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I'm running a dual boot windows7/ubuntu box and I deleted my ubuntu partition from windows because I had a problem updating to ubuntu 11.04. When I boot my PC, I get an "error cannot find partition" message and get the grub rescue prompt. Further, my bios won't detect when I attempt to boot ubuntu from USB.

How can I boot to and access my windows 7 partition or reinstall ubuntu?

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    By simply reinstalling Ubuntu your Windows partition should be detected and setup to boot from Grub menu will be recovered. Did yo try this?
    – Takkat
    Jul 16, 2011 at 10:13

2 Answers 2

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Firstly, you'll need to restore Windows boot loader using Windows 7 DVD.

Boot from the Windows 7 DVD, and go to System Recovery, and from the available options, select Command Prompt and enter following Commands.

Bootrec.exe /FixMbr

Bootrec.exe /FixBoot

This should restore Windows Boot loader, and after restart, you'll not be presented with GRUB menu or any Partition related errors. Once you boot into Windows, you know the later steps to install Ubuntu.

And as far as booting from USB stick is concerned, you'll need to make settings in BIOS such that USB Stick is set as first device boot from. While most modern computers allow to boot from USB Sticks, this may not be the case with a fairly old machine (but your machine doesn't seem to be older since its already running Windows 7 :-) )

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  • I figured I'd have to boot from windows 7 DVD to recover. Unfortunately I do not have a windows 7 disk. As far as booting from USB, I changed the bios settings however the bios will simply not boot from usb. It tells me that there is no bootable data on usb drive. The same usb key will boot from my other PC so the problem is not with the usb key. Is there any other reason why the bios won't detect the usb key?
    – Addie
    Jul 16, 2011 at 15:33
  • is BIOS detecting the drive during boot process? if it can, than it should be able to boot as well, try creating boot disk again after formatting your USB stick and see if it works now. And if your BIOS is not detecting the USB stick at all then, I guess it needs to be updated, since it is very rare that a computer (running Windows 7 = Modern Hardware) can't boot from USB sticks, and this is mainly due to out-dated BIOS, which can be updated easily. But before you enter into any mess of updating the BIOS, I recommend you to get boot loader issue solved.
    – Kushal
    Jul 16, 2011 at 17:58
  • I agree. It should detect the USB. I actually created an ubuntu CD, successfully boot from CD and resolved my issue. I'll look into the USB bios but that's a digression from this post. Thanks for your help.
    – Addie
    Jul 16, 2011 at 18:23
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You can download Hirens Boot Cd. From this boot cd you can boot every installed OS system on your computer? I suppose you have installed ubuntu with wubi?

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