Which "Argument" do I use to win back my Ubuntu Linux Partition?

Question

Which "Argument" do I use to win back my Ubuntu Linux Partition?

Answer 1

I would start with Super Grub -



http://www.supergrubdisk.org/



- it will find your system and boot it for you. After that you can try -



sudo update-grub



- which might fix the boot.



If not try the NeoGrub option.

Answer 2

It's a little tricky, I myself have had the same problem before:



Start up windows, download and install program named EasyBCD



go the NeoGrub tab and select "Install NeoGrub". This adds the "NeoGrub Bootloader" option to the windows bootloader.



Next we need to recover the menu.lst from your Ubuntu partition.



Download and install program called EXT2IFS, which allows you to mount EXT2/EXT3 partitions within WIndows.(usually windows will tell you they are hidden) This will let you browse the contents of the EXT3 partition and extract the MENU.LST file. copy this file to your windows c:\ drive



Once that's done, choose Configure - this launches the NeoGrub menu.lst file, location at C:\NST\menu.lst. Use Notepad or Wordpad to open the file, and then paste in the boot entries from the backup copy of MENU.LST you made earlier. These entries occur between "## ## End Default Options ##" and "### END DEBIAN AUTOMATIC KERNELS LIST". Save and exit, then reboot the machine.



The system will come up with two boot options. Select "NeoGrub Bootloader" and then the Linux boot options will load. Choose the relevant option and the system boot into Ubuntu.

Answer 3

Start with four. How can someone view Penguins as objects of abject terror? You are demonstrating how. Now for the correction. I am sorry to have to tell you this but YOU do the Hokey Pokey and TURN YOURSELF AROUND. THAT is what it is all about. I have issues with Ubuntu and frankly mixing the Hokey-Pokey with UNIX-derived OSes is one of them but that's how things are. You do the hokey pokey and turn YOURSELF around.



What should work is Grub. Grub is the boot loader and this is a suggestion for booting windows with it:

Tip: Windows XP/Vista does not boot from GRUB2 or GRUB-PC

Dec.28, 2008 in GRUB



Purpose: Wondering why Windows XP or (Windows Vista) on your dual-boot computer, i.e. having Windows XP and Linux installed, is not able to boot? The answer is that either there is a bug in the GRUB2 package or IDE disk naming convention has changed in GRUB2 from legacy GRUB.



Are you getting following error messages from GRUB2 when you try to boot Windows XP?



chainloader: no such command.

no such partition

you need to load kernel first



If you are then follow the steps below to try to solve your problem.



Set-up:



A laptop having dual-boot – Windows XP and Debian (Lenny) on separate partitions on a single hard drive. Here is my partition structure:

# fdisk -l /dev/sda



Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB, 60011642880 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7296 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Disk identifier: 0x2e61c242



Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System

/dev/sda1 * 1 3315 26627706 7 HPFS/NTFS

/dev/sda2 3316 7296 31977382+ 5 Extended

/dev/sda5 * 3316 5139 14651248+ 83 Linux

/dev/sda6 5140 5200 489951 82 Linux swap / Solaris

/dev/sda7 5201 7296 16836088+ b W95 FAT32



Step 1: Install GRUB2



Suppose you upgraded to GRUB2 doing following:



#apt-get update

#apt-get install grub2



Step 2: Reboot system



Now upon installing the GRUB2 package successfully and reboot your machine you will see a changed GRUB menu. Now select “Chainload into GRUB2″ and chances are that you won’t even find your XP partition listed in there (I didn’t find mine).



Step 3: Create a boot file for Windows XP/Vista/7



Boot into your Linux system by selecting your kernel (if there are multiple) from your GRUB2 menu and see if it boots fine. Upon booting into Linux do the following:

# nano /etc/grub.d/11_Windows (this will essentially create a new file)



and add the following lines:



#! /bin/sh -e

echo "Adding Windows" >&2

cat << EOF

menuentry "Windows XP" {

set root=(hd0,1)

chainloader +1

}

EOF



Note: In earlier version of GRUB, if your Windows was installed on First partition then you need to give root=(hd0,0), since that’s how GRUB use to number the partitions. However from this new version onwards, you need to give root=(hd0,1) if your Windows is installed on first partition of the hard drive.



Update: One of the commenter (Thanks Jorge), suggested that he had to give the following additional command:



chmod a+x /etc/grub.d/11_Windows



So under new GRUB2:



Windows on:



First partition (/dev/sda1): root=(hd0,1)



Extended First partition (/dev/sda5): root=(hd0,5)



Extended Second partition (/dev/sda6): root=(hd0,6)



and so on…



Now save the file (11_Windows) and give the following command:



# update-grub2



The suggestion comes from here:



http://linux.koolsolutions.com/2008/12/28/windows-xpvista-dual-boot-does-not-boot-from-grub2-or-grub-pc/



Hope it helps.