While trying to re-install Windows (I am running Arch/Win7 dual boot) I accidentally deleted a partition labelled (in the Windows installer) as 'recovery'. I didn't fully install Windows (I lost my product key), but my computer now tries to boot straight into Windows, as opposed to GRUB.
I am following two sets of instructions (https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=141489 and http://pivica.me/blog/reinstalling-erased-boot-partition-linux), but I'm not confident about them. The first one is a little sparse and the second is a different distro (Kubuntu).
Any help with solving this would be appreciated. Also, I am far from a Linux expert so don't make too many assumptions about what I already know about Linux.
edit: I booted my bootable USB and ran sfdisk -l. It says that /dev/sda1 is a boot partition, id 7 (HPFS/NTFS/exFAT), 102400 blocks (this means it's ~100MB, yes?). Could that be the Windows boot manager, or why would it be labelled as "boot" in sfdisk? Could it be my /boot? I'm not totally sure if I deleted my /boot, but the symptoms suggest it to me.
parted
orfdisk
would be very nice?Could that be the Windows boot manager, or why would it be labelled as "boot" in sfdisk? Could it be my /boot?
-- For a system with Windows, this first partition with 100MB size, NTFS filesystem and boot flag is Windows Boot partition. It is typically flagged as hidden in Windows, the reason why you or a malware can't easily mount it inside the Windows. This partition is not /boot and has nothing to do with Linux.