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I have decided to retry installing Ubuntu when 14.04 came out... and I doomed my computer again. I have Windows 7 installed, and I followed this guide to dual boot. After installation, I see the GRUB rescue screen, telling me there is no such device (followed by a rather long set of letters an numbers).

I am unable to boot into either Windows or Ubuntu. Last time I had this error, I just ran boot repair and it fixed it, but this time, even that won't work. (To install boot repair, I had to change the repository distribution to 'saucy', otherwise it doesn't find the package.)

I tried boot repair twice:

1: http://paste.ubuntu.com/7229503/

2: http://paste.ubuntu.com/7271773/

To at least save Windows, what are my options?

Edit: This is the BootInfo summary created by the boot repair tool: http://paste.ubuntu.com/7272011/

Luka Kotar
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  • possible duplicate of Boot error > no such device: grub rescue. Also worth reading are the answers to: How can I repair grub? (How to get Ubuntu back after installing Windows?). – karel Apr 18 '14 at 01:10
  • I have tried both solutions (the accepted answers), but it still doesn't work. Can I somehow just uninstall GRUB and revert to using a single OS? – Luka Kotar Apr 18 '14 at 01:53
  • I will try this solution to get Windows back up and running. One question before I do that: should I remove the Linux partitions? (EXT5 and Linux Swap) I'm just asking to be safe. – Luka Kotar Apr 18 '14 at 02:03
  • Before you change the ext4 and swap partitions, it would be a good idea to look at how to uninstall Grub and revert to using a single OS from the Ubuntu point of view: How to remove Ubuntu and put Windows back on?. – karel Apr 18 '14 at 02:17
  • Again, thanks for replying. I am looking at the OS-Uninstaller from the second-most voted answer, and I am unsure what settings to pick. In the "MBR Options" tab, I have a "Restore the MBR of: " field, and I am offered many choices. ("sdb (generic mbr)", "sdb (generic mbr_c)" (same options for the sda), and so on). I am in doubt as to which one to select.

    Edit: I am pretty sure the Windows bootloader is located on sda

     – Luka Kotar Apr 18 '14 at 02:41
  • Your Windows OS is important to you, so you shouldn't & don't need to guess the partition where the Windows bootloader is located. If you are running OS-Uninstaller from an Ubuntu live DVD, as it says to do in the answer you referred to, you can first run the Disk Utility app from the Ubuntu live DVD which will show you a graphical representation of all your partitions and their attributes. The Windows partition is likely to be formatted as ntfs, and there may be a Windows recovery partition as well if you have a laptop. The Win bootloader (MBR) is normally written in the Windows partition. – karel Apr 18 '14 at 03:14
  • Right now I tried repairing Windows using the disc which was used to install it on the computer, and it claims it isn't compatible with the currently installed version of Windows. I have no idea what to do. Looking all over the internet, and I can't even find out how to create a new "compatible" Windows disc. – Luka Kotar Apr 18 '14 at 03:56
  • I've seen that message before too. I'm not familiar with all the different ways of repairing the Windows MBR, there are too many. You can search for the topic on Superuser Q&A to get a general idea of some of the alternatives, for example this answer. – karel Apr 18 '14 at 04:29
  • Thanks a ton, Karel! I used Rescatux (as mentioned in the linked answer) to repair the MBR (unfortunately it took quite a few attempts to boot into Rescatux). Turned on the computer, I see an error. Now Windows is telling me it did not find the device. Boot into the CD, the repair failed again. I then booted into Ubuntu, and decided to delete the Linux partitions, and surprise! Windows CD repair worked, I just had to click a button! – Luka Kotar Apr 19 '14 at 00:45

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Luke, I used this to help me set up a dual boot with the previous ver of Ubuntu and Win 7: http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2014/02/01/dual-boot-windows-8-or-windows-7-and-ubuntu-13-10-with-ubuntu-on-a-btrfs-filesystem/

I used Ext4 rather than btrfs but it explains the concepts more clearly. I found I was able to to boot into Win7 but not Ubuntu and EasyBCD fixed my boot config. This may be the equivalent in Linux: http://www.supergrubdisk.org/

Steve
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