I had a dual boot machine with Windows 8 and Deepin linux on it. Last week I removed WIndows 8 and installed windows 8.1.   After installing Windows 8.1 grub was removed. I followed  to restore grub.  After repairing the machine restarted but for some reason after restarting in the middle of booting it shutdown.  Now the machine is not booting into any of the OS installed - it shows error message like "no boot device found please insert boot device and press any key".  I tried booting a live CD and it appears I have lost all my partitions and data.   I think it got formatted.  Is there any way to recover the lost partion data. If yes, how?  What all the requisites for that? is it possible to recover data into the same harddrive or do I need an external harddrive to store recover the data?  I Googled and got many tools which are available, but none have proper documentation on how to recover. My problem is I am not able to access any of the OS, so how can I to use the mentioned tool?  There are some bootable data recovery tools, but I dont know how to use them.
42064
I have a dell laptop that recently "died" (It would get the blue screen of death upon starting) and the hard drive would make a weird cyclic clicking noises.  I wanted to see if I could use some tools on my linux machine to recover the data, so I plugged it into there.  If I run "fdisk" I get:  Disk /dev/sdb: 20.0 GB, 20003880960 bytes 64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 19077 cylinders Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes Disk identifier: 0x64651a0a  Disk /dev/sdb doesn't contain a valid partition table   Fine, the partition table is messed up.  However if I run "testdisk" in attempt to fix the table, it freezes at this point, making the same cyclical clicking noises:  Disk /dev/sdb - 20 GB / 18 GiB - CHS 19078 64 32 Analyse cylinder   158/19077: 00%   I don't really care about the hard drive working again, and just the data, so I ran "gpart" to figure out where the partitions used to be.  I got this:  dev(/dev/sdb) mss(512) chs(19077/64/32)(LBA) #s(39069696) size(19077mb)  * Warning: strange partition table magic 0x2A55. Primary partition(1)    type: 222(0xDE)(UNKNOWN)    size: 15mb #s(31429) s(63-31491)    chs:  (0/1/1)-(3/126/63)d (0/1/32)-(15/24/4)r    hex:  00 01 01 00 DE 7E 3F 03 3F 00 00 00 C5 7A 00 00  Primary partition(2)    type: 007(0x07)(OS/2 HPFS, NTFS, QNX or Advanced UNIX) (BOOT)    size: 19021mb #s(38956987) s(31492-38988478)    chs:  (4/0/1)-(895/126/63)d (15/24/5)-(19037/21/31)r    hex:  80 00 01 04 07 7E FF 7F 04 7B 00 00 BB 6F 52 02   So I tried to mount just to the old NTFS partition, but got an error:  sudo mount -o loop,ro,offset=16123904 -t ntfs /dev/sdb /mnt/usb NTFS signature is missing.   Ugh.  Okay.  But then I tried to get a raw data dump by running  dd if=/dev/sdb of=/home/erik/brokenhd skip=31492 count=38956987    But the file got up to 59885568 bytes, and made the same cyclical clicking noises.  Obviously there is a bad sector, but I don't know what to do about it!  The data is still there... if I view that 57MB file in textpad... I can see raw data from files.  How can I get my data back?  Thanks for any suggestions,  Solution:  I was able to recover about 90% of my data:   Froze harddrive in freezer Used Ddrescue to make a copy of the drive Since Ddrescue wasn't able to get enough of my drive to use testdisk to recover my partitions/file system, I ended up using photorec to recover most of my files
80385
I am just about to install Ubuntu alongside Windows, just need to make sure I know how to remove it later.  I know from past the major problem was when I removed Ubuntu, I either still got into the GRUB booting menu, or I couldn't boot at all, and had to format HDD and start over. Now I found an article practically saying the Windows loader should be back upon deleting Linux partition, so I want to make sure:  If I have Windows and Ubuntu dualboot, and I want to get back to Windows booting quickly itself without choosing from any booting menu, is it enough to just delete the Ubuntu partition? Will the Windows loader override GRUB?  Thanks!
69466
I sent this to boot.repair@gmail.com, still no response thought I could get a faster solution here.  I am running Windows 7 64-bit and Ubuntu 12.04 LTS on separate partitions.  The message is sent is:  Boot-Repair URL:    Originally I was unable to access Ubuntu after a windows update (Ubuntu was installed using wubi). Rather than logging into Ubuntu from the Windows 7 Bootloader, it lead to the grub> command prompt.  No matter what I did here, it would not log me into linux.  As a result I uninstalled Ubuntu from the Add/Remove Programs application in Windows 7.  I then re-installed Ubuntu 12.04 LTS using a liveCD-USB.  This time however, I created a partition.  I then restarted and got the GRUB bootloader which loads Ubuntu 12.04 LTS with no problems, however when I select windows (listed as "Windows 7 (loader)"), it just refreshes the grub bootloader instead of loading Windows 7.  I then used the Windows 7 repair disk to run bootrec/fixmbr and bootrec/fixboot.  This led to no bootloader coming up when I started my computer.  Instead I got a blank black screen with a flashing white cursor.  I went on to do a bootrec/buildbcd and bootrec/scanos.  These did nothing to change the situation.  When I ran bootrec/scanos it said that no Windows 7 installations were present.  After this I decided to reinstall WIndows 7 only for this to do nothing to change the situation.  Afterwards I did a boot-repair in which I began to get the GRUB bootloader, which would load ubuntu 12.04 LTS, but still would not load Windows 7.  I also did a sudo update-grub which recognized Windows 7 as being installed, but still didn't fix the issue of loading Windows 7.  While running Ubuntu I have no problem accessing my WIndows 7 partition which is formatted as NTFS.  It shows all the files and folders reflecting that the re-install did take place, and it also shows all of my old applications and folders in the Windows.old folder.  I am completely stuck at this point and have no clue what I should do next.  Any help you can offer me will be greatly appreciate.  Thank You  --gap
56438
I purchased an Acer Aspire M5-481PT-6688 which came preloaded with Windows 8. I wiped that, reinstalled my own bloatware-free copy, and tried to dual boot Ubuntu 13.04 on it. It has a hybrid drive, so when I installed it running alongside Windows, Ubuntu was installed to the SSD and Windows is on the HHD. I later removed Ubuntu via formatting the SSD and now I'm stuck at the grub rescue&gt; prompt. The error says: no such device. No matter what key combo I press (F2, F8, F10, F12, Esc, Del) I cannot access my BIOS nor can I boot from the CD/DVD drive or USB.
81439
I am using Acer Laptop one day before my Hard Disk is not detected in BIOS and not booting it's shows Insert Boot Disk and I am try another H.D.D it's boot perfectly in my Laptop but,I want detect and recover my data on not detected hard disk. I am not experience about Hard Disk please, can any one help me how to recover my data from not detected Hard Disk.
12970
I installed Ubuntu (I had already had Windows 8.1) from USB (I still have live Ubuntu on it). Is there a way I can uninstall Ubuntu in a way that my Windows will remain bootable? All the tutorials I have seen say that uninstalling ubuntu will delete GRUB also so I will need a Windows recovery CD to boot into it, but I don't have one. Is there a solution?
118948
While doing a fresh ubuntu install (dual boot with XP using resize), I somehow managed to install grub to the source usb instead of to the harddrive. Normal harddrive boot goes straight to XP. Booting from USB leads me to grub. From there i can boot into ubuntu. Pretty cool actually, but not what I had in mind.  How do I install Grub to HD?   How do I recover my USB?
38182
I've experienced some freaky data loss in Windows 7 &amp; tried to recover the files. (.) The work data is safe but I also decided to copy everything missing back into Windows directory &amp; rebooted thinking that the recovery mode would be a better option for rolling back to a restore point. Shockingly, the only options System Restore gave me were from November 2010 (2.5 years old) despite many updates &amp; installs since. I thought that only the dates were corrupted but when I scanned for software to be affected by the roll-back, the list included everything installed since then. On top of that, something got screwed up in the OS and I can't boot even into Safe Mode - the system BSODs supposedly on compbatt.sys (which I've already tried to copy from the original distro).  Since I have many settings not saved, I don't want to perform a clean install of the OS. The problem is that the install disc keeps on telling me that upgrade can be performed only from the fully-booted system and not from the recovery mode. This is very annoying because all previous versions of Windows could be upgraded from DOS or PE.  Thus, the question is: how can I fix my OS without formatting the drive if it's not bootable &amp; System Restore is broken?
100815
I've read several answers to related questions here, but have not found one that matches my situation.  I assisted a colleague to reinstall Windows 7 from a recovery partition. We then booted into Windows, shrank the Windows partition (/dev/sda3) and the installed Ubuntu 12.04 (we partitioned the remaining space into / (sda5), /home (sda6), /swap (sda7) and free space for another Windows drive later.) I specified GRUB to install to /dev/sda. /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2 were recovery/system partitions.  After rebooting, grub showed the Ubuntu boot options in the menu, and an option for a Windows recovery on /dev/sda1 and a similar one for /dev/sda2. It did not show an entry for Windows 7 on /dev/sda3. I booted into Ubuntu and ran sudo update-grub, but this failed to detect Windows on /dev/sda3. I checked the contents of /dev/sda3 and Windows is still there.  I hope I can resolve this soon, as this is not a good first impression of an LTS release to someone who has just decided to start using Ubuntu/GNU/Linux!
1096
I installed Windows 7, which ate Ubuntu's boot file. When starting up the computer, it now goes straight to Windows, without giving me the option of booting Ubuntu.   How can I get Ubuntu back?
46283
I had a Windows 7 installation on my 1TB SSD laptop with 4 primary partitions. I wanted to install Lubuntu Linux but the process failed with an error which kind of said:     cannot write MBR   It gave me an option to put an MBR somewhere else or to boot without MBR. None of these options worked and it became a useless install. After this failed dual boot attempt, Windows would give a BSOD wit Code 007 ending - translated to inaccessible boot device. That is a huge NTFS partition and I don't think I have any other media to back it up before formatting it.  My only option is somehow rebuilding the old MBR. Hence I started creating a whole bunch of live USB boot environments  including Super GRUB Disk and MiniTool Partition Editor Live CD, but none of this could ever help me recover my lost MBR.  Win PE 4.0 reported the partition as bad disc and the latest version did not even have an option for MBR. I managed to create a live USB with Testdisk Running on Ubuntu. Whatever partition was seen as HPFS on quick  search was written in the MBR and after this the disc is totally unreadable. Earlier I could see my data through Linux and now I can see nothing.  Here are my questions:   When some data could be read (but Windows would not boot) the MBR was shown as dynamic MBR. As far as I know dynamic MBR is a Windows concept and my Linux attempt would not have converted it. While installing Linux I tried to delete 2 primary partitions which I found to be not really useful (I backed up their data first). So I am not sure what created the dynamic MBR.  Did my dual install convert those basic MBR to dynamic MBR? How did that happen? Here is a screenshot of my deep search attempt with TestDisk which is still in progress. I can see 4 NTFS partitions and one of these two system partitions should be the original MBR. When I tried to write both these system partitions (after stopping the deep search momentarily) I got an error like "partition not found". The file system utility showed me that there is no backup sector and that may be the reason why it cannot be read.  What other Resorts do I have, other than doing a plain format and then using some recovery tool to recover all my lost data? I am not even sure I will recover the folder names.  What other options should I be trying to restore my old MBR so Windows can boot?      Update  as of last I managed to create a live USB w/ W7  I used AOMEI Partition assistant 6.0 and on deeper  search I can see the 909 gb partition - it wont let me select it for recovery. I am sorry if my earlier Q was not clear. I referred to restoring an MBR from a partition . What happened earlier  - superficial search revealed all old partitions but NOT this one   and the later partitions showed up on Deep search &amp; I can select Other partitions for recovery but for this one. It wont let me select the partition I want  Here are some more screen shots    So in summary all that happened is   4 primary windows 7 partition -->  wanted to install Linux so I deleted 2 non bootable partitions after backing them up  ended up with BSOD ( inaccessible boot device ) and noticed that some windows partitions showed up as Dynamic MBR  (using Live USB Linux,gparted )  Use standard testdisk procedure to write MBR from the superficial NTFS-HDFS partition.  this is where I screwed up . Hindsight I should have really done a deep search and caught the 901gb partition to write MBR. I am not sure if I can undo this action  after this - life gets worse. I am  on a ventilator ! Now C is unreadable by windows and linux both and testdisk cannot list file ( see screenshots ) and I have been using a series of live USB's with some recovery s/w but no luck. ALL I want is to recreate that 901gb partition and the boot partition and put the MBR on the latter so I can get my windows 7 back again
25686
I was dual-booting Windows 7 and Linux Ubuntu on my desktop, and today is the day they gave out free Windows 10 upgrades.  How exciting!  I got the update, and it was installing, and I left to go take a 30 minute nap.  However, when I came back to my computer, it led me to the grub rescue prompt.  error: no such partition. Entering rescue mode... grub rescue&gt;   I get the following when I type ls:  grub rescue&gt; ls (hd0) (hd0,msdos5) (hd0,msdos3) (hd0,msdos2) (hd0,msdos1)   After a quick look through of people who encountered the grub rescue prompt, I typed set and got the following  grub rescue&gt; set cmdpath=(hd0) prefix=(hd0,msdos6)/boot/grub root=hd0,msdos6   I was still kind of lost after finding that certain commands like normal didn't work, and then I found a video tutorial where you boot from a Linux image cd and run some commands on the terminal.  Luckily, I had my CD with me, and booted from there.  When I typed sudo fdisk -l into the terminal however, this is what I got:  ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l  Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0xc03ede74     Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System /dev/sda1   *        2048      206847      102400    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda2          206848  1547022335   773407744    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda3      1547022336  1547943935      460800   27  Hidden NTFS WinRE /dev/sda4      1547945982  1953521663   202787841    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA) /dev/sda5      1915731968  1953521663    18894848    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT   Says here none of my devices has the Linux system in them!  And I couldn't follow the video tutorial any more than that...  I teased my brain a little and determined that sda2 contained my Windows system (since I remember my C: drive has around 700-ish GB of space).  After thinking a little bit more, I remember assigning around 200-ish GB of my hard disk space to something that's Ubuntu related when installing Ubuntu.  I don't exactly remember which, but I think it was basically Ubuntu "hard disk space", and it didn't have any boot files in them.  I assigned two other things for linux, but they were very small in size (not breaking the 1 GB mark yet).  So, can anyone here help me out get my upgrade back on track?  I won't mind if I end up having to completely remove the partitions that have Linux in them.
55365
I have an X-series Asus laptop which I just bough about a month ago. I want to dualboot Ubuntu - Windows.  I can easily access LiveUSB with both UEFI enabled and disabled. I heard that there were problems with UEFI, so I disabled it. After I've installed the system I couldn't access it. It just boots to Windows straight.  Another unusual thing, that never happened to me before was that the partition editor wanted me to create a BIOS reserved area, which I did, but not at the beginning of the table.  Any ideas how to access the Ubuntu partition?  As far as I can guess both Windows and Ubuntu have to be both of the same type of boot, either Legacy or EFI. This is not the case of what I have now. So, if I reinstall Ubuntu in UEFI mode that correlates with my Windows type, will I then be able to boot into it?  I have a constraint, my laptop doesn't have a CD ROM, so I cannot reinstall WIndows, nor can I move around the Windows recovery partition.  This is the boot-repair report :    SOLUTION  I've enabled UEFI in BIOS, and reinstalled Ubuntu with UEFI enabled. It works fine now, although if I select Windows from the GRUB menu, it doesn't work. But I can live with that, since I can just select Windows boot from the BIOS instead.
29713
When the bootloader (GRUB) is broken, I cannot access neither Ubuntu nor Windows.  I heard that an easy solution to fix this is to use the Boot-Repair tool from an Ubuntu liveCD (or liveUSB).  What are the steps to do this?
45751
Today I installed Windows 8.1 and it broke my GRUB. I tried to run the boot-repair GUI on a live session of Ubuntu but after the restart of the PC GRUB displays ONLY Ubuntu.   Before the installation I had on the first HD Ubuntu installed alongside with Windows 7 and the grub displayed both of them without problem.  After I installed Windows 8.1 on the second HD the boot loader(?) was replaced with the Windows one and I could select only between Windows 7 and 8 to boot, but not Ubuntu.  How can I fix GRUB now? I wish GRUB could displays all the three OSs (even if different HDs). If not possible I wish I could just choose which HD to boot and then the grub to displays correctly the OS of that HD.  This is the  (broken link).
19
My new laptop came preinstalled with Windows 8. Naively, as I am, I just formatted the harddrive and installed fine old Ubuntu. Now I want to install Windows 8 for dual boot again, but I have no DVD and to download the ISO one needs a product key. That key is not on the back of the laptop anymore but somewhere on the mainboard.  Is there any way to recover the product key from the mainboard using Ubuntu?
54508
I have a Windows 10 computer. This morning it restarted into a blue screen with error code Inaccessible boot device.  There are no recent hardware changes. Also I think it was not after a Windows update installation. At least I chose Restart to restart, and not Update and restart as usual before an update installation.  According to other posts related to this problem I tried the following:   Restart into save mode: no success, the same error displays Restart into recovery console: The system partition usually mounted as C: is available as D:   chkdsk d: /x completes without finding any error. I conclude, that the problem is not related to a hard disk failure. bootrec /fixboot completes with success.  bootrec /scanos completes with a message Number of Windows installations identified : 0. Why doesn't it find the Windows installation, even though it is available under D:\ ? sfc /verifyonly has found integrity violations, but sfc /scannow finished with the message The Windows resource protection was not able to complete the operation.  System restore to a previous restore point: After a (long) while, the task completed, but without solving the problem. Booting from the Windows Installation disk:   I tried the option Repair Windows: It was not possible to roll back to a previous restore point Update Windows keeping programs and files seems to work only when booting first into the current installation to do an upgrade. It cannot be done while booting from the installation disk (as it was the case in previous versions of Windows).     Is there anything left I could do before reinstalling Windows 10 ?  Edit: Now there is the second computer with the same problem within 2 days. This smells like an epidemy (caused by a bad Windows update ?)  This time I tried:   Restart into save mode: no success, the same error displays System restore to a previous restore point : No success, it offers to try from another restore point.   I stopped here. I just don't want do make a mistake that forces me to reinstall it.