Ubuntu and Partions Screwed Up

Kornowski

Kornowski

VIP Member
So, I'm trying to diagnose my PC, because once again, it's screwing up.

I thought I'd install Unbuntu to see if it was a Windows problem, or a hardware issue. Well, I had some problems with Ubuntu and wanted to get rid of it. So I deleted the partitions with a Gparted Live CD (Though they won't actually delete, I just have to format them, but that's another problem...)

So, anyway. I 'deleted' the partitions and now when I try to boot, it starts loading the GRUB menu, but then says it can't and I get an error 22.

I just want to boot into Windows! :mad: *sigh*

I give up on computers.

EDIT: I'm going to replace my Boot MGR with a nice shiny new one, I'll see how it goes.
 
Last edited:
Well, I got it back. Replacing the Boot MGR didn't work, well. It couldn't find any errors to fix, so it wouldn't fix anything.

I installed Vista onto another partition on another HDD (I need to test a few things out) and it's working Ok now.

Gparted though. If I deleted a partition, it would become 'unallocated' which I gather is lost space? Then, I'd format it to NTFS, and it'd still be a partition. I couldn't even shrink it to nothing.

How do I remove it?
 
Yeah GRUB sits in the boot sector, ie sector 0 in your HD so destroying all partitions will not get rid of the boot sector.

You can fdsik /mbr for previous versions of windows or if it is Vista you can run the exe that vista repalced the boot.ini with and the name freaking escapes me at the moment. bcedit.exe or something like that?

You need to wipe the boot sector.
 
Yeah, I should of been a bit more specific about that guide I sent you... it should of worked using the fixmbr command, but at least you've got it sorted now.

"unallocated" is basically unpartitioned, wasted space. You should be able to create a new, empty NTFS partition and that way you won't be wasting space. Another option would be growing your main partition, but it can cause issues (it shouldn't, but it can), so you would need a backup of everything you want saved on that hard drive.

Hopefully that makes a bit of sense. :P
 
I don't want all these partitions around though, I'd add it to my main one, but I couldn't move the slider along for some reason, don't know why.

I've formatted the partitions as NTFS, but I can't tell if I can use 'em or not, they don't show up in Windows. Ah well... computers...
 
This is a graphical representation of a HD, and this is going to suck because I am only going to use my keyboard...

*edit found a pic which kind of explains it

hd-layout.png


The master boot record keeps all of that stuff and that is where your boot loaders live, partitioning software doesn't touch that, you gotta zap it manually, hope that makes better sense
 
Last edited:
Is there any way to delete the partition so that the space just goes into my main drive? If that makes sense?
 
Yes, what is the current state of your drive?

If you have an XP bootable disk you can boot off of it and do an fdisk /MBR, hell actually a DOS boot disk can do that, and that will wipe the master boot record.

Then from Gparted live you can delete the partitions. I find the Vista installer rather lacking as i just reinstalled Vista and it gave me ZERO options to wipe and format my HD it just overlayed it automatically.

If you run any other OS disk you can delete and add partitions through the OS installer, or try third party like Partition Magic for example, but Gparted is the best free one out there I can find.
 
How do you mean? I have a partition that I want to get rid of, I don't want/need to wipe anything, I want to keep my data. I just want the disc space to be available to use again without having it as a separate partition.

Though, Deleting it through Gparted didn't work.
 
Kornowski said:
How do you mean? I have a partition that I want to get rid of, I don't want/need to wipe anything, I want to keep my data. I just want the disc space to be available to use again without having it as a separate partition.

Though, Deleting it through Gparted didn't work.
Click to expand...

Oh you want to resize it? I gotcha!

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/larry/resize/resizing.htm

If it is NTFS you may or may not have issues since it is not an open source file system.

That is what you mean right?
 
Yeah, I want to resize 'em. However, I can't drag the arrow to make the partition bigger. Yet I have enough free space. I can make them smaller, but not bigger. :cool:
 
I am not sure if Gparted can do on the fly resizing with NTFS partitions. You may have to look into something like partition magic. That is because Microsoft offers zero source code for their file system.
 
Kornowski said:
So, when I have an 'unallocated' partition?
Click to expand...
It's either a Partition, or it's unallocated space.

If you have two partitions, you cannot resize one or the other if the sum of both
partitions equals the drives capacity.

That's why you must delete one partition, which leaves the unallocated space that
the remaining partition will absorb, by dragging the Arrow.

GParted is all I use to manage my disc space and I've never had an issue moving or resizing NTFS space.

The difference may be that I use a Ubuntu Live CD instead of the stand alone GParted software.?
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top