Linuxer windows naive user: best setup

[Ed_P]

Two options with a BIOS password. 1. Unplug the computer and wait for the CMOS battery to die. This can take months if the machine is new and days if it's as old as some of the ones I have around. 2. Unplug the computer and open the case. See if you can find the CMOS battery on the motherboard and unplug it. There have been occasions where the motherboard/mainboard will have a jumper near the battery that can be removed.

[Ed_P]

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root@porteus:/home/guest# lsblk -f
NAME   FSTYPE   LABEL            UUID                                 MOUNTPOINT
sda                                                                   
├─sda1 ntfs     Réservé_au_système
                                 2820436A20433DD6                     /mnt/sda1
└─sda2 ntfs                      A0C24553C2452F3A                     /mnt/sda2

In looking back at your system display I don't see a service partition. Your sda1 partition is about 100MB isn't it? If so that is for Windows 7's BCD not the Dell restore files. I don't think the F8 option is available for you.

FYI My Windows 7/10 hard drive.

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guest@porteus:~$ lsblk
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 298.1G  0 disk 
├─sda1   8:1    0    13G  0 part /mnt/sda1
├─sda2   8:2    0   100M  0 part /mnt/sda2
├─sda3   8:3    0  45.1G  0 part /mnt/sda3
├─sda4   8:4    0     1K  0 part 
├─sda5   8:5    0    95G  0 part /mnt/sda5
└─sda6   8:6    0   145G  0 part /mnt/sda6

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guest@porteus:~$ lsblk -f
NAME   FSTYPE   LABEL           UUID                                 MOUNTPOINT
sda                                                                  
├─sda1 ntfs     PQSERVICE       9894832D94830CC6                     /mnt/sda1
├─sda2 ntfs     SYSTEM_RESERVED ECF483DEF483AA02                     /mnt/sda2
├─sda3 ntfs     Acer            48168114168103E2                     /mnt/sda3
├─sda4                                                               
├─sda5 ntfs     Data            01CD20066B8BF780                     /mnt/sda5
└─sda6 ntfs     BKUPS           1ECAD5A8CAD57C89                     /mnt/sda6

The sda1 partition is the Acer factory image restore partition and sda2 is where the Windows bootmgr file is.

[Jack]

My problem is the Windows pasword not the bios password.

[donald]

@ Bogomips
linux:
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/CmosPwd

or boot something ( e.g.win98 startdisk) into real DOS (not the Dos-box),
run Debug.exe -> ami and award bios type:
- o 70 17
- o 71 17
Q
(press enter after each line)

phoenix bios
- o 70 FF
- o 71 17
Q
did always work in the good old days..
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
@ Jack
http://pogostick.net/~pnh/ntpasswd/

[francois]

I have got grub2 functioning:
http://forum.porteus.org/viewtopic.php? ... 961#p41961

But there is no windows7 entry.

[francois]

I am booting into win7 anew.

@Ed_P:
Still I would like to get rid of the previous installation or to bring it back to pristine level if possible. I realize that there is only one installation with no backup. There is 32 GiB out of 74.41 GiB of the ntfs disk used by the actual widows 7 installation. Is there a way to make some shrinked image?

And yes, I would like to run win 7 in vbox.

Thanks.

[Ed_P]

I am booting into win7 anew.

What grub commands did you use?

@Ed_P:
Still I would like to get rid of the previous installation or to bring it back to pristine level if possible.

Without a Service partition you need more than the pc to restore it. Have you written to Dell and asked if they have a restore DVD for the machine? If the machine is under warrantee you should be able to get it for the price of shipping. Or maybe you just download it.

I realize that there is only one installation with no backup. There is 32 GiB out of 74.41 GiB of the ntfs disk used by the actual widows 7 installation.

Actually the system is on both partitions. The small one has the bcd files required to boot the system.

Is there a way to make some shrinked image?

If you are referring to making a backup I normally use either Windows's backup app or DriveImage XML. Both support compressing the backup.
If you are referring to an image that will run in vbox I don't know. I don't use vbox so I don't know what it works with it.

[francois]

Win7 is not on the menu list:
1.0 Maybe it was there and I did not see it at the first boot. However, I did not saw it in the grub.cfg

2.0 What is sure is that at my second manjaro boot, I issued in command line:

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update-grub

as grub updated, it was clear that it saw it and installed win7 into the menu entries.

*************************************************************************************************************
I have got grub2 functioning with the following instructions:
https://forum.manjaro.org/index.php?top ... #msg254365
To get the location of vmlinuz and initramfs files, if any:

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grub> echo $root
grub> ls ($root)/boot/

According to my values:

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grub> linux	/boot/vmlinuz-4.1-x86_64  root=/dev/sdb3  rw
grub> initrd       /boot/initramfs-4.1-x86_64.img 
grub> boot

And to restore menu entries of grub2:

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sudo pacman-mirrors -g
sudo pacman -Syy
sudo pacman -Suu
sudo grub-install /dev/sda
sudo update-grub

[francois]

They urge for a backup and then there seems to be Dell recovery tools:
http://downloads.dell.com/Manuals/all-p ... _en-us.pdf

I will look into that booklet.

[Vic]

My favorite Windows rescue disk is from a Canadian who calls himself "Gandalf" on a website called "Windows Matters". He makes custom versions of WinPE that I have found very useful.

On the bootable ISO files is EasyBCD. It has saved my bacon many times.

Vic

[Ed_P]

He makes custom versions of WinPE that I have found very useful.

Distributing copyrighted MS code is illegal, in most countries. A legal way to create Win PE systems was developed by Bart Lagerweij about 10 yrs ago.

[fred08155]

Nice website (windows matters). Didn´t know this before.
There is not much choice if you are not running windows on a machine somewhere to create your own PE disc or USB flash drive.

Lazesoft Recovery has an excellent PE maker and some options to restore broken windows systems with bootloader failure. Also includes a windows account password recovery tool.
http://www.lazesoft.com
Also requires to run windows in the first place before getting the PE...

[Vic]

Sorry. I have low standards. Just a tool to use.

Vic

[Ed_P]

Lazesoft Recovery has an excellent PE maker and some options to restore broken windows systems with bootloader failure. Also includes a windows account password recovery tool.
http://www.lazesoft.com

Some of the versions look expensive. http://www.lazesoft.com/buynow.html

Sorry. I have low standards. Just a tool to use.

[fred08155]

Some of the versions look expensive. http://www.lazesoft.com/buynow.html

There is a free version that should cover most needs. http://www.lazesoft.com/lazesoft-recove ... -free.html
Also you can get the pro version for free from time to time on some giveaway websites like giveawayoftheday.com, bitsdujour.com or sharewareonsale.com.

There are also some free and even open source alternatives. They are based on linux.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/boot-repair-cd/
http://www.supergrubdisk.org/