Installed Ubuntu next to Windows 10 on a non-EFI system

[Claryn]

So I installed Kubuntu next to Windows 10 on an old Thinkpad SL300 laptop. Without even thinking about the possibility that the laptop was not an UEFI/EFI system, I partitioned out space for Kubuntu and installed it there. I chose the Windows primary partition to install the boot-loader (grub), since fdisk -l showed that it was the boot-partition.

 

Now when I boot to grub, I can enter my Kubuntu install without problems, but the Windows 10 option just loops back to grub. I can't mount the Windows partition either, because Windows 10 didn't actually shut the fuck down when I told it to - it just hibernated. 

 

I tried running boot-repair, but it didn't help. I thought about installing rEFind as it has solved a lot of boot issues for me in the past - but it is an UEFI bootloader, right?
 

I can see through gparted that the data on the WIndows partition is fine (I REALLY don't want to format it). 

 

What do I need to do in order to be able to boot into Windows using grub or some other bootloader alongside Kubuntu? 

 

Thank you.

 

[TheCherryKing]

Is there any way that you can use the default Windows boot loader for Linux and Windows?

[Claryn]

3 minutes ago, TheCherryKing said:

Is there any way that you can use the default Windows boot loader for Linux and Windows?

I don't know. I can't even access my Windows install. 

[noahdvs]

1 hour ago, Claryn said:

I don't know. I can't even access my Windows install. 

I've had something similar, possibly the same happen to me when I tried to dual boot with Windows 8 once. This may or may not work, but it's worth trying.

 

If you go into BIOS and change the boot order to have Windows go first, Windows should boot, but without an option to use Linux.

 

Go into the Windows power settings, go to the section that lets you change what the power button does, go to the advanced options (not sure if it's called something slightly different, it should bring up a UAC prompt), disable fast startup and shut down.

 

Change Linux back to 1st in the boot order. You should now be able to access your Windows files. There's probably a way to make Windows dual boot smoothly, but I don't remember what it is. Maybe if you reinstall Kubuntu at this point you'll be able to dual boot normally.

[Claryn]

6 minutes ago, noahdvs said:

I've had something similar, possibly the same happen to me when I tried to dual boot with Windows 8 once. This may or may not work, but it's worth trying.

 

If you go into BIOS and change the boot order to have Windows go first, Windows should boot, but without an option to use Linux.

 

Go into the Windows power settings, go to the section that lets you change what the power button does, go to the advanced options (not sure if it's called something slightly different, it should bring up a UAC prompt), disable fast startup and shut down.

 

Change Linux back to 1st in the boot order. You should now be able to access your Windows files. There's probably a way to make Windows dual boot smoothly, but I don't remember what it is. Maybe if you reinstall Kubuntu at this point you'll be able to dual boot normally.

There is no option to boot Windows in BIOS. Only to boot from the HDD, CD-rom or a USB-drive.

 

The Windows partition is locked to read-only because Windows only went into hibernation when I told it to shut down.

 

I believe that GRUB was not able to incorporate Windows into the boot-options because of the read-only state of the Windows partition. In the GRUB config, it has the correct path to the Windows boot-loader, but my guess is that it can't access it because of read-only.

[randyjames]

Ever since I "broke off relations" with Microsoft about 15 years ago, I still thought it good practice professionally to leave the Windows default OS "squeezed" but intact and functional on most PCs of mine, or of clients. However, when a day ago, I discovered Win7 had been replaced by Windows 10 (without notice, with updates already turned off) on a Lenovo desktop, I decided I'd had enough, and simply wiped all things Microsoft off the machine.

 

I decided I would install Xubuntu 16.04 in the "lower half" of the now empty HD, and see if I could install Lubuntu 16.04 in the "upper half", in dual-boot mode. Sure enough, after getting Xubuntu up and running, I ran the install disk for Lubuntu, and at the partition juncture, it had an option: "Install Lubuntu alongside [the existing OS]" (words to that effect), promising a clean dual-boot coexistence between the two flavors of Ubuntu.

 

I am no expert on Grub, but I was having a hard time figuring out how this was supposed to work, since as I understand it, Grub installs part of itself in a space at the bottom of the device. But, I figured Ubuntu's people must know what they're doing, so I went ahead with it. Explaining the chaos that followed in detail would be a little too painful. Suffice to say, I was never able to figure out "who's on first...".

 

The boot menu made no clear distinction between two distinct installations ("alongside each other"), and all the references to the home device were '/dev/sda2' (Xubuntu). However, I did get it to boot into Lubuntu (/dev/sda5), apparently by luck. After examining the main /boot/grub/grub.cfg file on the Lubuntu site, I could see there were mixed references to 'msdos2' and 'msdos5', and '/dev/sda2 & /dev/sda5', but more like at random. After making some cosmetic changes in hopes of being able to distinguish them in the boot menu, and running update-grub, I saw none of my changes on the next reset, and this time when I selected a partition, I got into Xubuntu, and have not been able to find a way back to Lubuntu.

 

Bottom-line: it does not surprise me that getting it to work with Windows 10 was a bridge too far. But I find it a bit disappointing that they can't make it work for peers in the Linux ecosystem. (And please, no explanations about running one instance with two desktop packages installed. That's not my goal in this case. I wanted to have a moderate-resource desktop OS, and a minimal resource desktop OS, that I could easily select between remotely, since the server would be at an ISP where I can't easily get at it. Between systemd, and grub2, and the torturous (and needlessly overcomplicated and heavy-handed methods they use), building systems under Linux is getting less enjoyable every day. (IMHO)

[Tech N Gamer]

7 hours ago, Claryn said:

So I installed Kubuntu next to Windows 10 on an old Thinkpad SL300 laptop. Without even thinking about the possibility that the laptop was not an UEFI/EFI system, I partitioned out space for Kubuntu and installed it there. I chose the Windows primary partition to install the boot-loader (grub), since fdisk -l showed that it was the boot-partition.

 

Now when I boot to grub, I can enter my Kubuntu install without problems, but the Windows 10 option just loops back to grub. I can't mount the Windows partition either, because Windows 10 didn't actually shut the fuck down when I told it to - it just hibernated. 

 

I tried running boot-repair, but it didn't help. I thought about installing rEFind as it has solved a lot of boot issues for me in the past - but it is an UEFI bootloader, right?
 

I can see through gparted that the data on the WIndows partition is fine (I REALLY don't want to format it). 

 

What do I need to do in order to be able to boot into Windows using grub or some other bootloader alongside Kubuntu? 

 

Thank you.

 

You might of fucked up Windows, I've done the same thing by accident using regular Ubuntu. If you can, make a Windows Bootable USB flash drive, plug it into the computer and go into the BIOS and boot from it, look for an option that says something along the lines of "Repair your computer." You'd want to click on that. If a blue screen (not a BSOD) appears with options, click Troubleshoot -> Command Prompt. Once in Command Prompt, type 

bootrec /rebuildbcd

If it reports no Windows installs found, and you've found where that Windows install is located, type:

bcdedit /export C:\bcdbackup

attrib c:\boot\bcd -h -r -s

ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old

bootrec /rebuildbcd

If all goes well, it should find the Windows installation. To help further, you should also do:

bootrec /fixmbr

bootrec /fixboot

This will replace GRUB has default bootloader and Windows won't recognize the Linux install. If all goes well, then Windows should boot up, if not, then you might of fucked Windows. If Windows does boot up, I suggest using EasyBCD and grub will be on the backburner.

 

Also, the thing introduced with Windows 8 is called fastboot, Windows stores information onto the main partition (C:\) and also disables a lot of things at startup. It also marks the partition as if it was hibernating even though it wasn't.

[Claryn]

7 hours ago, Tech N Gamer said:

You might of fucked up Windows, I've done the same thing by accident using regular Ubuntu. If you can, make a Windows Bootable USB flash drive, plug it into the computer and go into the BIOS and boot from it, look for an option that says something along the lines of "Repair your computer." You'd want to click on that. If a blue screen (not a BSOD) appears with options, click Troubleshoot -> Command Prompt. Once in Command Prompt, type 

bootrec /rebuildbcd

If it reports no Windows installs found, and you've found where that Windows install is located, type:

bcdedit /export C:\bcdbackup

attrib c:\boot\bcd -h -r -s

ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old

bootrec /rebuildbcd

If all goes well, it should find the Windows installation. To help further, you should also do:

bootrec /fixmbr

bootrec /fixboot

This will replace GRUB has default bootloader and Windows won't recognize the Linux install. If all goes well, then Windows should boot up, if not, then you might of fucked Windows. If Windows does boot up, I suggest using EasyBCD and grub will be on the backburner.

 

Also, the thing introduced with Windows 8 is called fastboot, Windows stores information onto the main partition (C:\) and also disables a lot of things at startup. It also marks the partition as if it was hibernating even though it wasn't.

bootrec /rebuildbcd reports no Windows installation. bcdebit not found as a command.

bootrec /fixmbr and /fixboot made it so that it doesnt boot at all. 

 

God sake I hate Windows. 

[Tech N Gamer]

1 hour ago, Claryn said:

bootrec /rebuildbcd reports no Windows installation. bcdebit not found as a command.

bootrec /fixmbr and /fixboot made it so that it doesnt boot at all. 

 

God sake I hate Windows. 

Then I have bad news if bcdedit is not found as a command, Windows may never be recoverable. If it has a recovery disk (or any thing that you can use to recover from) I suggest doing that. You'll want to choose "Reset my PC" if that option shows or "Reinstall Windows". Either option, I believe, will destroy everything on the drive and make it be the way is was before. Just remember next time to not install the GRUB bootloader on top of Windows. GRUB should be left on the Linux install partition. I don't know how Kubuntu work, but if you type the following into Terminal, you should be able to access the NTFS partition in read-only mode. (name = the name you used on Kubuntu, # is the sda number, eg sda1, sda2, ext.)

sudo mkdir /media/[name]/Windows

sudo mount -r "/dev/sda#" "/media/[name]/Windows"

cd /media/[name]/Windows

and of course, when done:

cd /

sudo umount /dev/sda#

[Claryn]

3 hours ago, Tech N Gamer said:

Then I have bad news if bcdedit is not found as a command, Windows may never be recoverable. If it has a recovery disk (or any thing that you can use to recover from) I suggest doing that. You'll want to choose "Reset my PC" if that option shows or "Reinstall Windows". Either option, I believe, will destroy everything on the drive and make it be the way is was before. Just remember next time to not install the GRUB bootloader on top of Windows. GRUB should be left on the Linux install partition. I don't know how Kubuntu work, but if you type the following into Terminal, you should be able to access the NTFS partition in read-only mode. (name = the name you used on Kubuntu, # is the sda number, eg sda1, sda2, ext.)

 

sudo mkdir /media/[name]/Windows

sudo mount -r "/dev/sda#" "/media/[name]/Windows"

cd /media/[name]/Windows

 

and of course, when done:

 

cd /

sudo umount /dev/sda#

 

That is how I access my NTFS partition currently. I have backed up all my data, so that is good. 
There is a recovery partition on the drive, but unsure how to access it. Would the installation media be able to do any recovery with that partition?

[Tech N Gamer]

19 minutes ago, Claryn said:

That is how I access my NTFS partition currently. I have backed up all my data, so that is good. 
There is a recovery partition on the drive, but unsure how to access it. Would the installation media be able to do any recovery with that partition?

It should be able to, I've done it with my friend's computer a couple of times.

[Claryn]

Just now, Tech N Gamer said:

It should be able to, I've done it with my friend's computer a couple of times.

Ill attempt this once all the files are fully backed up. My external NTFS drive suddenly turned read-only on the live-disc, so currently wokring on fixing that. 

 

[Claryn]

17 hours ago, Tech N Gamer said:

You might of fucked up Windows, I've done the same thing by accident using regular Ubuntu. If you can, make a Windows Bootable USB flash drive, plug it into the computer and go into the BIOS and boot from it, look for an option that says something along the lines of "Repair your computer." You'd want to click on that. If a blue screen (not a BSOD) appears with options, click Troubleshoot -> Command Prompt. Once in Command Prompt, type 

bootrec /rebuildbcd

If it reports no Windows installs found, and you've found where that Windows install is located, type:

bcdedit /export C:\bcdbackup

attrib c:\boot\bcd -h -r -s

ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old

bootrec /rebuildbcd

If all goes well, it should find the Windows installation. To help further, you should also do:

bootrec /fixmbr

bootrec /fixboot

This will replace GRUB has default bootloader and Windows won't recognize the Linux install. If all goes well, then Windows should boot up, if not, then you might of fucked Windows. If Windows does boot up, I suggest using EasyBCD and grub will be on the backburner.

 

Also, the thing introduced with Windows 8 is called fastboot, Windows stores information onto the main partition (C:\) and also disables a lot of things at startup. It also marks the partition as if it was hibernating even though it wasn't.

3

I attempted this again, and changed from 

bcdedit /export C:\bcdbackup 

to

 bcdedit /export C:\windows\system32\bcedit 

and it found the Windows installation on the next bootrec /rebuildbcd.. Sadly I still can't boot to Windows, even though I said yes to add it to the bootlist. 

[Tech N Gamer]

3 hours ago, Claryn said:

I attempted this again, and changed from 

bcdedit /export C:\bcdbackup 

to

 bcdedit /export C:\windows\system32\bcedit 

and it found the Windows installation on the next bootrec /rebuildbcd.. Sadly I still can't boot to Windows, even though I said yes to add it to the bootlist. 

Odd, the drive is clearly NTFS, but something is still stopping it from booting. If you can, screenshot what the drive looks like in GParted. Attach it, and I'll have a look and try to see what I can make of it.

[Claryn]

7 hours ago, Tech N Gamer said:

Odd, the drive is clearly NTFS, but something is still stopping it from booting. If you can, screenshot what the drive looks like in GParted. Attach it, and I'll have a look and try to see what I can make of it.

The unallocated was Kubuntu, but I removed it, hoping it might fix the issue.

sda1 is the primary partition. sda2 and sda3 are some sorts of Windows recovery partitions. I never touched them.

 

Also adding fdisk -l output:

Disk /dev/sda: 232.9 GiB, 250059350016 bytes, 488397168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0xc667c667

Device     Boot     Start       End   Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sda1  *           63 401882039 401881977 191.6G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2       474185728 475105279    919552   449M 27 Hidden NTFS WinRE
/dev/sda3       475106310 488392064  13285755   6.3G  2 XENIX root

 

[Tech N Gamer]

9 hours ago, Claryn said:

The unallocated was Kubuntu, but I removed it, hoping it might fix the issue.

sda1 is the primary partition. sda2 and sda3 are some sorts of Windows recovery partitions. I never touched them.

 

Also adding fdisk -l output:

Disk /dev/sda: 232.9 GiB, 250059350016 bytes, 488397168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0xc667c667

Device     Boot     Start       End   Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sda1  *           63 401882039 401881977 191.6G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2       474185728 475105279    919552   449M 27 Hidden NTFS WinRE
/dev/sda3       475106310 488392064  13285755   6.3G  2 XENIX root

 

Did you move SDA2? and what's in SDA3? Also, SDA1 being HPFS (High Performance File System) might be causing Windows to be unbootable as stated by Microsoft on this page. Why it has the label of Preload is beyond me. And I do have doubts you moved anything that Windows uses. If you did move SDA2 then that is the reason Windows won't boot. Windows doesn't like it when the Recovery partition is moved or deleted.

[Claryn]

22 hours ago, Tech N Gamer said:

Did you move SDA2? and what's in SDA3? Also, SDA1 being HPFS (High Performance File System) might be causing Windows to be unbootable as stated by Microsoft on this page. Why it has the label of Preload is beyond me. And I do have doubts you moved anything that Windows uses. If you did move SDA2 then that is the reason Windows won't boot. Windows doesn't like it when the Recovery partition is moved or deleted.

This is an old workstation laptop that initially ran Vista Professional. I didn't install Windows on it, so I am actually unsure what sda3 is - but I assume it's a recovery partition. None of the partitions were moved.

 

I ended up just backing up all the stuff I needed and formatted the whole drive. Windows 10 Pro is now installed and works fine.