Dual boot issues. Cannot boot Windows.

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seanmonaghan

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#195356 17-Apr-2016 13:05

Hi all, thanks I'm advance for any comments.

Yesterday I made a Bootable USB disk to allow me to run OpenELEC. Well the boot USB didn't work for whatever reason. Now I have an issue in that, even with the USB removed, I cannot boot into Windows.

Even when I get into Startup and select to boot from hard disk or HP QuickWeb, it tries to boot Openelec.

I've tried everything I can think of but can't get windows to boot.

Does anyone have any ideas? I don't care if I lose everything that was on my C drive, I just want my laptop up and running again.

Cheers

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#1534378 17-Apr-2016 13:34

Do you have a windows 7 install disc? If you boot that there is a repair option.

seanmonaghan

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#1534379 17-Apr-2016 13:38

No I don't unfortunately. I bought the laptop a few years ago and it didn't come with a recovery disk. Do I have any other options?

gzt

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#1534383 17-Apr-2016 13:47

Yep. 99% of the time everything is still there it is just the boot menu/manager was overwritten.

seanmonaghan

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#1534385 17-Apr-2016 13:50

How might I go about recovering?

gzt

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#1534391 17-Apr-2016 14:15

Last time I had a problem with an HP machine I called NZ support they asked for the serial number and mailed me some recovery disks for free. Not bad for a 3y/o machine I bought second-hand. It was a business level machine not sure if that makes any difference.

insane

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#1534394 17-Apr-2016 14:25

You could try using EasyBCD, believe it's free. Saved me a number of times when I was double and triple booting

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gzt

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#1534407 17-Apr-2016 14:36

This question is better in the Linux forum. Mods will move it if you ask. Imho there is a simple solution but I do not know that offhand. I would tend to start understanding the scenario with Gparted (it is a polished graphical tool with some gotcha's) but in the Linux forum you may find someone has a very simple solution.

d3Xt3r

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#1534436 17-Apr-2016 16:08

It looks like you might have overwritten the bootloader of your C: drive instead of the USB drive - which explains why your USB isn't booting and why your HDD is trying to boot OpenELEC.

The fix is simple - just restore the MBR of your C: - you won't even lose any data.

There are a few ways you can go about it:

1. Built-in Recovery:

Most laptops should have a copy of Windows loaded on a recovery partition. When cold-booting your device, look for any recovery/boot options at the bottom of your screen - you may need to press F1 / F12 or similar. Once you're in the recovery, select the startup repair option, if it exists. Some OEMs customise their recovery partition however, so you may only have an option to restore the entire drive back to the factory defaults.

2. Borrow a Windows installation disk from someone. Boot from the disc and when you're at the installation screen, open a command prompt (press Shift + F10), and type: bootrec /fixmbr.

Full instructions here.

If you don't know anyone who has a copy of the Windows, you can download a copy directly from Microsoft.

3. Use a third-party tool such as Easy Recovery or MBRWizard.

gzt

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#1534441 17-Apr-2016 16:22

If you have access to another windows 7 machine you can use that to create a system recovery disk. System recovery disk can do automated repair, also has bootrec #2 above, in general system recovery disk automated repair can fix a wider range of problems.

richms

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#1534461 17-Apr-2016 17:20

First thing you need to know is if the PC was booting with Legacy or UEFI, most repair instructions online are for Legacy, which no windows 8 or newer machines should have shipped with. People end up installing it that way because they boot off a poorly prepared USB stick and that is how it will set a machine up by default, but a fresh factory install of 8 or 10 should be booting UEFI, which most how to's will just lead to you breaking more.

If you were trying to set up dual boot from some also wrong instructions that is probably why you have toasted all the windows boot stuff and ended up with part of a non functioning openelec install. I have not had any luck trying to dual boot linux and windows recently so have not bothered.

Richard rich.ms

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#1534464 17-Apr-2016 17:31

Yep. Most problems are simple but easy to make a bigger mess in these scenarios without first looking. By the way Ubuntu have a single click fix utility now. A 3rd party has created a boot environment for it:

https://sourceforge.net/p/boot-repair-cd/home/Home/

Hint: Always run from USB.

Works with other operating systems also.

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#1534466 17-Apr-2016 17:34

+1 on d3Xt3r suggestion downloading a copy of the 7 installation media from Microsoft. Always forgetting that myself ; ). That will give you the 'repair' option.

seanmonaghan

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#1534503 17-Apr-2016 18:07

Attempted the Ubuntu boot repair but no good. Seems like Windows is totally gone from my system.

Downloading from Windows website would have been a good option except my 20 digit code has rubbed off from the underside of my laptop.

Prepared a recovery USB from another Windows 7 device. Booted it, all looked good. However there are no back ups, no images, startup repair doesn't work. I've really done a number on my computer...

gzt

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#1534504 17-Apr-2016 18:18

In that case I thoroughly recommend Linux Mint 'Mate':

https://www.linuxmint.com/

It is thoroughly polished and I continue to be amazed the vast number of systems it just installs and runs and does everything with no issues. That said, tweaking is sometimes required for video and network but Linux gets easier and easier every year.

d3Xt3r

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#1534519 17-Apr-2016 18:48

seanmonaghan: Attempted the Ubuntu boot repair but no good. Seems like Windows is totally gone from my system.

Downloading from Windows website would have been a good option except my 20 digit code has rubbed off from the underside of my laptop.

Prepared a recovery USB from another Windows 7 device. Booted it, all looked good. However there are no back ups, no images, startup repair doesn't work. I've really done a number on my computer...

Could be that you erased your partition table as well. :(

If you still have your purchase/order details, try contacting your laptop's manufacture or the store - they should have a record of the product key. If not, you can buy a cheap Windows 7 licence key online from eBay.com or similar - the key will be emailed to you, and you can enter it on Microsoft's site to download from them directly.

And of course, as another user posted, using a Linux distro may be a viable alternative - if you don't need to use any Windows-exclusive software that is.

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