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Botched my win7 install by partition resizing, can it be recovered?

Red Squirrel

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
So I wanted to repartition my drive to make room for Linux and I wnated to use grub as my default bootloader so I wanted the /boot to be the first partition. So I resized and moved the windows partitions to the end of the drive and installed Linux at the start.

Now windows wont load. I get a generic error that windows can't boot due to an inaccessible device (or something to that nature) and to run a repair. Well when I try to run repair with the exact same (legit) CD that I used to install with, it says it's not compatible.

Within Linux I can mount the partitions and see all the files, so I know they arn't corrupted.

Since they got rid of boot.ini and the boot stuff is all proprietary non user editable now, there's not much I can play with to fix it.

Before I do a clean install, do I have any chance to get this working at all?
 
/boot can be safely on second partition...
my suggestion is to backup your windows partition via some image software, format whole hard disk, and then restore windows on 1st partition, and install linux on second.
 
So is that what the issue is, windows has to be first? I do recall something about <1024 cylinder, is that strictly a windows thing? I thought whatever partition that is bootable had to be within that space, so since /boot is it, I figured it would have to be first. But is it windows that has to be there?

I'll delete Linux and move windows back to the start and see if that works then reinstall Linux at the end. I cannot run any windows based utilities given I cannot even get into Windows at all, so any "fix mbr" type utilities wont work for me. Unless there's something I'm missing? Can I use Wine to run it from Linux? How are these utilities normally run? Even with the windows CD, it refuses to let me attempt a repair (which I'm guessing would present me with the recovery console) as it says the OS is not compatible which is silly given I'm using the exact disc used to install it in first place.
 
You messed with the Windows System Reserved Partition, didn't you? There was a reason I told you not to do that... :|

There is no way I know of to easily recover if you trash that partition. I don't even know if it's possible to recreate it without a reinstall of Windows. Try this and see if it gets you anywhere.
 
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Well now this is great. So I wiped the whole drive and reinstalled windows from scratch. First boot, screen is all sorts of blocky colors.



Unusable. Great, somehow windows can't work on this computer anymore. I've already wasted away a lot of wear and tear on my SSD trying to reinstall so many times, moving partitions around etc... I'm done.

So I'm back to Xbuntu and guess whether I like it or not, that's what I'm using on this computer from now on. So far I think I'll like it though. Hopefully win7 will install in a VM and hopefully I can game in that VM. Worse case scenario I may have to install 7 on my old machine for gaming. Though the whole point of this upgrade was so I can play newer games. I'm regretting more and more building this machine. Nothing but problems from the get go. I don't know if I want to keep throwing money at it, or just sell it to soffen the losses, and forget about all this. But if Linux can run fine on it, then I just have to make due with what I have and forget about gaming for now.

I don't get why they made dual booting so hard. It was so easy before. Just make room, install other OS, and it just works. Now it seems so touchy. If I do end up getting windows to work think I'll just get a separate drive for it and setup some kind of A/B switch for the power so only one drive is powered at a time, so it should technically boot off that one. I'll have to test it on a separate HDD first to see if I can even get it to work at all, since now it seems it wont even install at all, well it does, but the first boot looks like the pic above. There's some kind of weird isolated hardware issue with this PC that I've been trying to figure out from day 1, so that does not help.
 
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Red Squirrel said:
I don't get why they made dual booting so hard. It was so easy before. Just make room, install other OS, and it just works. Now it seems so touchy.
Click to expand...
It's not that touchy. But you did the one thing you are not supposed to do, which is to mess with that SRP after installing it. If you want to make it easy on yourself, partition your drive to your liking ahead of installing any OSes. Not only will you not have to make any major changes afterwards, but among other things Windows doesn't lay down a SRP on a pre-partitioned drive.
 
I had tried prepartitioning but it did not want to install. It just kept saying "windows cannot install on this device". If I deleted one partition and created a new one in windows, I'd get the warning that it will create other partitions, I clicked ok, and nothing happened.

And now if I try to install it standalone I get that screen I posted when I boot it the first time. Not sure what gives, seems that's something worse than just a boot issue. I gave up and wiped the whole thing and just used the whole drive for Linux. Think I'll order another SSD and then try to install windows again on that one with the other one unplugged. At least I'll have a working OS install to go back to meanwhile.
 
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Red Squirrel said:
So is that what the issue is, windows has to be first? I do recall something about <1024 cylinder, is that strictly a windows thing? I thought whatever partition that is bootable had to be within that space, so since /boot is it, I figured it would have to be first. But is it windows that has to be there?

I'll delete Linux and move windows back to the start and see if that works then reinstall Linux at the end. I cannot run any windows based utilities given I cannot even get into Windows at all, so any "fix mbr" type utilities wont work for me. Unless there's something I'm missing? Can I use Wine to run it from Linux? How are these utilities normally run? Even with the windows CD, it refuses to let me attempt a repair (which I'm guessing would present me with the recovery console) as it says the OS is not compatible which is silly given I'm using the exact disc used to install it in first place.
Click to expand...

The <1024 cylinder thing was a hardware/BIOS limitation so yes, it affected all OSes but hasn't been an issue for at least 5 years, maybe longer.

Both the fixmbr and fixboot tools are on the Windows install disc and can be run from recovery. If that doesn't work it's possible that some patch or SP is making the CD think it can't recover the installation. The only fix I can think of for that would be a slipstreamed disc.

And yes, Windows really is this bat-shit retarded when it comes to booting and partitions. It's almost as if MS took extra steps to make it more difficult to share a drive between systems. Other versions of Windows have had other issues similar to this, but they've all had some really stupid constraints.
 
Red Squirrel said:
I had tried prepartitioning but it did not want to install. It just kept saying "windows cannot install on this device". If I deleted one partition and created a new one in windows, I'd get the warning that it will create other partitions, I clicked ok, and nothing happened.
Click to expand...
Obviously you need to get your hardware issues sorted out first, but for future reference: http://www.mydigitallife.info/hack-...reserved-partition-when-installing-windows-7/
Nothinman said:
And yes, Windows really is this bat-shit retarded when it comes to booting and partitions. It's almost as if MS took extra steps to make it more difficult to share a drive between systems. Other versions of Windows have had other issues similar to this, but they've all had some really stupid constraints.
Click to expand...
It's not that retarded. Touching the SRP is just about the only way to screw up Windows. Virtually everything else can be fixed by laying down a new MBR and boot sector.
 
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ViRGE said:
It's not that retarded. Touching the SRP is just about the only way to screw up Windows. Virtually everything else can be fixed by laying down a new MBR and boot sector.
Click to expand...

It really is, pretty much every version of Windows has had retarded restrictions (artificial or bugs) that make it difficult to dual-boot.
 
I formatted the whole drive now, and wont try to reinstall on that disk. I'll order another SSD and install it on that one. That's sorta what I should have done from the get go but figured I'd try to save money and use the same one. While I wait for it to arrive I'll have to continue getting myself settled with my new Linux install. Lots of on the fly learning to do given it's my first time using it as desktop for my main machine. My original plan was to ease in but guess this is a good way to force me to learn faster.
 
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