It Gone Bad!

612 Views 12 Replies 4 Participants Last post by JMT668, Mar 13, 2009

JMT668

Discussion Starter · Mar 10, 2009

my friend recently split a 750GB Sata into 3 partitions and installed Vista 64Bit, Win 7 and Linux on each partition respectively i has worked fine for over a week but when he turned on the rig today it wouldnt boot up!

it just says cannot find operating system!

the HDD is getting power and is working or so it seams any ideas on how to fix this as i have tried resetting the bios and giving the HDD a gentle tap but still no luck!!

all ideas appreciated as we are both stumped!

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Shadow_UGZ

· #2 · Mar 11, 2009

The master boot record is corrupted, try installing GRUB, LILO or another boot loader. (Vista/Win7's boot loader can be installed with the DVD but it won't detect the Linux partition)

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soundx98

· #3 · Mar 11, 2009

good advice ^^ Rep +

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JMT668

Discussion Starter · #4 · Mar 11, 2009

ok so how would i got about doing that?

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Shadow_UGZ

· #5 · Mar 11, 2009

The easiest way would be to reinstalling Linux but if you have a live cd you can install it from terminal, here is a guide

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JMT668

Discussion Starter · #6 · Mar 13, 2009

I have tried to install linux again but no luck, I can put the HDD into another machine and view the files but cant boot from it using any machine, any ideas?

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Shadow_UGZ

· #7 · Mar 13, 2009

Does he have more than one drive? this can also happen when the other drive is used as a boot drive.

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JMT668

Discussion Starter · #8 · Mar 13, 2009

Hey yeah sorry to specify he has a 750GB divided into 3 partitions each NTFS with Windows 7 and Vista and an old 15Gb with Ubuntu, he used to load using GRUB then repartitioned the main drrive and added Windows 7 which worked fine without grub popping up, after a week it seemed to be unable to detect the main drive even in GRUB

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Shadow_UGZ

· #9 · Mar 13, 2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by JMT668

Ahhhh, well in that case go into the BIOS and switch the boot order of the drives

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JMT668

Discussion Starter · #10 · Mar 13, 2009

no luck mate tried both? still will only show linux options through Grub. any more suggestions?

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Shadow_UGZ

· #11 · Mar 13, 2009

Grub still works? Ok unplug the linux drive, use the Windows 7 DVD or Windows Vista DVD to install it's boot manager. Then replug the linux drive and reinstall Grub. Grub cannot detect the Windows partitions because the previous windows bootloader was replaced.

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thiussat

· #12 · Mar 13, 2009

Go to the

/boot/grub/menu.lst

file and make sure it says the following:

Quote:

title Windows Vista
root (hd0,1)
makeactive
chainloader +1

You can change the "title" to anything you want. You can make two of these entries: one for Vista and one for Win 7.

The thing you might have to change is the

(hd0,1)

What you enter here for the Windows partitions will vary on which drive it's on. If Windows is on the first drive, enter (hd0,1). The first number is the drive number and the second number is the partition. So if Vista and Win 7 are both on the first disk, then do something like:

(hd0,1)
(hd0,2)

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JMT668

Discussion Starter · #13 · Mar 13, 2009

Thanks everyone especially Shadow! managed to sort it after unplugging Linux drive and repairing bootloader through Windows Vista disk, We have Windows!

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