Windows 7 Disappeared

[-†Krad†-]

Hey guys I have a dell m1330 and am tri booting windows 7, snow leopard, and linux mint. Until today everything was working perfectly. Today I decided to upgrade to 10.6.6. The installation itself went fine, and after deleting applehda (which was causing a kernel panic because I also had voodoohda installed), I rebooted to make sure everything worked. Chameleon detected that all three OS's were installed, but when I tried to run windows, I got the infamous blinking cursor. I then thought it was a chameleon problem and tried to reinstall chameleon, but now the windows partition doesn't even appear. Instead it says Unknown GPT, which, when opened, just boots chameleon again.

I tried to reinstall chameleon and nothing changed. I also tried to set the windows partition as active in both gparted and the osx fdisk tool. The osx tool did nothing, but gparted allowed me to boot to the flashing underscore. I then tried to load the windows installation disk to recover the original mbr bootloader, so I could start the chameleon install from scratch, but the disk kept saying that I was using a different windows version, which usually means that its not detecting the partition properly.

I've tried everything I know, which may not be much, so now I need some expert advice.

[-†Krad†-]

Just a quick update: The problem is still there, but with a little tinkering I think I managed to make the windows 7 partition appear on the chameleon list. Now the GPT Unknown partition no longer reboots chameleon, but rather boots the blinking underscore. The windows 7 repair disk still says I'm using a different version of windows. I'm still going to keep trying random solutions, hoping that I'll come across something that works.

 

Once again all ideas are appreciated, but I would prefer not to start from a fresh install because of all of the data/documents I have on my windows partition.

[-†Krad†-]

I hate to be annoying, but seriously? No one can help? I feel that someone in these forums knows about fixing a messed up multiboot. I would love to reinstall, but I just have too many important documents and pictures on the windows drive to do so.

[LatinMcG]

with ptedit or ptedit32 u might have to tell it its NTFS on that partition.

[-†Krad†-]

Well I found a few ptedit downloads except they were all floppy bootables. I tried to extract it to my flash drive, but the software didn't detect it. On top of that I have no idea how to use it. From what I can see it seems to be hexish, but once again I'm totally new to this.

Right now I'm trying to see if I can somehow easily edit the windows recovery disk to bypass a windows version check and go to startup repair. I'll post if anything happens.

[LatinMcG]

u can boot a dos in usb with balder10.img and multibootiso tool in pendrivelinux

u click on change type .. ntfs 07 i believe. (if it says 07 allready. retype 07. so it rewrites parameters.)

 

welcome to the wonderful MBR vs. GUID

[-†Krad†-]

I did what you said and the DOS opens up fine. I copied the ptedit.exe into the root of the flash drive folder. When I boot DOS and type in "command.com A:\ptedit" it says "unable to open file 'A:\ptedit.exe'". Was I supposed to do something else?

[iFIRE]

I did what you said and the DOS opens up fine. I copied the ptedit.exe into the root of the flash drive folder. When I boot DOS and type in "command.com A:\ptedit" it says "unable to open file 'A:\ptedit.exe'". Was I supposed to do something else?

 

 

Hello, solution for this, for me this method work.

 

WIN 7 CAN REPAIR THIS FOR YOU!!!!!!!!!

 

1º Quit your disc of the computer and use one usb adapter disc

2ª Plug Usb adapter disc in other computer with Window 7

3º when you plug your disc you will see one banner "your disc must be repaired"

4º Repaired all

5º Good Luck!!!!!!!

[-†Krad†-]

Osm@rbcn:

Yeah, I tried that and the windows disk utility. Just windows says I need to format the disk and the diskpart utility won't let me repair or even touch a partition that isn't mbr.

I think what mcgyver was saying is right. I need to force the partition to be marked as NTFS. When plugged into windows it gets detected as a RAW partition.

[LatinMcG]

go to c:\ in usb its the root of usb. as hdd isnt seen in dos ntfs.

[-†Krad†-]

Well when I did cd C:\, it didn't actually show the directory as being C:, but showed \A:

When I tried cd \C:\ it said CHDIR failed, and then I tried variations of command.com and running PTEDIT in the root A: directory and C: directory, but to no avail.

[LatinMcG]

just type c: then dir

[-†Krad†-]

Well your tip worked perfectly, but when I try to run ptedit it gives me "This file is no valid FreeCom or of an incompatible version: C:\PTEDIT.exe". Currently I'm trying to see if I can find possibly a working version of ptedit, but I think the problem was in DOS, not the application.

[-†Krad†-]

UPDATE: I decided to just reinstall windows 7 and then use some recovery software to get whatever I can back. I reformatted the old windows partition, but the windows installer won't let me install because it's on GPT. I remember that I used to know how to avoid this, but not anymore. I also formatted a couple times in the windows installer, but the partition is still messed up. I know I could probably reinstall everything including OSX, but that would be a pain. Any ideas?

 

All right, I got ptedit working by creating a windows PE disk. Then I changed the second partition's type to 07, but it told me I have to put in the right starting sectors, which I have no idea about. I attached an image so you can take a look.

 

Partition 1: EFI

Partition 2: Supposed to be Windows 7

Partition 3: Snow Leopard 10.6.6

Partition 4: Linux Mint

[mulcyber]

UPDATE: I decided to just reinstall windows 7 and then use some recovery software to get whatever I can back. I reformatted the old windows partition, but the windows installer won't let me install because it's on GPT. I remember that I used to know how to avoid this, but not anymore. I also formatted a couple times in the windows installer, but the partition is still messed up. I know I could probably reinstall everything including OSX, but that would be a pain. Any ideas?

 

Partition 1: EFI

Partition 2: Supposed to be Windows 7

Partition 3: Snow Leopard 10.6.6

Partition 4: Linux Mint

 

Windows should be installed to the first drive, first partition. The boot files will be placed in about a 200mb partition called System Reserved (sda1). Most of Windows will be installed to the second partition, sda2. Windows 7 is no longer installed on one partition like Windows XP used to be. SL has a smaller boot partition EFI, and then most of SL is installed to the next partition. Linux usually has at least two partitions.

 

I don't know if you were trying to save writing time by presenting your partition map in this manner, but it gives an outside reader the impression that you don't understand partitioning. Maybe your partition reports are really this odd.

 

If you are not very experienced you should buy a second hard drive to dual boot, it is much safer.

If you want to recover data from a hard drive don't write to it. If you were hoping to recover files from Windows after reformatting that produces the opposite result.

 

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step

There is a remote chance of recovering your partitions. TestDisk if free and works on Intel Macs also. You can do a search on insanelymac for testdisk and you will see that other users have had some degree of success fixing their partitions with testdisk.

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?art...1139&page=8

This link to page 8 of a 12 page tutorial on data recovery software focuses on Testdisk.

[-†Krad†-]

Well this is on a laptop so I only have one hard drive, and yes, my partitions really are this odd, and they worked perfectly fine until I updated to 10.6.6. How should my partition scheme be. I think I'll try what you said and just start with a clean drive, and reinstall everything.

[mulcyber]

Well this is on a laptop so I only have one hard drive, and yes, my partitions really are this odd, and they worked perfectly fine until I updated to 10.6.6. How should my partition scheme be. I think I'll try what you said and just start with a clean drive, and reinstall everything.

 

Your system may have worked fine before you updated, but not with the partition scheme that you recently posted, which lacks a System Reserved partition (100 MB) for Windows 7. The most likely reason that Windows 7 quit working is that when you updated, you overwrote the Windows 7 partition or damaged the partition table information. Windows 7 will not boot without System Reserved. Chameleon, when it boots Windows, boots the System Reserved partition. Here is a picture of my partitions which occupy two drives. But I could have both OS installed on one drive and the same partitions would be there. The second Windows partition is the C: Rivers The next partition is the 200 MB Snow Leopard EFI boot partition, followed by much larger Snow Leopard partition.

EDIT: I suppose that the System Reserved partition might depend on what version of Windows 7 you have.

 

If you have a laptop, some of them have a "hidden" partition which will restore the OS that came with the laptop and reinstall the drivers. Often, one presses one of the F keys at start up. That will wipe the whole drive. So if you want your SL, back it up and restore it later. Those portable USB drives are pretty cheap, mine has its own power supply.

[-†Krad†-]

Do windows and osx create their own respective partitions by taking a small piece from their main partition or do I need to create two small partitions for each one. If not, here's how I'm going to partition:

 

110GB: Windows 7 (install 1st)

110GB: OSX (install 2nd)

18GB:Linux Mint (I only use it for diagnostics, codec dumps, etc...not for regular use)

2GB: Linux Swap

 

I think that should be fine. Also, I have a portable drive, so I'm going to back up all of my kexts, which is basically what I don't already have on a dvd or other computer. Thanks for your help by the way. I think my main problem is installing OSX first instead of windows, which ends up binding the drives with GPT, and prevents windows from doing its thing.

[mulcyber]

Do windows and osx create their own respective partitions by taking a small piece from their main partition or do I need to create two small partitions for each one. If not, here's how I'm going to partition:

 

110GB: Windows 7 (install 1st)

110GB: OSX (install 2nd)

18GB:Linux Mint (I only use it for diagnostics, codec dumps, etc...not for regular use)

2GB: Linux Swap

 

I think that should be fine. Also, I have a portable drive, so I'm going to back up all of my kexts, which is basically what I don't already have on a dvd or other computer. Thanks for your help by the way. I think my main problem is installing OSX first instead of windows, which ends up binding the drives with GPT, and prevents windows from doing its thing.

 

If you have Windows 7 Home Premium, I don't think it makes an automatic System Reserved partition. Suppose the drive were new and unformatted. I'm pretty sure that you can choose how much space you install Windows into. The rest of the space will be unallocated. I think Mac has Disk Utility (I used that when I installed with [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] and [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url]) as part of its OS. I think you can choose how big that space will be and SL will automatically make a small EFI partition and then a regular SL partition. Don't use up all the unallocated space up for SL, leave 20 GB for Linux. I use Pinguy because everything works right out of the box and to generate dsdt.aml. Install Linux into the unallocated space and I think it will make the swap partition sometimes automatically.

I don't know if you have Disk Management, the Windows 7 partitioning tool.

 

Are you able to still boot SL? You can install Windows right into the same partition it used to occupy (since I don't think you have a System Reserved partition anymore). If you have a retail disk, I think you might try a System Repair install first. Here is a link to to a picture of how to start that. http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetr...up-repair_4.htm

You might need the same type of retail Windows disk that was already used to install Windows. But lots of laptops don't come with that disk. The bad news is if the Windows install dvd doesn't find a Windows partition to repair. I think this repair install is non-destructive, it doesn't format your drive, just replaces the OS files and I think it will rewrite the MBR, so you can't boot to SL yet.

 

So if Windows is now working, either by repair or by a new install, and SL was working, it will still work but you can't boot to it now since the last install of Windows overwrites Chameleon. The easy way is to download free Easybcd bootloader and add SL to its boot menu, so you boot SL from Windows. Mint will overwrite the MBR if you install it last and you will have a grub boot menu. To get around that, you can usually choose to install grub to the boot sector of the Mint partition, not the MBR. Then when you boot Windows you can add Mint to the Easybcd boot menu.

 

Another way is to use Gparted, a partitioning utility, and if you can't save anything, delete everything on the whole drive (unless you have a useful "hidden" manufacturer partition which came with your laptop). Then you can make a NTFS Partition then a SL partition HFs and a Linux partition = ext4 I think. Then install Linux first into the last partition, you can tell by the filesystem.

Then run the Mac dvd and install into the second partition that you prepared. Lastly, install Windows into the first partition you created the NTFS. This will make the Windows partition active.

Boot to Windows, download Easybcd, then add the Mac and Linux OS to the boot menu. They have a pictured tutorial. This method assumes you are still a mostly Windows user. I think all these install disks let you choose where to install the OS. Make sure you don't overwrite a good partition. If you vary the size slightly, Windows 116 GB and SL 104 GB it helps you tell which partition is which also.

Installers are not that smart and you have to keep an eye on them.

[-†Krad†-]

Sorry it took me a while to reply. According to what you said in your last post, that is exactly how I installed my laptops OSes. I made three partitions, the first for windows, second for OSX, and third for linux(which I eventually split into swap and linux). I then installed Snow Leopard first, into the second partition, then windows into the first partition, and finally linux into the third/fourth. What I think messed up the boot was the update to 10.6.6. I have a feeling that it overrode the bootloaders. Instead of doing what I did and reinstalling chameleon, I think I probably should have done a Windows 7 BCD repair first, then tried to reinstall chameleon after resetting the BCD. I'll probably be giving it a shot this weekend when I get time, and post my results here for future references.

[LatinMcG]

the 100 MB is created by win 7 not vista.. only if it sees no boot active partition of windows ..

example: if i create xp partition and its active.. when i setup 7 it doesnt create it.

EDIT: use linux live gparted.. create Ntfs or fat32 .. then in 7 setup. format it... it wont create 100 mb part.

 

i never bother with 1 disk for both. i always kept xp, 7 linux in 1 disk and i load win7 boot.. with it i add easybcd 2 linux grub2 and for osx insmod hfsplus root (hd1) chainloader+1. and osx in other HD ( desktops.. and very few laptops have capability)