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So when I select windows 7, it bounces back to the boot loader.

Only way to fix so win7 can boot is load windows install DVD and bootrec.exe to repair the mbr. Then linux wont boot, only way to fix, is boot a liveusb and run boot repair, then windows 7 wont boot. Here is the pastebin link http://paste.ubuntu.com/12245491/

And before all this mess, my linux install corrupted gnome shell so it refused to boot and I could only boot ubuntu regular desktop. SO I reinstalled ubuntu and got gnome shell working and this is when windows quit working. I have a separate /home partition and had 2 drives, one just data, the os's and /home are all on one drive. I have disconnected the extra drive to be less confusing for grub???

It used to work fine. So what has happened?

Prashant Chikhalkar
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Scott Downey
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  • You cannot install grub to a NTFS partition. Grub really only should be installed to a drive like sda. Because grub is in NTFS partition, a Windows boot loader that just jumps to the NTFS partition actually loads grub. But then Windows will never work. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootSectorFix AND: http://askubuntu.com/questions/655290/grub-is-not-letting-me-switch-to-windows-8-dual-boot-process-ubuntu-15-04/655486#655486 – oldfred Sep 01 '15 at 17:14
  • I posted another pastebin. Looking at these pastebins, is that what happened to me? sdb in the first pastebin was a usb flash drive. – Scott Downey Sep 01 '15 at 18:52
  • Ok I see the difference I think. So why did boot-repair not fix this the first time it ran? Do you think running win7 program bootrec /fixboot then allowed boot-repair to write in the correct place? How did grub get written to the wrong place, on the reinstall of ubuntu? I do recall an option of where to install grub and I selected sda, not sdb, that was when 2 hard drives were in the system and I was reinstalling ubuntu. – Scott Downey Sep 01 '15 at 19:01
  • It looks like some Boot sector repair was made. Boot-Repair does not do that as far as I know. But Operating System: Windows 98 Does not look correct. From Windows or your Windows repair flash drive run chkdsk on sda1 or c: "drive". – oldfred Sep 01 '15 at 21:02
  • yes, strange win98??, that was on the report which did not result in a booting windows. The second run of boot-repair shows it correctly, and it boots win7. So how would you remove grub from an NTFS partition from the commandline, apt-get remove grub?, then reinstall grub? The boot-repari allows someone to erase grub, could you erase grub, then reinstall, sudo apt-get update grub? – Scott Downey Sep 01 '15 at 21:45
  • You do not erase grub in MBR or partition boot sector PBR. You normally just install another boot loader to MBR or refresh grub. But in PBR, you have to have the Windows boot sector. It now says it is correct. So either some Windows repair or testdisk fixed it. Boot-Repair does flag NTFS partitions with issues to auto run chkdsk, but chkdsk can only be run from Windows. Testdisk or other major Windows repairs are the only way I know to fix a NTFS PBR. – oldfred Sep 01 '15 at 22:38
  • Thanks for the info. Somehow though consider, If I ran the recboot /fixboot command in windows DVD install disk, windows repairs itself and boots. But from Ubuntu if I run sudo update grub, it again writes to the MBR grub and also writes to the NTFS partition again the grub, so how does it remember to do that on to the NTFS partition when it should not? I would have hoped it would have worked but it kept cycling through as described in my first post until I told boot-repair to erase grub. – Scott Downey Sep 02 '15 at 11:41
  • Someday I may experiment with deliberately creating this problem on another PC to experiment what exactly happens since now I know more of what to look for. Before this discussion, it was like looking into a black box. – Scott Downey Sep 02 '15 at 11:49
  • If you incorrectly installed grub to the NTFS partition originally, it will remember that as the location to reinstall on major updates. The Boot-Repair uninstall/reinstall would reset that. You can see that setting: http://askubuntu.com/questions/503417/how-to-prevent-ubuntu-from-overwriting-grub-bootloader-after-update/503446#503446 – oldfred Sep 02 '15 at 15:21

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Inexplicably, I managed to get it booting both win7 and ubuntu!

Ok, I also managed to get the odd plop usb flash boot loader to run. It showed 2 partitions, both were called HDA1? Selecting either one booted win7.

So I pulled the power plug. Then I booted liveusb ubuntu 14.04 Then I reran again boot -repair Instead of selecting normal repair, I went to advanced and told it to erase grub completely. Then it ran and eventually pops up a warning, 'If I remove grub computer will be unbootable', so I clicked cancel. Then I ran boot-repair again here is the new report http://paste.ubuntu.com/12247350/ So I shut down and verified both win7 and ubuntu now boot fine.

Could it be that when I told boot-repair to erase grub completely, but still cancelled at the warning, that it made some changes??, and that is why it now works again?

Also there are two .iso files, I chose the bigger file to write to usb. plop boot loader shows up in unetbootin as 'default' entry. click it and it loads an almost unreadable red window with lines running thru it. picture of it. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Y...2/DSCN0347.JPG

(We were trying plop to see what might be able to boot.)

Scott Downey
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