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The idea was to install Win 7 and Ubuntu with dual boot.

However, after installation, Gparted shows a /dev/sda1 as an 'unknown' filesystem and its size is 278 GB. All my windows files, data are in this partition.

THen, there's /dev/sda2 with 'EXT4' filesystem (size-9.54 GB) - created during Ubuntu install.

Then, there's /dev/sda3 with 'extended' filesystem (size- 10.5 GB) - created during Ubuntu install.

Then, there's /dev/sda5 with 'linux swap' filesystem (size- 2 GB) - created during Ubuntu install.

Then, there's /dev/sda6 with 'ext4' filesystem (size- 8.5 GB) - created during Ubuntu install.

MY questions are:

  1. What exactly does this Gparted output above mean?

  2. How to recover my previous Windows 7 installation that's in /dev/sda1 (NTFS). I have some important files I need.

    • Also, I had a PGP encryption on the disk before installing Ubuntu. Now, it just boots straight into Ubuntu... why?

  3. How to uninstall Ubuntu (the Try ubuntu and uninstall did not work. the boot-repair did not work)

I have read other topics but noone has provided a proper step by step answer to how to recover my 278GB WIndows partition.

The testdisk step by step procedure did not work. It says the NTFS disk is unrecognized.

bain
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user285645
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  • Please stick to one question at a time. If you were using some sort of whole partition encryption that is why it shows up as unknown ( can't see through the encryption ) and since windows was not recognized, why the system now boots straight to ubuntu. Recovery will require you to restore whatever custom windows boot mechanism your encryption program was using, which is unrelated to ubuntu and so off topic. – psusi May 27 '14 at 03:19
  • You asked a couple questions, the one question (uninstall Ubuntu), requires you to remove Ubuntu and fix the Bootrec. The one that tries to repair your GRUB (the bootloader which can load both Windows and Ubuntu) is the sudo update-grub and running boot-repair would be to try and fix bootloaders for both Windows and Ubuntu. I am thinking you removed GRUB only. I added a link in answer if this is what you did. – No Time May 28 '14 at 14:29
  • possible duplicate of How do I recover my accidentally lost Windows partitions after installing Ubuntu? – bain Jun 01 '14 at 23:06

1 Answers1

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The output above means, that you have 5 partitions.

  1. dev/sda1 is Windows partition.
  2. dev/sda2 possibly Ubuntu.
  3. dev/sda3 is EFS, unsure why you have this.
  4. dev/sda5 is swap partition used by Linux to swap between memory and hard disk (done by Windows with page/swap file)
  5. dev/sda6 possibly Ubuntu.

I am unsure where you installed Ubuntu, but at this moment you have 2 ext4 (a file system used by Ubuntu, often) partitions. You also have ext (Extended File System). Ubuntu by default does not create partitions which you do not tell it to. You use a program within the install called Gparted to partition your drive. You may have messed up a bit there, and I am unsure where you installed Ubuntu.

Try going into Ubuntu open the terminal, and type:

sudo update-grub

Otherwise you may want to do boot-repair. You can follow the directions on how to use this here.

This may bring Windows back into your boot menu.

To uninstall:

How to remove Ubuntu and put Windows back on?

If you accidentally remove GRUB and want it back:

How can I repair grub? (How to get Ubuntu back after installing Windows?)

Community
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No Time
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    Hello, I did the 'Bootrec" steps - but now, I can't even boot into Ubuntu - there's only one hyphen cursor blinking in the screen. – user285645 May 27 '14 at 16:35