Windows 10 Windows can's boot after Ubuntu install

[kevin567]

Hello, I attempted to install the Ubuntu 16.04 Linux operating system alongside windows 10 for a dual boot setup, unfortunately things didn't work out as well as I had hoped and now, I can only boot into Ubuntu with varying degrees of success and no internet access as I don't have the proper drivers for the cross platform use.

If anyone can help me set up a dual boot system, I would greatly appreciate it. I've already posted to the Ubuntu forums, so here is where I copy and paste my previous post and the video and boot info script:

"

I installed Ubuntu 16.04 on my Hp Envy Phoenix a couple of nights ago, it was getting late so I made sure I could use Ubuntu, logged in and then I shut it down, since I was tired. I tried selecting windows boot manager to boot windows 10 the following morning from the Grub menu and I get an error message. I've tried trouble shooting, startup repair, refreshing, one message I received said that my hard drive is locked. My computer doesn't detect a recovery image or a restore point.

When installing Ubuntu, these are the steps I followed: 1.) created an empty partition in windows 10 2. downloaded a Ubuntu usb using the rufus flash drive creator 3. rebooted and used the install Ubuntu option. 4. I selected install alongside windows 10 for dual boot, 5. selected the city I am near and proceeded with the install

Windows 10 doesn't boot any more. Please help, I don't want to lose my data on the drives and am unable to access any files from Ubunutu, I reformatted all partitions in FAT, as opposed to ext4, NTFS, or EFI.

My system has both UIFE and BIOS, I've attached a video with all the start up options. - this is the youtube video

Edit: here is the pastebin link to the Bootinfoscript results!
"
I would like to finish by stating that I have tried to reinstall windows 10 using a windows recovery drive USB but it won't let me, saying that I need to boot windows normally and not from USB to continue with the installation, but obviously I cant otherwise I wouldn't be on this forum.

I have practically given up on saving any data on my PC at this point, but if that is still a possibility any help would be appreciated. I'm not the most familiar with doing these types of computer activities nor the most technically savy, so any solutions explained in lay-mans terms as much as possible would also be appreciated.

Finally, I understand that this would require you guys to spend a decent amount of your free time to assist a stranger that has no connection to you, I just thought that someone in the community might have a few solutions that I could attempt before paying a repair man to have at my desktop.

 

[kevin567]

Here are the actual links to the youtube video and the boot info script, winforums would not let me post a thread with links until I had posted one thread first; here are the links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TahBUxBHr1U -youtube video
Ubuntu Pastebin - boot info script results

 

[zirkoni]

Can't you back up all your data from Ubuntu and start from scratch?

Do you still have an Ubuntu live CD/USB stick? If you can't fix the boot problem then at least you should be able to boot with the live CD/USB and save your data to external storage. Then start from scratch.

 

[Neemobeer]

• Are you using GPT or MBR partitions on the disk?
• Are you using Secure boot?
• Is there a Windows entry on the grub boot screen?
• If so, what error do you get when you try to boot to Windows?

 

[kevin567]

I installed Ubuntu using the "alongside windows for dual boot" option so I am no longer using a USB to boot Ubuntu, Since I can no longer boot windows I can only boot in Ubuntu. Neemobeer, I believe I started with MBR as the machine was originally strictly as Windows pc, however I believe I may have done something to format it as GPT, I had disabled Secure boot, inorder to open legacy booting. There is the option to run Windows boot manager but is essentially a dead end, if you look at the links I provided the youtube video covers all my booting options. I got a black screen with a bunch of code that made nonsense to me and furthermore would do nothing but repeat the code if anything was pressed, until i had to manually shut down, I had left it in that state for hours before realizing that nothing was being loaded.

 

[kevin567]

here is also a screen grab of what my partitions look like in Gparted

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

Hi Kevin,
Wow! It sounds like you did a really good job of messing your PC up without taking proper precautions on backing your stuff up!! You need some guidance. We don't mind helping, but you should know without giving us hardware specs on your system such as the exact Model of your HP, it's hard for us to help you. If you don't know how to get these, please download the Free SPECCY diagnostic from piriform.com and run it and take the resulting output text file and post it back here to your thread here so we can properly analyze it.

Next, you have several problems, the least of which is your not backing up your data from Windows or Ubuntu partitions to external media. At this point, if your data is NOT backed up, I would stop what you are doing, and pull that hard drive out of your PC or laptop, and set it aside now and consider taking it to your local repair shop and having a licensed Tech attempt data recovery on which is going to cost you money. If that's not an option for you, I would say you have a very low chance of getting your Stuff back by yourself. Some of the things you have tried violate many well known principles of computer building, I will tell you a few of them.

1.) Doing a Dual-Boot OS on any PC or laptop is a high-risk procedure, and without proper backup or Image backup to external media, it's like being a Tight-Rope walker working 300 ft. above the ground without a net!! (enough said).
2.) Windows has code in it in Track 0 of ever windows computer that insists on it being the primary partition; other OSes such as Linux, OS2, Unix, NetWare, etc. can be installed alongside it, but only after Windows is installed 1st!! Whatever forums you visited forgot to tell you that. Probably because they've never actually done it, only written about it. So, Rule #1 of Dual-Boot PCs: install Windows (any version), and then install the secondary OS such as Ubuntu (Linux) in your case!
3.) You mentioned trying Ubuntu 16.04LTS; that version does not seem to work with W10 at all!! I spent several weeks trying to get them to dual boot on a few of my laptops. No Go! Have reported it to Ubuntu but they have never gotten back to me with a fix, and our Linux guys here on WF haven't either. Finally, I was able to get Ubuntu 14.04LTS, the last version of Ubuntu working in dual-boot mode on my Acer AspireOne mini netbook! This version is a couple of years old, and works fine. But the 16.04LTS version does not. I moved on, and resigned myself to not having that dual-boot configuration working. No one else here has it working either (that could have changed in the last few months) that I know about.
4.) Last thing you mentioned was reformatting all your drive partitions with FAT! WTH?? That hasn't been done on windows PCs since 1995!! That's a 16-bit drive format, and today's CPU chips and OSes (Windows, Linux, etc.) all require a minimum of 32-bit or 64-bit. There are some 128-bit and 256-bit formats out there for business OSes such as Solaris. Not something I recommend for home users however.
5.) You HP machine doesn't appear to be very old; about 3 years or so. You have posted nothing about your hardware and whether or not you've tested it. Specifically, you need to test ALL your RAM sticks, and especially your Hard Drive. You have a desktop PC and hard drives are only designed to run 3 years before failure. If you are the original owner of this machine and you haven't replaced the hard drive on it, it is quite likely that it is failing or has already failed, which could lead you to irretrievable data loss without sending it out for very very expensive Professional Data Recovery. To assist you with this; I've written an excellent article with the help of links being used by us WF volunteers to help you test your RAM and Hard Drive. Here it is: Windows 10 - Unclickable Task Bar.
Start reading at POST #6 under my listed username: BIGBEARJEDI. This will get you going. If you get stuck, post back and ask us for help. It is step-by-step and we've had beginners figure out how to do and fix their own PCs.

Those things being said, it's no wonder you have problems. If you have read this far, and don't consider me an idiot, then I have some more advice for you. Consider purchasing a new hard drive for your PC, after having removed the messed up one as I suggested above. Most drives are now under $100 unless you get massive space like 2TB-10TB drives used for making archived data backup for 1 or multiple computers. 1TB internal drives are under $50 on ebay or Amazon. Install your W10 on their and perhaps Ubuntu 14.04LTS as I mentioned. Try for that dual-boot since we know that works for sure.

Last, is your hard drive. Take that to your local licensed Computer Pro, make sure they are A+ certified or better and ask them for their license number. If they don't have it, forgot it, make any excuses at all--leave immediately and find another Tech or shop. Take in your drive tell them your story. It will cost you from $35-$130 US or so. Local data recovery may get from 15%-60% of your data back; if the Tech is experienced which is another question you will need to ask them; specifically regarding data retrieval from a Windows-Linux dual-boot system. Only experts will be able to help you with this. If you are not satisfied with what they got back or they could retrieve nothing; you are left with the last resort option of sending out your Hard Drive to Professional Data Recovery. You can post back here to find out names and phone numbers. There are only 2 reliable companies in the US who do this. They typically can get 85%-98% recovery success in my experience. I've sent out several drives for Recovery over the years; even drives that appear dead and do not spin up. Last one I did in May of this year cost me $550. So, that data on your drive has to be really really important! Right? Having done Data Recovery for 29 years now, this information is current and accurate. Ultimately it's your PC so you have to decide how important it is to get your stuff back and what you are willing to pay someone to get it back for you. That last recovery did get about 97% of my stuff back on a totally whacked drive however.

Final note, if you find any of this helpful, please put a "Like" on this post. Us volunteers don't get paid and can't under forum guidelines, so liking our post helps our rep here on the forum, and tells other forum users who have a similar problem that it was helpful to you, even if it didin't fix your problem it might have led you to a solution that worked.

Appreciate that.
We are here 24x7x365 to answer questions.
Best of luck,
<<<BIGBEARJEDI>>>

 

[Neemobeer]

ESP partitions can run on MBR or GPT partitioned disks, you can run the command gdisk /dev/sda to see if the disk is GPT or not. Your Windows install is setup to use an ESP partition which means you need secure boot turned on for Windows to boot. That would be the short answer why Windows won't boot.


You can fix this system as follows if it's an MBR disk

• Go back in BIOS and turn Secure boot on
• Boot to a Windows Recovery media (you can make this on any other Windows machine)
• Boot to the recovery media and type bootrec /fixmbr
• That should wipe out grub and replace the mbr with the Windows one and it should boot
• Create a bootable Ubuntu installer with rufus, but use the UEFI partition scheme
• Install the UEFI version of Ubuntu (this should happen automatically when secure boot is on)

 

[Neemobeer]

@BIGBEARJEDI the ESP is always formatted as fat32

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

Don't want to jump on the band wagon, but everyone, not just people who are going to experiment with their OS setup should make a System Image of their C:\ drive.

You can use a number of different programs to do it, I use EaseUS TODO backup a free program that's easy to use.

When you get your computer straightened out make sure that you create one.

I'm not clear on whether you can boot into Ubuntu or not?
If you can, can you use it to backup your files?

If it doesn't, try booting from the Ubuntu disk or USP drive and see if you can get access that way.

If all else fails you could try doing a complete clean install of Windows on your C:\ drive, and starting from scratch.

You can get the install media here...

Link Removed

This will format and remove all the data on your C:\ drive, that's whey I never save anything on my C:\ drive, it's safer on another drive or partition.

Mike

 

[zirkoni]

1.) Doing a Dual-Boot OS on any PC or laptop is a high-risk procedure, and without proper backup or Image backup to external media, it's like being a Tight-Rope walker working 300 ft. above the ground without a net!! (enough said).

You're over-exaggerating. Linux distros are getting pretty good at detecting Windows and installing alongside it for dual/multi boot. I've done this several times and I've never had any problems (as far as I can remember). Although, I don't remember the last time I used the automatic "Install alongside Windows for dual boot" option. I usually create all the partitions for Linux myself (root, swap, home). Also, I've only done this on a laptop with a single hard drive.

here is also a screen grab of what my partitions look like in Gparted

That can't be the only hard drive, there're no Linux partitions at all. I'm guessing Linux is installed on /dev/sdb?

Things you might try:
from Ubuntu terminal run: sudo update-grub and reboot
or
try fixing the Windows boot record (after this you can't boot to Ubuntu): Restore, Fix, Repair Master Boot Record (MBR) in Windows

 

[ussnorway]

You're over-exaggerating. Linux distros are getting pretty good at detecting Windows and installing alongside it for dual/multi boot.

yes linux is ok as a system but doing any dual boot (linux, windows or other) without first making bootable backups is not a good idea

 

[kevin567]

That can't be the only hard drive, there're no Linux partitions at all. I'm guessing Linux is installed on /dev/sdb?

Things you might try:
from Ubuntu terminal run: sudo update-grub and reboot
or
try fixing the Windows boot record (after this you can't boot to Ubuntu): Restore, Fix, Repair Master Boot Record (MBR) in Windows

I have two hard drives in this Pc, a 250gb Samsung SSD and a 3 terabyte HDD that came with the computer, I got a special deal from costco for my HP ENVY Phoenix the exact model number is HP Envy Phoenix 810-430QE DT (KAILI2) *Whatever that last part means* I attempted the Sudo update-grub command line, it did whatever it was doing so I will post if that works. I would like to refrain from doing the Master BOOT Record Repair, unless my only other option is to go to a professional. I will also try enabling secure boot in the BIOS. When posting to the forum on the Ubuntu web page, one responder suggested that I actually had overwritten my windows installation with Ubuntu. I don't know if I mention previously that I have a windows recovery drive, that I got from the windows 10 media creator, is that the same thing as the ISO files/what I need to install? I booted from the usb containing this and tried to install from it, I got a message saying that I need to boot windows normally and then insert the usb, obviously I cant boot windows normally. I will also attempt turning secure boot back on and see if that yeilds any results and post with the outcomes.

 

[ussnorway]

the bad news is yes it does look as if you wipped the windows os but the key is still there (stored in the motherboard) so even if the recovery drive fails to restore things you can still download a free iso from Microsoft or pay for a recovery disc from HP... a professional that has dealings with HP may even have their iso disc already

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

The link to the install media is in my earlier post.

If you want you can still try booting to the Ubuntu USB drive or Disk and see it it will let you access your main hard drive, if you haven't overwritten the data on it, all you should have to do it reinstall Windows 10 on the SSD, and the main drive should become visible.

This is important...

If you are going to reinstall Windows from scratch, unplug the other drive when you do it, make sure that Windows 10 is installed boots, and everything is working from the SSD, before you plug the other drive back in.

If the other drive is still intact, you don't want to mess it up reinstalling Windows.

Mike

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

Mike's trick of reinstalling the W10 on the bootdrive, didn't work for me. But it's worth a shot to try. I also attempted this on W7-Linux dual-boot systems also with negative results a few years ago.

Also his comment about unplugging any secondary drives, either internal or external (usb) is absolutely necessary; especially in a dual-boot system. This happens to also be true whenever upgrading, repairing, or reinstalling any drive that has a windows partition on it of any version. Thanks for letting us know you had that 2nd drive; there's a very good chance that IT could be causing your boot failure. What is the Make/Model of that drive please? Did you run drive diagnostics on it such as Seatools? Did it pass? In any case, you should remove it from your computer prior to attempting repairs, but if you have another windows PC to use or perhaps borrow from a friend, you can pop the drive into their PC and run Seatools or other WF recommended drive diagnostics to test it, and if you get errors returned by Seatools or other appropriate drive diagnostic in the link I'm going to provide you below; you secondary drive has failed, it is the cause of your boot failure and it must be replaced!
Here's the drive testing link for you:
Link Removed.

@Mike: nice catch on exposing the secondary drive issue! I saw it but got distracted by life and didn't get back to posting about it to the OP.


Let us know how it goes. By the way, most repair shops will charge you about $125-$175 US to fix a dual-boot Linux-W10 system such as yours, as it's quite out of the ordinary unless the shop has a Linux guru who is doing PC repairs in house. Expect that cost to be 2-3 times what I stated if you are outside the U.S. Repair shops view this as an "experimental build", and often don't support it. Additionally, since those types of configurations (dual-boot, Multi-OS boot) often come in from business customers, or programmers, or software developers they are going to hit you with a premium service charge if they even will do it for you. Many shops can't do it, and they will often send it out to have it done, but will not tell you this.

Let us know how it goes, and if you get it fixed, please post back and share your final solution with us so other forum users can benefit from your journey!

BBJ

 

[kevin567]

As I said, I would post the results, None worked, I will try removing and booting from a single harddrive and see how that works, I set the bios options back to default and reformatted most of my partitions as ntfs, , attempted the bootrec/fixmbr(no results) I no longer can boot into Ubuntu and if I start my computer with nothing plugged in then it says "boot device missing" visit www.hp.com/go/techcenter/startup which I found to be of little help, when I start my computer with the usb recovery drive it boots into it automatically, I went to custom installation and selected my 230GB ssd but it gave me some message about "Your partitions are not in the correct order, and not in the GPT format" so I went into the command prompt/terminal >Diskpart>list disk> select disk 0(since it matched the 230GB of my SSD) >Clean>Convert gpt>exit, when back to installing windows, that message did not appear this time although once the installation started I got the error code 0xC0000005 "Windows installation encountered an unexpected error, make sure the instllation sources are accessible and restart the installation process" I've attached an image with the error code message, it feels like I'm close to resolving/reinstalling windows 10. I appreciate your guys help and I think we will be able to fix this, My only goal now is to reinstall windows 10, I can worry about any potential data recovery later

 

[Neemobeer]

Well 0005 is "access denied" You may need to simply reboot and try installing again.

 

[kevin567]

I'll attempt a reboot and another install and let you guys know

 

[kevin567]

I attempted the reboot, no success with the install. any suggestions? I've been searching for a solution but as of yet, I haven't found much that is of use.