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Have XUbuntu 20.04 and Windows-10 in a duel boot configuration. Both OS working well for about 6 months. Boot default was set to Windows-10. Used MBR rather than EFI for boot (12 yr old motherboard but still had UEFI option). Windows-10 update removed Grub and apparently formatted the boot & other partitions ntfs?

Partition Table

I'd like to get Grub back so I can boot into Windows at least. Should Grub be in the /dev/sda1 partition; which is currently formatted ntfs?

I can boot to a Xubuntu 20.04 DVD and run GParted. If I just try to install Grub I get a "install device isn't specified" error.

When I boot from the XUbuntu DVD I can't find my old Linux partitions. I plan to get a 2nd harddrive & put XUbuntu on that so it doesn't get overwritten again.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Results from TestDisk scans of /dev/sda enter image description here

Results from a deeper scan of the Linux partition: enter image description here

Just crawled inside computer & checked. Harddrive is a 1 TB Hitachi mfgd Aug., 2009.

It appears that there are no recovery options available. I don't have a "backup boot sector". I've gone thru the Testdisk documentation and it appears that what I want to do isn't available. That would be to fix the Linux partition EXT4 and add Grub to it. I'm guessing that I can do a clean Linux install from a CD and maybe install Grub there?

Parttitions found on HardDrive

enter image description here

Latest update: I decided to reinstall XUbuntu from the "Live CD"; which is neither live nor a CD. It's the XUbuntu 20.04 boot DVD. The "Live CD" wouldn't pick up a wireless Network, but I plugged in a wire & it worked fine. I selected the custom install option and it picked up & installed to it's previous 142 GB partition. There was no keyboard at boot, thus I had to default to XUbuntu OS. After boot I was able to have some keyboard commands and I did the apt-upgrade & changed my Grub to load Windows. Special characters don't work so I have to access Stack Exchange from a cellphone.

At the Windows-10 boot the PC picked up that it was 86% thru it's update and it completed this. It was then able to boot Windows normally and all my files & data were there.

I'm sure I can eventually get the keyboard working and boot to XUbuntu. My concern is that this not happen in the future again. I think I have 2 options.

  1. Change my boot from MBR to UEFI. This seems a bit complex to do.
  2. Buy a second 2TB HDD and install XUbuntu & all it's data there. MBR would be on drive #1 (1 TB) but the data on drive #2. During a Windows update I could disconnect or protect drive #2. This seems like the easier solution.

I'd like to thank oldfred for his many comments and helpful suggestions. It allowed me to work thru the various recovery methods even tho I wasn't quite able to get GParted, gpart, or TestDisk to recover my Linux partition. The Linux swap partition was unaffected as you can see.

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  • What kind of "Windows update" is that? Do you mean an upgrade to Windows 10 from previous (<10) Windows version or a normal update within Windows 10?
    – cipricus
    Jun 11, 2021 at 13:53

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Windows in BIOS mode, is known to update partition table and "forget" to include a Linux logical partition. Data & partition is still there, but you have to update partition table to include ext4 partition and then you can reinstall grub. Without partition grub has nothing to boot.

You can use parted rescue or testdisk

Parted rescue seems easier than testdisk

'Upgraded' to Windows 10 on dual boot, and can't boot to Ubuntu partition

https://www.gnu.org/software/parted/manual/parted.html#rescue

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

Windows 7 to Windows 10 MBR partition missing

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2288988

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2290190

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  • The command granted rescue gives an error message: "could not start rescue device no such file or directory". Tried running granted in graphical mode: which is how I got pix of partition table. Could not enter rescue mode.
    – Nicholas Bourbaki
    Jun 6, 2021 at 6:24
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    Then try testdisk, if parted rescue not working. It is included on some rescue Linux ISO, but you need network to download into Ubuntu live installer.
    – oldfred
    Jun 6, 2021 at 14:02
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    If you did not have Internet before you could not have downloaded a driver. So how did you get it to work before? Download a live installer or repair disk that includes testdisk. Not sure which still include testdisk. I always have multiple repair ISO on bootable flash drives, just in case. Once the only one that worked was rEFInd which I had on an old tiny flash drive that was too small for anything else.
    – oldfred
    Jun 6, 2021 at 17:37
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    your screen is for sdb, go back one screen & choose sda
    – oldfred
    Jun 7, 2021 at 21:07
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    IF Boot Sector issue: You want to get to this screen: cgsecurity.org/wiki/… [HowTo] Repair the bootsector of a Windows partition - YannBuntu help.ubuntu.com/community/BootSectorFix It may say primary is valid as grub in a BS is valid, just not valid in NTFS partitions. If you have to use Rebuild, it may make XP type & you then have to run chkdsk from a newer Windows to convert from XP to newer NTFS version of BS.
    – oldfred
    Jun 11, 2021 at 3:44

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