[SOOOLVED!] Can't boot Windows after ASPM fix

[felixlizarraga]

My Sony Vaio VGN-NW350F laptop (pretty run-of-the-mill, 2.2Ghz C2D, 8 gigs of RAM) is double-booting Windows 7 and vanilla LM 12 Lisa (with several DEs installed on top of the basic Gnome variations. My favorites are KDE and LDXE. Just saying).

I noticed that the laptop was heating noticeably more under Linux than Windoze, so I did some research and installed the ASPM fix. Funnily enough, I had my first crash ever hours AFTER installing the fix --the laptop got very hot to the touch and became so unresponsive I had to turn it off using the power button. (I was using Gnome, in case it's relevant.)

I'm on KDE now (installed Psensor and the temps are consistently between 42-52 degrees Celsius), and can't boot back into Windoze --which I read could happen, but not always. How do I fix GRUB so I can boot Windows again (if it's GRUB what needs fixing, anyway)? I barely use Windows anymore, but it could be helpful to compare temps, and to have the option if I absolutely have to use a Windows program that Wine can't handle.

TIA

[mads]

Hi. Boot from your live DVD and follow the steps described here.
If any problems, or something is not clear enough, just ask.

[felixlizarraga]

Hi. Boot from your live DVD and follow the steps described here.
If any problems, or something is not clear enough, just ask.

Hey,

Thanks for the help. I booted from the Lisa DVD, installed Boot-Repair, and tried reinstalling Grub 2. TWICE. One time with the easy method, the other using the long one. Both times I got the same result. I have no problem booting from Linux Mint (I'm here again), I still can't boot from Windows...

The Windows partition appears shaded in all Boot-Repair menus, and cannot be chosen. I wonder what happened.

The good side (there's always a good side to everything): I'm finally starting to get the whole command line thing. I mean, a lot of you people seem to take it for granted, but for me the whole sudo nano shuffle touch mini apt-yadda-yadda-hip-hip-hurrah thing is Greek...

[felixlizarraga]

Update. Before repairing Grub, every time I selected Windows on the boot menu the screen would blink and return immediately to the same boot menu.

After repairing grub, I go to an empty black screen with a blinking cursor on the top left corner that just sits there until I press the power button.

This is what Grub looks like now:

http://imgbin.org/index.php?page=image&id=6883

[xenopeek]

Please follow this link and download the boot info script: http://sourceforge.net/projects/bootinfoscript/

After downloading, open the zip file and extract the .sh file. Then open a terminal in the folder where you extracted the file (from the Nautilus menu, File > Open in Terminal). Then run the following command and provide your password:

Code: Select all

sudo bash boot_info_script.sh

It will finish shortly, and have created a file RESULTS.txt. Please upload that here for us to have a closer look at the partitions and boot configuration.

[felixlizarraga]

Please follow this link and download the boot info script: http://sourceforge.net/projects/bootinfoscript/

After downloading, open the zip file and extract the .sh file. Then open a terminal in the folder where you extracted the file (from the Nautilus menu, File > Open in Terminal). Then run the following command and provide your password:

Code: Select all

sudo bash boot_info_script.sh

It will finish shortly, and have created a file RESULTS.txt. Please upload that here for us to have a closer look at the partitions and boot configuration.

Vincent,

Thanks for helping! One small newbie question, though: how/where do I upload the text file? Or should I simply paste the text here?

Thanks again!

[xenopeek]

Ah If you zip it you can upload it here; when you post a reply you see a tab "Options" and "Upload attachment" beneath the text field where you enter your reply. Click Upload attachment and upload it there. Or post the contents of the file on http://pastebin.com and share the link here.

[felixlizarraga]

Thanks again for the detailed instructions! I hadn't noticed the Upload attachment option on the forum menu.

Apparently, it does not like the .txt extension, though, so I had to resort to the pastebin.com solution. Here's the link: http://pastebin.com/E43KkcnC

[mads]

I can't see anything wrong in your "RESULTS.txt". Try to reinstall Grub by this method:

1) Boot with your Linux Mint live CD/DVD
2) Open a terminal window (Menu > Terminal), and run these commands:

Code: Select all

sudo mount /dev/sda5 /mnt
sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sda

3) Restart your computer
4) Boot normally (i.e. not with live CD/DVD) to your Linux Mint installation, and run this command:

Code: Select all

sudo update-grub

[xenopeek]

I do see a problem:

sda1: __________________________________________________________________________

File system: ntfs
Boot sector type: Grub2 (v1.99)
Boot sector info: Grub2 (v1.99) is installed in the boot sector of sda1
and looks at sector 550347184 of the same hard drive
for core.img, but core.img can not be found at this
location. No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
Operating System: Windows 7
Boot files: /bootmgr /Boot/BCD /Windows/System32/winload.exe

That looks like you accidentally also installed Grub2 to /dev/sda1, the Windows boot partition. That's not going to work... I'm not sure how you will recover Windows from that.

[felixlizarraga]

I do see a problem:

sda1: __________________________________________________________________________

File system: ntfs
Boot sector type: Grub2 (v1.99)
Boot sector info: Grub2 (v1.99) is installed in the boot sector of sda1
and looks at sector 550347184 of the same hard drive
for core.img, but core.img can not be found at this
location. No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
Operating System: Windows 7
Boot files: /bootmgr /Boot/BCD /Windows/System32/winload.exe

That looks like you accidentally also installed Grub2 to /dev/sda1, the Windows boot partition. That's not going to work... I'm not sure how you will recover Windows from that.

Hmmm. I saw that when I read the file, and wondered why Grub2 was in the Windows partition. Now I'm wondering however I managed to do that. I took the precautions to run Gparted and took down the partition names... Well, the fact is that I reinstalled Linux Mint a couple of times when things got too funky, so you never know.

Now I'm wondering: if I reinstall Windows, would I be able to boot into Mint?

Thanks a lot, Vincent!

[xenopeek]

Now I'm wondering: if I reinstall Windows, would I be able to boot into Mint?

Yes, but first you would have to reinstall Grub2 to /dev/sda. You can easily do that with Boot Repair from the Live DVD. See here https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot- ... _in_Ubuntu

[mads]

... if I reinstall Windows ...

Reinstall should not be necessary. If you have the installation DVD, it is possible to repair boot sector with 'bootrec /fixboot' command.
How to Manually Repair Windows 7 Boot Loader Problems

[felixlizarraga]

Wow, excellent! A solution for each problem!

I'll try both shortly and post the results.

Thanks guys! You're the best!

[Tool_Max]

Hello,
I have a similar problem posted in the Dutch forum http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=67&t=95236
After installing Linux Mint the dual-boot option in grub with Windows7 won't work anymore. I'm unable to boot my Windows7
and I've tried everything to repare this in Linux and Windows. My windows mbr was damaged and unrepairable.

After trying all the options mentioned here now my grub is also broke and also unrepairable. When you use the option
"Purge and reinstall the Grub of" from the Boot-Repair tool, first make a copy of your boot/grub folder to a usb-stick.
When you use this option the Boot-Repair tool will delete all the files in your boot/grub folder and then it should reinstall
the new files. To me this went terribly wrong. It kept telling me that my boot/grub folder wasn't empty although it was and
therefore it wouldn't proceed with installing the new grub-files. This means that I now couldn't boot Linux Mint also!

*SOLUTION*
In my search for a solution to reinstall grub I found a tool called Rescatux at this link http://www.supergrubdisk.org/category/download/rescatuxdownloads/
This program would be able to repair grub and also the mbr from windows. When you still can run Linux Mint then you should download this iso from the link
and then burn this to a blank cd. This is a bootable cd and after reboot the program Rescapp will appear. There are several options like Grub and Windows and when you
select one then a complete explanation appears with what it could do. To repair your windows mbr you have to select Windows(+). From there you can find how to
repair your windows mbr. After thats finished, you should reboot your pc with a Windows7 recovery disk and when you choose to repair your computer you should
now be able to see and select your windows7 operating system. Select this and press next and then select the command prompt option. Here you enter the command

Code: Select all

bootrec /fixboot

You now should see the message "The operation completed successfully". Now you can reboot without any boot-cd and your Windows will finally start again!

After this you will now have to find a solution to restore the dual-boot with Linux Mint again, but maybe this could be explained by someone else how this should be properly done.
For me, I will have to found another solution becausse my Mint installation could not be restored due to the lost grub-files. Perhaps I will have to completely reinstall Linux Mint
from scratch, but maybe someone can explain me how I should do this best without any hassle.

I hope that this will help you and that you can repair your Windows boot like I did.

[felixlizarraga]

Hey,

Thanks for all the good info, and for taking the time to help.

I have run into an additional problem, though. I got this laptop months ago with Windows 7 Home Premium installed, but no disks. And I already had a Windows 7 Pro disk I bought a year back to use in Parallels for Mac with a supposedly kosher VLK key that wasn't kosher and has already expired on me.

So I used the disk to try and do the fixboot thing, but it doesn't want to, or can't. And of course I can't install Windows Professional, because I don't have a key...

My options seem to be finding a legit Windows 7 disk, or try and see if the (very few) Windows apps I need work well with Wine --in which case I will simply delete the Windows install and be DONE with it.

[felixlizarraga]

Update:

I finally got a Windows Home Premium disk. This one didn't give me the Repair option, so I just reinstalled Windows. When it finished, my computer was unbootable. I used my LM 12 DVD and Boot Repair to reinstall Grub2 to the dva partition, and I'm back in business, but Windows still refuses to boot, reinstallation nonwithstanding.

Now I'm REALLY stumped. What the heck is going on?

[felixlizarraga]

Well, I formatted the Windows partition and reinstalled Windows from scratch. Everything went well, except Grub was gone, and I could only boot Windows. Tried reinstalling Grub2 on dev/sda5 --where it should be by right-- using the advanced options in Boot-repair, but hit a dead end: I followed instructions and purged Grub, but couldn't reinstall because "Grub is still present."

After several attempts --including booting time and again from the LM 12 installer disc-- I caved in, deleted all my Linux partitions using Gparted and am reinstalling LM 12 --from scratch, too, and crossing my fingers. No biggie, in the sense that all needed files are safely stashed away in Dropbox and Ubuntu One, but my LM 12 installation was getting kinda cozy already, and I'll have to reconfigure all that. Whatever.

[xenopeek]

Well, too late for you, but for any other readers... Grub should have been reinstalled to /dev/sda, not /dev/sda5, as pointed out earlier. /dev/sda, a.k.a. the MBR, is where the Grub bootloader should be put. When you reinstalled Windows, the MBR was overwritten by code from Windows, which doesn't by itself offer to boot other operating systems on your computer (Grub does).

[felixlizarraga]

Well, too late for you, but for any other readers... Grub should have been reinstalled to /dev/sda, not /dev/sda5, as pointed out earlier. /dev/sda, a.k.a. the MBR, is where the Grub bootloader should be put. When you reinstalled Windows, the MBR was overwritten by code from Windows, which doesn't by itself offer to boot other operating systems on your computer (Grub does).

It seems that I made a bigger mess of things that I had thought. I didn't read again all the good stuff on the thread. However, the first time I ran Boot-repair last night I did the automatic thing, which should have reinstalled or repaired Grub on /dev/sda, and nothing happened. So I directed it (twice) to do it on /dev/sda5, which now I realize was the wrong thing to do, as you justly say.

All in all, in the end I'm happy I had all these problems. I have learned more than I possibly thought I would, and this thread is so chockfull of knowledge that I'm sure will be useful for other newbies. And I have to say it again, coming from the Mac world, I am amazed at the patience and the courtesy lavished on bumbling newbies like myself. Rock on, guys!