER.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install boot-repair
- After doing this, open the "Dash" (Search menu). It can be accessed by "Alt + F2"
- Search for "Boot Repair" (Although just entering Boot will give you the app).
- Open it and select the only option (Recommended one).
- Reboot. You will no longer get the GRUB Error after this, and will boot straight into Windows.
You can also do it with Ubuntu installed. In case you want to Uninstall ubuntu, first follow the above instructions, then after you are in Windows, install EASUS Partition Manager and delete the Ubuntu partitions (the ones that are NOT ntfs formatted)