Ubuntu

Stuck in continual reboot involving U netbook remix and w7 - weird problem

Asked by Phil Kliewer

Hey all. Hope it's OK mentioning the dreaded 'W' word here, as my problem involves both U netbook remix and Windows 7.

Got my Aspire netbook (ao532h) about a month ago with w7 starter on it, needed to modify it to be able to see the tiny fonts (I'm legally blind) and after days of trying to enlarge only the fonts, gave up and thought I'd give U netbook remix a try. I installed it (dual boot, as I still needed w7 occasionally for a couple programs and my wife likes it better) and liked it right off the start, because I could resize the fonts for everything to what I needed to see!

Should have quit while I was ahead.

Soon, I noticed my netbook randomly showing a low battery notice when it had almost a full charge just seconds before (guess this is a U bug/problem with other aspire owners with U netbook remix on theirs too - see http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1487918). I tried to live with it for a week, but it finally bugged me to a point that I finally upgraded the bios to the latest version today, and it seemed to solve the battery problem!

Really should have quit while I was ahead.

W7 had been giving me some problems, so I thought since I had been victorious with the bios upgrade, I'd use the Aspire restore program to restore 7 completely (but still leaving U in there, I thought). I wasn't able to use the 'inside windows' Aspire restore, because when I tried and it needed to reboot, it would never complete, probably because of the U install making the boot selection screen. I then went ahead and selected [in the U boot selection screen] the option for "Vista something something... cant' remember what it was listed as, but I noticed earlier when I peeked at that option it gave me the Aspire restore screen without booting into windows, so that's what I did, and the w7 restore proceeded fine, windows booted up fine, it started automatically installing ms updates, BUT, when it needed to reboot after the ms updates (and I said "sure, fine"), it got stuck in a continual reboot - just tries to boot, I get the ACER black post screen, but I never get to the U boot selection screen (or into U or windows either!) - it just boots, waits about 5 seconds, and then reboots, and repeats itself indefinitely (until I hold down the power button to power it off).

What can I do? Would reinstalling U netbook remix via USB (how I installed it in the first place) fix this and restore the boot selection screen, or is there a chance it might also repartition and wipe the w7 partition (which despite my not being able to see it well, I do need still occasionally)? I was not given restore discs with the netbook, as the restore is in a partition.

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Greg Beam (ki7mt) said : 		#1

Hi Phils,

"Should have quit while I was ahead." - I can't tell you how many times I've said that over the years in dealing with upgrades and of course the "Must Have New Software Toys"

In any case, to say exactly what is causing the continual re-boot your seeing would be difficult, but I would say, that in the mix of installing and recovering you've corrupted the MBR (Master Boot Record) or The Bootloader depending on which way around things started and finished.

Unless you have critical data on the drive (Win7 or UB side), I think i would recommend starting from scratch. Normally the safest approach when Windows 7, or of any flavor of Windows for that matter, is in convert with Linux, is to Install Windows first, then proceed to configure for Ubuntu using the LiveCD & Gparted to section off some disk space, then follow the guided install.

There are many good How-Too's for doing this, if you need a reference link, let us know. However, the task of doing this is made repetitively simple with the Ubuntu-Installer.

KE1HA

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Phil Kliewer (hayoumissed) said : 		#2

No critical data on the drive [on either 7 or UB side].

Sure, I would start from scratch if I could find the place to scratch! (sorry, couldn't resist) As I mentioned, I can't get to anything when booting - if best to 'start with windows', how can I get to it, since the recovery for it is on a partition I can't seem to get to (at least I don't know how, the regular boot sequence gives me absolutely no options, can't boot into safemode either)?

Can you throw me one of those fabulous 'how too' tools that might help in getting back to the windows or the recovery partition? I really don't want to have to dish out $ for recovery disks from ACER to get 7 back, when I'm sure it's hiding somewhere on the hd, waiting for the chance to be sprung...

One thing I forgot to mention, if it makes a difference, is that the aspire has a 160gb hd but when I did the win 7 recovery, it showed a much smaller chunk of the hd for the recovery (a resized partition of course for 7, to allow for UB's partition) - is this important? I remember looking at the partition layouts in 7 and saw about 4 of them (!), one for the c drive (acer with 7 on it), one for the recovery, and one unlabeled, I'm sure it was for UB, and the other one I don't know what it was there for.

Thanks for your help.

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Greg Beam (ki7mt) said : 		#3

Hi Phil,

Hmm .. (No comment on the Scratch :-) )

First things first. It sounds like when your booting, the HD is set to be the first boot device (which is normal), but you need to get that changed to the CD-ROM via the BIOS. I've not done this in a Netbook but on normal system motherboards / laptops it's a function key F2 / F12 / ESC keys. Once inside the BIOS, change the Boot-Order to CD-ROM first.

From what you've said, the problem will be recovering Windows if the system recovery resides on the hard disk itself and not a CD/DVD. Did the system come with a Recovery CD at all or was / is it all on the Drive? From what I've read about these Netbooks, most of them don't come with a recovery CD, and the user needs to create one after purchase.

If that's the Case (no Windows Recovery CD), I'm afraid I don't know how you'll get Windows-7 back on there. Maybe someone else here on launchpad cab better assist on that portion.

If you can get the system to Boot from CD-ROM ( by changing the BIOS settings), you can use the LiveCD to inspect what's happened to the drive, and choose what you want to do from that point.

Here's a pretty good How-Too for Dual Boot Win7 & Ubuntu (Lots of Pictures):
http://www.hackourlives.com/dual-boot-windows-7-and-ubuntu-10-04-lucid-lynx/

Once you get it to Boot, go on down to the Gparted Section, from there you can have a look at the disk.

I'll keep looking for a way to try and recover Win-7.

KE1HA

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Phil Kliewer (hayoumissed) said : 		#4

Netbook... no optical drive.

I did think of somehow using the live CD option already, but using the 'live USB' (the way I first tried UB before installing it- from a flash drive) to peek at the partitions and somehow recover the recovery - not sure how to proceed from there though... wondering if I do possibly 'find' (in live UB via the flash drive] the recovery partition or w7 partition, how I might 'fix it' inside UB or possibly copy it to the flash drive and then boot from it.

The MBR/bootloader option... if it is possibly the culprit, how do I check this out and then how can I restore/fix it?

Thanks

Revision history for this message
Greg Beam (ki7mt) said : 		#5

Hi Phil,

If you can get into Ubuntu have a look at this for recovering your MBR.

Recover MBR from USB-Key: http://robert.penz.name/221/mini-howto-restore-windows-mbrbootloader-with-linux/

And for Install into Too and From a USB-Key: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromUSBStick

Note, the USB Install page has How-To install From USB and Too a USB, make sure your in the right section for what you want.

KE1HA

General Ubuntu Resources:
Ubuntu Manual - http://ubuntu-manual.org/
Server Manual - https://help.ubuntu.com/10.04/serverguide/C/serverguide.pdf
Other Documentation - https://help.ubuntu.com/10.04/index.html
IRC Channel Support on irc.freenode.net : #ubuntu #kubuntu #xubuntu

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