Windows 7 won't boot after installing Ubuntu 10.10 to a USB.

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ryebread761


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Hi, I installed ubuntu 10.10 to my USB stick. In an attempt to figure out how to boot that USB stick on my 2010 Macbook Pro I burned rEFIt to a DVD. Now when I tried to boot Ubuntu it didn't work. I took out the disk and was about to call it a day when my bootcamp partition started having issues. When I tried to boot Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit holding the option key and selecting it as normal, it hangs on a black screen with a white blinking -. To this point I have reset the SMC and the PRAM and NVRAM. Please help I'm really worried!:Lips-Are-Sealed:
 
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How about telling us exactly how you attempted to boot Ubuntu from your MBP? You also said you burned rEFIt to a DVD - that part I don't understand? It almost sounds like you were using the rEFIt boot manager to boot Ubuntu?

I can tell you this much.... that any attempt to boot or install Ubuntu from your MBP, unless you know exactly how to do it, will usually fail and instead lead to having reinstall OS X. GRUB (Linux boot loader) is very unforgiving and will overwrite the OS X boot sector if you're not careful.
 
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You shouldn't need to download anything to boot from an USB. Unless you want to install Ubuntu as an operating system, you will need to triple boot with Mac OSX, Windows, and Ubuntu.

Good luck!

- Kyle
 
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roflitskyle said:
You shouldn't need to download anything to boot from an USB. Unless you want to install Ubuntu as an operating system, you will need to triple boot with Mac OSX, Windows, and Ubuntu.

Good luck!

- Kyle
Click to expand...

I don't think you quite get my point. Now windows won't boot. That's my bigger issue I don't even really care about Ubuntu anymore I just want to know my windows partition is ok. It seams to be as I can open it in finder in OS X and all looks alright.
 
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chscag said:
How about telling us exactly how you attempted to boot Ubuntu from your MBP? You also said you burned rEFIt to a DVD - that part I don't understand? It almost sounds like you were using the rEFIt boot manager to boot Ubuntu?

I can tell you this much.... that any attempt to boot or install Ubuntu from your MBP, unless you know exactly how to do it, will usually fail and instead lead to having reinstall OS X. GRUB (Linux boot loader) is very unforgiving and will overwrite the OS X boot sector if you're not careful.
Click to expand...

Ok thanks for telling me GRUB is dangerous stuff. I'll keep that in mind! Yes I was trying to use rEFIt to boot my USB because it did not show up when I held option. It failed with just the blinking cursor just like windows does now. I had rEFIt on a DVD because I didn't want to install it for fear of screwing up my mac. I followed the instructions to put this on my DVD from the website. rEFIt - Documentation - Burning a Bootable CD
 
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Put in the Windows 7 CD and have it fix the installation..it should restore the bootloader if that was what is broken..

Regards
 
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Thanks for posting back and explaining what happened. It does look like GRUB may have overwritten the Win 7 boot sector. Go ahead and try what Raz0rEdge suggested. Just be careful using the Win 7 DVD as it can damage your OS X installation if you're not careful. Make sure you direct it to your Boot Camp partition and not the MacIntosh HD.

Here are the instructions given by MS: LINK

Make a backup before proceeding. Let us know how it went.
 
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chscag said:
Thanks for posting back and explaining what happened. It does look like GRUB may have overwritten the Win 7 boot sector. Go ahead and try what Raz0rEdge suggested. Just be careful using the Win 7 DVD as it can damage your OS X installation if you're not careful. Make sure you direct it to your Boot Camp partition and not the MacIntosh HD.

Here are the instructions given by MS: LINK

Make a backup before proceeding. Let us know how it went.
Click to expand...

I remember that my Windows partition when I did the Bootcamp thing the install calls it Partition 3 and it's 50 GB. That should be enough to identify it, correct? So what I have to do is is put in my install disk 64-bit (that's what I installed to take advantage of my 4 GB RAM) and restart holding 'c'? How do I get to the window they show on the site?
 
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The Windows 7 partition should show up as "Boot Camp" or drive c. Either way you should be able to identify it easy enough. The recovery console does get a bit confusing but the Win 7 recovery is much better then XP or Vista.

To get to the window that MS shows all you need to do is have the Win 7 disk boot the Mac. That's where it gets tricky.... The first selection on the list is what you want. From here you need to notice what it's telling you...

It should automatically "see" the boot camp partition as drive c. and it will say so. If it doesn't "see" the right partition for some reason, stop. Don't attempt the repair.

Let us know.
 
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chscag said:
The Windows 7 partition should show up as "Boot Camp" or drive c. Either way you should be able to identify it easy enough. The recovery console does get a bit confusing but the Win 7 recovery is much better then XP or Vista.

To get to the window that MS shows all you need to do is have the Win 7 disk boot the Mac. That's where it gets tricky.... The first selection on the list is what you want. From here you need to notice what it's telling you...

It should automatically "see" the boot camp partition as drive c. and it will say so. If it doesn't "see" the right partition for some reason, stop. Don't attempt the repair.

Let us know.
Click to expand...

One last question. How long about should this take?
 
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It won't take long. Once the Win 7 boot disk sees the right partition, it should take seconds to repair its boot sector. Then it'll attempt to reboot.
 
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chscag said:
It won't take long. Once the Win 7 boot disk sees the right partition, it should take seconds to repair its boot sector. Then it'll attempt to reboot.
Click to expand...

When it reboots I will have to make sure to hold option and select windows, correct? Also it will ask me to proceed once it detects the disk right? If it doesn't and it find the wrong disk what then?
 
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Yes you can hold the Option key or C key and let it boot from the Windows 7 DVD either way. It's not going to ask you anything. It will boot to the Windows 7 recovery console just as you saw in the MS KB article.
 
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chscag said:
Yes you can hold the Option key or C key and let it boot from the Windows 7 DVD either way. It's not going to ask you anything. It will boot to the Windows 7 recovery console just as you saw in the MS KB article.
Click to expand...

Hmm just tried booting the disk labelled Windows from the "option" menu. Two disks showed. Windows and EFI. Booting "Windows" just took me to the select language menu :( Should I do EFI?
 
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No. Continue by selecting the language. It should eventually get you to the screen shown in the MS KB article. The screen you're looking for is the Recovery Console.
 
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OK. Well, we gave it a good try. Boot into OS X, and make a copy of your Windows 7 installation. You can use WinClone or just copy whatever data you need onto an external drive for safety.

It might be better to do straight copying anyway. This way you know what you have can be used later.

After you've backed up what you can, blow away the Windows 7 partition and start over. Use the Boot Camp assistant to remove the Windows 7 partition. If it refuses, you'll have to do it from Disk Utility.
 
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chscag said:
OK. Well, we gave it a good try. Boot into OS X, and make a copy of your Windows 7 installation. You can use WinClone or just copy whatever data you need onto an external drive for safety.

It might be better to do straight copying anyway. This way you know what you have can be used later.

After you've backed up what you can, blow away the Windows 7 partition and start over. Use the Boot Camp assistant to remove the Windows 7 partition. If it refuses, you'll have to do it from Disk Utility.
Click to expand...


Thanks so much for your time and support. I will do this on the weekend. Let you know when all is working again :)
 
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Awseome. I got windows now. Thanks for your help and time. I didn't want to reinstal but I guess it had to happen. Thanks alot. (not sarcasm, I mean it) :Smirk:
 

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