[SOLVED] Win 7 / Ubuntu dual boot grub problem

[graphicks]

I am using Windows 7 and Ubuntu on a Dell laptop. Both have worked perfectly until now.
Yesterday some updates were made to the Windows 7 recovery partition. Afterwards, grub gave an error and would not boot. The error was something like "Grub can't find the character "x"... (with x being different every time it failed).
I booted into a live CD of Ubuntu and reinstalled grub. Multiple boots into Ubuntu were fine. However, one boot into Windows and the problem returned. I can reinstall grub from the live CD and boot back into Ubuntu multiple times. It will even boot into Windows once. After one Windows boot, it will again cause grub errors. I would like to keep Windows, but I insist on Linux. I'm almost ready to abandon Windows, but thought I'd look for a way to save it before giving up.
Should I use the Windows disk and run bootrec.exe, before reinstalling grub? Any other ideas before I try it?

[coopstah13]

probably you have some kind of malware on the windows installation, if this keeps occurring

[graphicks]

Well, I did a full scan with McAfee and found no malware. Yet when I rebooted, I still got

GRUB loading
symbol 'xxxxxx' not found
Aborting. Press any key to continue.

xxxxx is different with each attempt, but the result is the same. Reinstalling grub using a live CD gets me back up. But that one Windows boot is all that it will do. Any other ideas before bootrec.exe?
Thanks coopstah13, for the reply. It was worth a scan.

[zeppy]

Hi,

I am have identical problems, Dell laptop, windows 7, ...

Please let me know if bootrec.exe fixed your system.

Thanks.

[ptkobe]

People, have you google for it?

Try "grub symbol not found" and tell us if it helps. Quite a few pointers for the Dell DataSafe Local Backup (DDSLB) thing, for example.

Regards
Luis

[graphicks]

OK. So ptkobe was correct. Uninstalling Dell Data Safe Local Backup and Dell Data Safe Local Backup Support. seems to have eliminated the problem. Just to be safe, I also uninstalled Dell Online Backup. Now the problem seems to have gone away completely.
Of course, after this, I once again had to reinstall grub (for the last time).
Hope this helps others with similar problems. Now we know to blame Dell.

Thanks,
Greg

[nathanheston]

I have been pulling my hair out for two days trying to figure out why I couldn't get my new dell inspiron set up to dual boot win7 and ubuntu. I partitioned it exactly as I wanted, windows worked. Installed ubuntu and it worked. Then booted windows which worked. But after shutting win7 down for the first time grub2 stopped working. Just removed "dell datasafe local backup" reinstalled grub. Now finally everything is working together smoothly.

Thanks for the tip.

By the way. I am living in Africa and browsing for answers isn't so easy. But without the internet I would have been forever stuck and blaming windows instead of Dell. I love the internet