Ubuntu/win7 Bootloader Problem

[masterp]

Hi, I have a similar problem. Here is the sequence of events.

1. Had windows 7 installed (worked fine)
2. began installation of open suse but canceled it. However open suse installed boot loader. Windows worked fine from that boot loader.
3. Installed Ubuntu, which installed its own boot loader. Ubuntu boots fine now. However now when i click on windows in the Ubuntu bootloader it takes me to the previous suse boot loader. From the suse loader when I select windows, the windows boots for a little bit (till the moving windows screen) and then the computer restarts by itself.

Any recommendation what I should do?

[Jonathan183]

Did you boot from the Ubuntu live CD or did you put it in the drive while you were running Windows ...
post the output of

mount
sudo fdisk -l

[masterp]

I installed it by booting from a live/bootable disk. I left the windows partition intact and re-modified other logical partitions to install Ubuntu. Here is the code you requested.

Disk /dev/sda: 640.1 GB, 640135028736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 77825 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x2c310862

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 1 992+ 42 SFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 * 1 13 102400 42 SFS
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda3 13 13068 104862720 42 SFS
/dev/sda4 71589 77826 50097153 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 71589 77826 50097152 83 Linux

[Jonathan183]

Your fdisk output suggests you only have a single Linux partition on the hard drive sda5 ... can you post the mount output?
Also post the output of
sudo cat /boot/grub/grub.cfg

[twoHats]

I have found that Grub in Ubuntu will place the boot targets in the wrong order. This has beern around for a while. If you see a windows recovery entry - try that. If it comes up with the recovery stuff cancel out. On mine, for 2 versions of Ubuntu and 2 versions of Mint the Windows boot entry and the Windows recovery entry were reversed.

Unfortunately, since Grub has made itself complex beyond need, I cannot tell you how to fix the problem (Grub 2 tutorial) - only a workaround.

[masterp]

Below are the requested outputs. One more thing I noticed is that when I boot windows cd to repair/install a fresh copy it doesn't detect the hard drive at all.


purvag@purvag-ubuntu:~$ mount

/dev/sda5 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
none on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
none on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
none on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620)
none on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
none on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
none on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
none on /lib/init/rw type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/purvag/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=purvag)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)




purvag@purvag-ubuntu:~$ sudo cat /boot/grub/grub.cfg
[sudo] password for purvag:
#
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE
#
# It is automatically generated by /usr/sbin/grub-mkconfig using templates
# from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub
#

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/00_header ###
if [ -s $prefix/grubenv ]; then
load_env
fi
set default="0"
if [ ${prev_saved_entry} ]; then
set saved_entry=${prev_saved_entry}
save_env saved_entry
set prev_saved_entry=
save_env prev_saved_entry
set boot_once=true
fi

function savedefault {
if [ -z ${boot_once} ]; then
saved_entry=${chosen}
save_env saved_entry
fi
}

function recordfail {
set recordfail=1
if [ -n ${have_grubenv} ]; then if [ -z ${boot_once} ]; then save_env recordfail; fi; fi
}
insmod ext2
set root='(hd0,5)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 80067f44-fd97-4906-abd3-b59c622a44d5
if loadfont /usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2 ; then
set gfxmode=640x480
insmod gfxterm
insmod vbe
if terminal_output gfxterm ; then true ; else
# For backward compatibility with versions of terminal.mod that don't
# understand terminal_output
terminal gfxterm
fi
fi
insmod ext2
set root='(hd0,5)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 80067f44-fd97-4906-abd3-b59c622a44d5
set locale_dir=($root)/boot/grub/locale
set lang=en
insmod gettext
if [ ${recordfail} = 1 ]; then
set timeout=-1
else
set timeout=10
fi
### END /etc/grub.d/00_header ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ###
set menu_color_normal=white/black
set menu_color_highlight=black/light-gray
### END /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###
menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 2.6.32-32-generic' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
recordfail
insmod ext2
set root='(hd0,5)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 80067f44-fd97-4906-abd3-b59c622a44d5
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-32-generic root=UUID=80067f44-fd97-4906-abd3-b59c622a44d5 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-32-generic
}
menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 2.6.32-32-generic (recovery mode)' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
recordfail
insmod ext2
set root='(hd0,5)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 80067f44-fd97-4906-abd3-b59c622a44d5
echo 'Loading Linux 2.6.32-32-generic ...'
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-32-generic root=UUID=80067f44-fd97-4906-abd3-b59c622a44d5 ro single
echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-32-generic
}
menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 2.6.32-28-generic' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
recordfail
insmod ext2
set root='(hd0,5)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 80067f44-fd97-4906-abd3-b59c622a44d5
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-28-generic root=UUID=80067f44-fd97-4906-abd3-b59c622a44d5 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-28-generic
}
menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 2.6.32-28-generic (recovery mode)' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
recordfail
insmod ext2
set root='(hd0,5)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 80067f44-fd97-4906-abd3-b59c622a44d5
echo 'Loading Linux 2.6.32-28-generic ...'
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-28-generic root=UUID=80067f44-fd97-4906-abd3-b59c622a44d5 ro single
echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-28-generic
}
### END /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ###
menuentry "Memory test (memtest86+)" {
insmod ext2
set root='(hd0,5)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 80067f44-fd97-4906-abd3-b59c622a44d5
linux16 /boot/memtest86+.bin
}
menuentry "Memory test (memtest86+, serial console 115200)" {
insmod ext2
set root='(hd0,5)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 80067f44-fd97-4906-abd3-b59c622a44d5
linux16 /boot/memtest86+.bin console=ttyS0,115200n8
}
### END /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###
menuentry "Windows 7 (loader) (on /dev/sda2)" {
insmod ntfs
set root='(hd0,2)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set c88c5fce8c5fb5a2
chainloader +1
}
### END /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries. Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment. Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.
### END /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###
purvag@purvag-ubuntu:~$

[Jonathan183]

I have found that Grub in Ubuntu will place the boot targets in the wrong order.

This could be the problem ... at the moment the bit which provides the Window entry is

purvag@purvag-ubuntu:~$ mount

/dev/sda5 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro)

from /boot/grub/grub.cfg

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###
menuentry "Windows 7 (loader) (on /dev/sda2)" {
	insmod ntfs
	set root='(hd0,2)'
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set c88c5fce8c5fb5a2
	chainloader +1
}
### END /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober

You can try adding entries for the other Windows partition ... if you post the output of

sudo blkid

someone should be able to post information for this.
(Ed: I'm thinking just put a modified version of the Windows grub information in /etc/grub.d/40_custom and running update-grub)

Your other alternating is to restore the Windows bootloader and add Linux to that ... I suggest you try getting Grub to load Windows correctly first.

[Lostfarmer]

Both of your NTFS partitions are listed as type '42' , dynamic disk. Is that the way you set it up ? Normally they would be basic disk type.

Try to mount and read the NTFS partitions, can you or does it give an error ?