Windows 7 vs. Linux

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It’s the battle of the noob OS (Windows 7) vs. the entrenched one (Linux).  As I stated in my previous post, I just upgraded my system from XP to Windows 7.  What I think I did not mention was that my system was a dual booting system that was running XP and Ubuntu.  I was fully prepared to deal with the harsh truth that Microsoft forces Windows to be the active partition when it installs.  Normally, I would just go into the disk management tool, and reset the Linux partition back to active (I keep GRUB on the partition, and not on the MBR (Master Boot Record) to make these things go smoother), and things would be back to normal.  Unfortunately, Windows 7’s disk management tool doesn’t want to let me set the Linux partition as the active partition.  I’m not sure what to make of that.  Maybe it’s a permission setting somewhere in the policy editor?  I haven’t really looked yet.  At any rate, I decided to just use Linux to set the active boot partition back.  Unfortunately, all of my Linux LiveCD’s are locking during boot.  (I have a theory now as to why, but I didn’t think of it until much later in the story and I haven’t tested it yet)  Somewhat miffed, I downloaded a DSL (Damn Small Linux) cd image and burned it.  Same thing.  At this point, I was pretty annoyed.  I know Linux works on here, but I couldn’t figure out why it was doing this! 

Then, I remembered my Norton System Works Recovery CD.  This CD is a few years old, but it sports an NT recovery environment and a nice set of GUI utilities for doing recovery specific tasks.  I popped it in, and waited for it to load.  When it finally did, it offered me a set of recovery tools, just like I remembered, and it had one specifically labeled something along the lines of “Set Active Partition”.  Bingo.  Switching the partition, I rebooted, and immediately discovered that GRUB had returned.  After verifying that Linux still worked, I went to boot into Windows again, satisfied that my evening was over, and now I could head to bed.

WRONG!

Windows 7 suddenly would not boot.  It would just hang at the initial loading screen.  I discovered and tried the very spiffy recovery console (new to me, this was apparently added in Vista), and it informed me that it could not repair the problem. Furthermore, the error message relating to it was vague.  It said something along the lines of: “System files corrupted”.  At this point, I began to realize that my only repair solution would be a complete, 100% reinstall. 

#%$#%!!

Hopelessly, I tried googling for information. (My Macbook is my friend) The first thing I noticed was that there was none.  This is not good.  If there’s no information, that means that no one else is having the problem.  This means you’re alone, and, furthermore, you’re pretty screwed.  Finally, well looking at some article about bootrec.exe (I’m still not sure what that exactly does), I had inserted the install disk and was going through the listed instructions for some “boot repairing operation” when I noticed one of the screens referring to my Windows installation (the one needing repair) being on “(unknown) DriveC”  At first, this probably seems innocuous.  But, at second glance, the lack of a space between Drive and C might become apparent.  You see, I name my partitions with the drive letter I wish to assign then to avoid confusion if I ever have to do so.  (Windows allows you to change the drive letters in the Disk Management program)  So, what I realized as I looked at this was that the other part said “(unknown)”.  What this was basically saying was that it did not know what drive letter to assign that drive to.  So, it was not drive c:.  This is where some of the terminology on that Norton Recovery disk’s program suddenly flashed into my mind: When they had asked me what disk I wanted to make active, it had said something about a “disk id”… 

Aborting what I was doing, I quickly popped in the Norton disk again, and waited…and waited…and waited until it finally loaded up.  Rapidly, I switched the active partition back to the correct drive, and rebooted.  BINGO!  Windows 7 booted perfectly.

So, heads up: don’t change the disk letter of your system drive.  That’s just a bad idea, especially if it ends up assigned to NOTHING.

Now, I only need to figure out either why the Linux LiveCD’s are crashing on startup or how to make disk manager change the active partition, and I should be back in business.  :)

You can use the Bootrec.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) to troubleshoot and repair the following items in Windows Vista or Windows 7:

• A master boot record (MBR)
• A boot sector
• A Boot Configuration Data (BCD) store

Note When you are troubleshooting startup issues by using the Windows RE, you should first try the Startup Repair option in the System Recovery Options dialog box. If the Startup Repair option does not resolve the issue, or if you must troubleshoot more steps manually, use the Bootrec.exe tool.

 

 - How to use the Bootrec.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment to troubleshoot and repair startup issues in Windows

Εν άρχη ην ό Λόγος και ό γόγος ην πρός τον Θεόν και Θεός ην ό λόγος

- John 1:1