Windows 7 won't boot after Ubuntu 12.04 dual boot installation failed

Question

I basically used a LIVEusb I had made of Ubuntu 12.04 to try and dual boot both OS'. but it crashed at the partitioning stage and now Windows 7 won't boot. g Parted shows the same partitions that windows 7 had before. It also has an exclamation mark next to the main partition. I tried to fix the Windows booting issue with a Windows 7 installation disk but it doesn't do anything at the "press any key stage". Please Help I really need to access the Windows 7 Partition. Thanks

Solution 1

Boot with the LiveCD or LiveUSB and do sudo fdisk -l. It will list all the partitions on your hard drive. Check the NTFS Windows partition by running sudo ntfsfix /dev/sda2 (the number would be different based on your partitioning). Try to reboot, if the problem still persists, you need to run the LiveCD or LiveUSB again and reinstall Ubuntu (if it failed the first time).

In the installation page, select Something Else and choose the partition to which you want to install Ubuntu. By default, the grub2 boot manager will detect other existing OS's in your hard drive, so it shall add the Windows 7 loader on the grub menu on boot.

Solution 2

It sounds like your MBR got wiped out. Why did your partitioning fail? If there is a larger problem at hand you may want to focus on data recovery.

gparted should be able to repair partition tables, but I would just try to install ubuntu again. If you can complete the installation you should be able to boot into windows right away from the grub boot menu.

Comments

[Ronin]

regarding the reason for the partitioning failiure, I'm not exactly sure, everything was frozen for a couple of hours. I am a total newbie what is the grub boot menu, also I no longer have the option to dual boot with windows, do I click on 'something else' in the installation menu? Thanks for answering so quickly

[Ronin]

also the harddrive is fine otherwise.