0

I've been working on my dell-latitude E6420 with dual-boot windows 7 and ubuntu 15.10.

I've recently installed windows 10 and after I installed it, ubuntu disappeared.

After the installation the computer booted to "grub rescue". So, after some looking around I burned "Boot Repair Disk" on a usb drive and took the "recommended repair" option.

After running the "recommended repair" the computer boots into windows 10 (without giving me the grub menu before).

In the past I re-installed ubuntu on the same partition without formatting and I actually did not lose my files, so I thought I'd try that.
So I booted from the installation usb, and started the installation, picking the following options:

Install ubuntu -> continue (has at least 7 giga, not connected to the internet, didn't mark 3rd party software) -> something else -> .... And now I get to the problem: The next screen (Installation Type) has the following table: Installation type screen

sda1 is obviously the windows installation.

I think sda2 use to be for the grub and if I'm not mistaken, is suppose to be of type "swap".

sda5 is a partition I made so that I can have access to files also from windows and also from ubuntu.

sda4 is a "format all of your data and go back to factory settings" drive I've got the computer with.

and finally - "free space" is where ubuntu was installed and I have no longer access to...

I tried picking "free space" for the installation, but then it marks the "format?" checkbox, which I definitely don't want to do!! (I can't uncheck the checkbox manually).

I've also tryed (several times) to pick "try ubuntu" and get access to my files from there, so that I can back them up and then make a clean installation, but the only partitions I see when "trying ubuntu" are the 65gb (sda5) and OSDisk (sda1).

That's it. So, if any one can help me either getting access to my files or re-installing ubuntu without formatting the partition, I'd appreciate it a lot!!!!

Ma'or
  • 3
  • 1
    It is not showing a previous install. And with Windows 10 make sure fast start up or always on hibernation is off. If you had a Linux partition and installed Windows it deleted it from partition table but partition is still there, do not reinstall as that will erase it. http://askubuntu.com/questions/654386/windows-10-upgrade-lead-into-grub-rescue/655080#655080 If installing. Do not install swap nor / (root) to a NTFS partition. Use Windows to shrink a NTFS partition and make unallocated for / & swap, probably sda5 and immediately reboot into Windows and run chkdsk on it. – oldfred Feb 15 '16 at 14:36

3 Answers3

1

Your Ubuntu partition has been deleted. You may be able to recover it, but the problem is that Windows is hogging all four of your disk's primary partitions. (Side note: Based on the absence of an obvious EFI System Partition (ESP), I'm inferring that this is a BIOS-mode installation with a Master Boot Record (MBR) partition table.) To fix the problem, you should first be aware of some risks and take some precautions.

Basically, your Linux filesystems are probably intact in the unallocated section of the disk; however, any attempt to recover those filesystems runs a risk of accidentally overwriting at least some of the data. The best way to protect yourself from such an accident is to first back up the disk. To do this, you'll need a disk that's at least a little bit larger than your current one. Boot to an Ubuntu live image, mount the target disk, and then use dd to copy the original disk:

sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/path/to/lots/of/space/sda.img

This backs up /dev/sda to /path/to/lots/of/space/sda.img. (Note that it's conceivable that your current disk will become /dev/sdb or something else if you boot with a backup disk attached. Double-check this detail. Also, of course, you should adjust the of= value to point to wherever you've mounted your backup disk.) With a backup in place, you can try to recover your data from the original disk with greatly reduced risk -- if something goes badly wrong, you can restore the original by swapping the if= and of= parameters in dd.

The usual tool for recovering lost partitions is TestDisk. You can use it to see if it can find your Linux partitions. If so, TestDisk should be able to restore them; however, I'm not sure if it will be able to overcome the fact that Windows is now hogging all four of your primary partition slots. If TestDisk can't convert at least one partition from primary to logical form, you can do so with my FixParts program, which is part of the gdisk package in Ubuntu. Read the FixParts documentation to learn how to do this. Alternatively, you can delete one partition, if you can find one that's empty or that contains data of no value. Be aware that converting from primary to logical form can be risky because Windows will boot only from primary partitions, so if you convert the wrong partition from primary to logical form, you won't be able to boot Windows.

If TestDisk can't recover an entire partition, you may be able to recover individual files with PhotoRec. This process will be much more tedious, though. The last time I checked, PhotoRec didn't recover complete filenames or directory structures, so you'll spend a lot of time looking at files to figure out what they are and rename them appropriately.

As a side note, you're probably in this mess because you used logical partitions before, and Windows partitioning tools have long-standing bugs related to logical partitions, which frequently cause logical partitions to go missing or be damaged. This is one of the reasons I greatly prefer EFI-mode dual-boot installations, because they use GPT rather than MBR partitions, which don't cause so many problems.

Rod Smith
  • 44,284
  • 7
  • 63
  • 105
0

You should burn a clean ISO image of Ubuntu(i suggest LTS 14.04.3) via Universal USB Installer. Make sure secure boot is disables and Windows 10 fast start up and hibernation is turned off. Then finally install Ubuntu in the free space only(84.5 GB)

Ashu
  • 3,966
  • that is what I tried doing, but then the "format?" checkbox get checked with no option to uncheck it.... – Ma'or Feb 16 '16 at 22:00
0

Thanks a lot for all the help!!! So, what I ended up doing is using FixParts (through ubuntu on a live usb) to convert the partition from primary to logical. After that I ran "Boot repair disk" from a live usb and ran the "recommended repair" which fixed my grub menu.
Victory!!!!! Thanks all! Especially Rod Smith!!!!

Ma'or
  • 3