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My son was using Windows 7 on his computer and decided he wanted to dual boot with Ubuntu. He attempted to shrink the partition but could not, so he downloaded another program to shrink but I think he messed up and lost the OS.

So to rectify I told him to install Ubuntu but he wants to dual boot as he is a gamer.

I put Windows installation disk back in but it said NTFS files missing message.

So downloaded GParted but his drives are locked, I tried to format to NTFS in the disk utility which seemed to work, but now when we put the Windows disk in for booting we are getting a black screen with a flashing cursor.

We are really stuck as to what to do now, it may be down to the fact that the partitions are locked. I know the OS has to be locked but can't unlock the other partition.

Would installing Linux mint rectify this problem?

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  • Check this askubuntu.com/questions/221835/… whether this helps.
    – vembutech
    Jun 25, 2015 at 17:50
  • With the GParted finding drives are locked, unmount the partitions before trying to do stuff. Be careful as any changes can be permanent.
    – Wilf
    Jun 25, 2015 at 19:06

2 Answers 2

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The message about the missing NTFS files and the blinking cursor after the successful formatting of the partition both point toward the fact that you're not booting from the Ubuntu Live CD / DVD but from the hard drive instead.

Most recent laptops (or laptops using a recent enough BIOS) usually have a dedicated key to choose the boot device upon startup overriding the BIOS' settings; if this is not present, the other solution is to boot into the BIOS and to set the CD / DVD-ROM drive as the first boot device, saving the settings and booting from the Live CD / DVD to start the installation.

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There may be a couple options you can go with, but first I would be sure to check the partitions again.

If you boot your computer up using Ubuntu on a live USB, and open GParted what do you see as partitions? Normally on a Windows machine you will see the following:

/dev/sda -

/dev/sda1 ntfs xGiB

/dev/sda2 ntfs xxxGib

These sould be the normal windows partitions. If the partitions were deleted you may see something like:

/dev/sda -

/dev/sda1 unallocated xxxGib

If you see the latter then the partitions were deleted and there is no more trace of the previous OS.

I have come across the issue before and since I have installation media I just booted up with Windows 8.1 on a USB drive and reinstalled it. Then if you still want to dual boot with Ubuntu you can shrink the ntfs volume then install ubuntu.

It sounds like your son may have erased the partitions when he was trying to shrink them. It would be hard to tell without a screen shot of the partitions in GParted.

The locked partitions means they are mounted. I would ensure you have a LiveUSB or CD to boot from and follow some of the advice in either of these posts:

Cannot Format Delete Locked Partition from Gparted

How to Unlock Partition in Gparted

I would suggest looking at these two posts to see if you can figure out how to unlock the volumes to be able to boot, and fix your system.

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    Hi this is what i have all with locks on, /dev/sda1 lockfat32 MOUNT POINT /boot/efi size 512mb used 4,36 unused 507mib boot /dev/sda2 lock ext4 / size 457 Gib used 50.36Gib unused 406Gib /dev/sda3 lock linux swap size 7.90 GIB unused 4 KIB UNUSED 7.90 GIB
    – linz1
    Jun 25, 2015 at 19:16
  • I needed 10 posts before i could upload image file,sorry about that.
    – linz1
    Jun 25, 2015 at 19:21
  • I have updated my original answer at the bottom of the post.
    – Joe
    Jun 25, 2015 at 22:57

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