Anonymous
Fri Nov 08, 2013 4:37:55 pm
I wish I had come to the forum and read the post here before trying to install Zorin 7.1 core 32 on my Windows 7 Ultimate Hard Drive. I was trying to make it a dual boot system with Zorin booting from the 250 gig external drive that stays connected and on whenever I boot the system and the windows staying on the primary 500 gig drive. Installed the Zorin onto a flash drive and booted the live version and installed the Zorin 7.1 core to the computer. When I went to reboot I got an error message that it (a long string of numbers) was not valid and it went to a command prompt under a grub rescue directory. I can no boot ether system now. When I reboot to the live version from the flash drive I see both the 500 gig and the 250 gig drives are there. The windows dvd running the repair now shows windows being the D: drive and the C: drive is reserved with with about 100 megs of space. This is the first time for me running a linux based system so I am at a loss at what to do here. As bad as I hate Microsoft I have to keep access to it because of some of the programs I need will not run under linux as of yet. I have allot of data on the 500 gig hard drive I don't want to lose and though some of it is backed up on the 250 gig drive I had nothing big enough to back the the entire system. How can I fix this so I can boot my window again and just start over and re-install Zorin correctly without losing everything?
Edit: Got it to boot windows again using the recover console from the windows install disk. Still have to repair the eternal drive and get Zorin 7.1 32 core re-installed and dual booting correctly. For future reference I got the windows to boot by using the following. Booted from the DVD Rom drive with the windows disk in the drive and hit "R" while it was booting. Then booted the repair in safe mode with command prompt. Once to the command prompt I typed the following commands, "bootrec /fixmbr" then hit enter then type "bootrec /fixboot" both commands without the quotes. After entering both commands exit and reboot the system and windows will boot as normal. The external HD is wanting me to format it and not showing the files at this time. I will continue to work on fixing that next without losing my files and keep you up to date on how I am coming with it. I will still need to know how to prevent this in the future and make it a dual boot system though.
Edit: Got it to boot windows again using the recover console from the windows install disk. Still have to repair the eternal drive and get Zorin 7.1 32 core re-installed and dual booting correctly. For future reference I got the windows to boot by using the following. Booted from the DVD Rom drive with the windows disk in the drive and hit "R" while it was booting. Then booted the repair in safe mode with command prompt. Once to the command prompt I typed the following commands, "bootrec /fixmbr" then hit enter then type "bootrec /fixboot" both commands without the quotes. After entering both commands exit and reboot the system and windows will boot as normal. The external HD is wanting me to format it and not showing the files at this time. I will continue to work on fixing that next without losing my files and keep you up to date on how I am coming with it. I will still need to know how to prevent this in the future and make it a dual boot system though.
