Member Avatar for lewashby

I recently upgraded my Ubuntu from 9.10 to 10.04 and now it's messed up my Windows Vista partition. When I try to load Windows it boots to a strange login menu with low resolution. It then takes me to a screen with options like Repair/Fix, Recovery, Complete Recovery... I'll click Repair and and then it will say No errors found, Shut down, Restart. Please help, thanks. And if all you're going to say is "why are you using Windows at all anyway", please don't leave a response at all.

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by helioptra

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The behavior reported by — an unexpected low-resolution, recovery-style menu appearing after the Ubuntu upgrade — usually means the machine is landing in Windows’ recovery/boot environment because the boot chain or the “active”/system partition changed during the Linux upgrade. is on the right track: the important task is to identify which disk/partition the firmware/MBR is trying to start, and then restore a coherent boot chain (either Windows’ BCD or GRUB in the MBR/EFI) without running the vendor “complete recovery” that will wipe user data.

Quick diagnostics and a safe first step (from an Ubuntu Live USB/DVD):

  • Inspect disks and filesystem types to find the NTFS (Windows) partition and any small “System Reserved” partition.
  • Check which partition currently has the boot/active flag.

Run these commands from a terminal in the Live session:

sudo fdisk -l
lsblk -f
sudo blkid

If important files exist on the Windows partition, copy them to external media from the Live session before attempting repairs. Avoid the OEM “Complete Recovery” option until a backup or image is taken.

Two common repair paths (ordered by least-destructive first):

  • Restore Windows bootloader (use the Vista/Win7 DVD Recovery Environment -> Command Prompt):
bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /rebuildbcd

This typically returns the system to native Windows boot. Reinstall GRUB afterward if dual-boot is desired.

  • Restore GRUB (from Ubuntu Live): either use Boot-Repair (graphical, often easiest) or chroot and reinstall GRUB manually.

Boot-Repair (from Live, network required):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y boot-repair
boot-repair

Manual chroot sequence (replace sdXY and sda appropriately):

sudo mount /dev/sdXY /mnt
sudo mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev
sudo mount --bind /proc /mnt/proc
sudo mount --bind /sys /mnt/sys
sudo chroot /mnt
grub-install /dev/sda
update-grub
exit

Cautions: running the OEM factory recovery will likely erase user data; ntfsfix is not a substitute for Windows chkdsk; confirm BIOS vs UEFI because EFI systems require different (EFI/efibootmgr) steps. Creating a disk image (Clonezilla or dd) before making changes is strongly recommended.

Member Avatar for helioptra

I recently upgraded my Ubuntu from 9.10 to 10.04 and now it's messed up my Windows Vista partition. When I try to load Windows it boots to a strange login menu with low resolution. It then takes me to a screen with options like Repair/Fix, Recovery, Complete Recovery... I'll click Repair and and then it will say No errors found, Shut down, Restart. Please help, thanks. And if all you're going to say is "why are you using Windows at all anyway", please don't leave a response at all.

What you are describing is the Windows boot manager trying to get your partitioning back to boot windows first. More than likely you put the boot commands on the other partition where you have linux installed. One of the easiest mistakes, (one that I have done before), is to update grub without putting the boot loader on the right boot partition. THere are a couple ways you can deal with this. You can reinstall Ubuntu 9.10 or 10.04 and make sure you have the NTFS partition listed and available to boot from as well as Ubuntu, and then install it grub the first (ie sda0,0) primary partition. This will pick up both windows and linux for booting. Then re-run upgrade if you like, but when it comes to setting up grub, make sure you specify, master boot partition and keep local setup as your defaults. Hope this helps. If not let me know and I will send you a link to the support docs to give you step, by step instructions. DO not reformat and re-install windows or it will just make matters worse....

Peace

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