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I tried to install Ubuntu, but when I chose the partition on which I wanted to install it, my computer suddenly froze and refused to continue the installation process. So I was obliged to restart it.

But after I restarted I couldn't access Windows 7 that I already had in it. I used the windows 7 CD to access the command prompt then I found that my local drive C: had shrunk in size and got the new name Linux instead of the local drive. I could not install Windows on my heard disk.

I tried Ubuntu without installing it using CD and was surprised to find that the partition containing old Windows 7 is still there and showing its normal size 265 GB. How can I recover my windows 7 installation / partition?

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  • What's "got blocked" mean? And were you trying to overwrite your old windows partition? And what do you want to do, recover the windows partition, delete it & install Ubuntu?
    – Xen2050
    Dec 17, 2014 at 16:14
  • I want to recover the windows partition.
    – Cloo
    Dec 17, 2014 at 16:34

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Yours sounds like a complicated situation, I'm not sure what shape your hard drive & Windows partition is in, being able to see it in a live Ubuntu, but the Windows disk not seeing it...

I would try (running a live Ubuntu cd - "try without installing") to mount the windows partition (mounted read-only = ro just in case) and take a look at the files, see if they're all there & aren't corrupted:

To find out what device the partition's on, you can check gparted, or gnome disk utility (Disks), or run lsblk or sudo blkid. It's probably similar to /dev/sda1 or /dev/sdb1.

In a terminal, after creating an empty folder for a mount point (ex. sudo mkdir -p /media/win), mount it read only with sudo mount -r /dev/[the right one] /media/win
[Searched for an easy answer for "how to mount windows read only" but didn't find one oddly]

If the windows partition looks good, you could try to repair it's bootloader. Read "How can I repair the Windows 8 EFI Bootloader?" on superuser.com for help - it says Windows 8, but questions about Windows 7 get marked as a duplicate of that one... I'm not too sure about the EFI being different.


Or if the wndows partition doesn't look good, you could try testdisk that might be able to recover the partition &/or boot loader too. READ THE GUIDES & DOCUMENTATION, it could do a lot of damage if you're not careful. This "basic" step-by-step might be helpful.

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