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I have HP dv6 pavilion. I installed fedora 16 in it along with windows. I installed fedora on a separate partition. After installation I booted to windows, but it crashed. It shows a "starting windows screen" and then crashes with a blue screen. On next time of starting windows, it shows a recovery environment, with a message that the "device you wanted to connect was not available". I tried to boot with a windows CD to reinstall windows and remove fedora, but it isn't able to locate hard disk driver and hence of no good at all. In nutshell windows is cannot be restored by fresh installation.

As far as I read on internet and experience, its a problem with configuring grub. my fdisk -l output look like:

 Disk /dev/sda: 640.1 GB, 640135028736 bytes
    255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 77825 cylinders, total 1250263728 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xad6d2636

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1              63        2047         992+  42  SFS
/dev/sda2            2048      409599      203776   42  SFS
/dev/sda3   *      409600   995420159   497505280   42  SFS
/dev/sda4       995420160  1250263727   127421784    5  Extended
/dev/sda5       995422208   996446207      512000   83  Linux
/dev/sda6       996448256  1250263039   126907392   8e  Linux LVM

Disk /dev/mapper/vg_vikaspc-lv_swap: 8355 MB, 8355053568 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1015 cylinders, total 16318464 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/mapper/vg_vikaspc-lv_swap doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/mapper/vg_vikaspc-lv_root: 53.7 GB, 53687091200 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 6527 cylinders, total 104857600 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/mapper/vg_vikaspc-lv_root doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/mapper/vg_vikaspc-lv_home: 67.9 GB, 67880615936 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 8252 cylinders, total 132579328 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/mapper/vg_vikaspc-lv_home doesn't contain a valid partition table

If anybody have faced this problem or have an idea how to fix it, your help will be appreciated.

UPDATE: /boot/grub2/grub.cfg file looks like:

    # DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE
    #
    # It is automatically generated by grub2-mkconfig using templates
    # from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub
    #

    ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/00_header ###
    if [ -s $prefix/grubenv ]; then
      load_env
    fi
    set default="0"
    if [ "${prev_saved_entry}" ]; then
      set saved_entry="${prev_saved_entry}"
      save_env saved_entry
      set prev_saved_entry=
      save_env prev_saved_entry
      set boot_once=true
    fi

    function savedefault {
      if [ -z "${boot_once}" ]; then
        saved_entry="${chosen}"
        save_env saved_entry
      fi
    }

    function load_video {
      insmod vbe
      insmod vga
      insmod video_bochs
      insmod video_cirrus
    }

    set timeout=5
    ### END /etc/grub.d/00_header ###
                                                                                      UPDATE:

My /etc/grub2.cfg file have the menu entries: 

#
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE
#
# It is automatically generated by grub2-mkconfig using templates
# from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub
#

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/00_header ###
if [ -s $prefix/grubenv ]; then
  load_env
fi
set default="0"
if [ "${prev_saved_entry}" ]; then
  set saved_entry="${prev_saved_entry}"
  save_env saved_entry
  set prev_saved_entry=
  save_env prev_saved_entry
  set boot_once=true
fi

function savedefault {
  if [ -z "${boot_once}" ]; then
    saved_entry="${chosen}"
    save_env saved_entry
  fi
}

function load_video {
  insmod vbe
  insmod vga
  insmod video_bochs
  insmod video_cirrus
}

set timeout=5
### END /etc/grub.d/00_header ###


### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###
menuentry 'Fedora (3.3.4-3.fc16.x86_64)' --class fedora --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
        load_video
        set gfxpayload=keep
        insmod gzio
        insmod part_msdos
        insmod ext2
        set root='(hd0,msdos5)'
        search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 3cf7895c-b625-4a20-be2e-aee4192fcf1f
        echo 'Loading Fedora (3.3.4-3.fc16.x86_64)'
        linux   /vmlinuz-3.3.4-3.fc16.x86_64 root=/dev/mapper/vg_vikaspc-lv_root ro rd.md=0 rd.dm=0  KEYTABLE=us quiet SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 rhgb rd.luks=0 LANG=en_US.UTF-8 rd.lvm.lv=vg_vikaspc/lv_swap rd.lvm.lv=vg_vikaspc/lv_root
        echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
        initrd /initramfs-3.3.4-3.fc16.x86_64.img
}
menuentry 'Fedora Linux, with Linux 3.1.0-7.fc16.x86_64' --class fedora --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
        load_video
        set gfxpayload=keep
        insmod gzio
        insmod part_msdos
        insmod ext2
        set root='(hd0,msdos5)'
        search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 3cf7895c-b625-4a20-be2e-aee4192fcf1f
        echo    'Loading Linux 3.1.0-7.fc16.x86_64 ...'
        linux   /vmlinuz-3.1.0-7.fc16.x86_64 root=/dev/mapper/vg_vikaspc-lv_root ro rd.md=0 rd.dm=0  KEYTABLE=us quiet SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 rhgb rd.luks=0 LANG=en_US.UTF-8 rd.lvm.lv=vg_vikaspc/lv_swap rd.lvm.lv=vg_vikaspc/lv_root
        echo    'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
        initrd  /initramfs-3.1.0-7.fc16.x86_64.img
}
menuentry 'Fedora Linux, with Linux 3.1.0-7.fc16.x86_64 (recovery mode)' --class fedora --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
        load_video
        set gfxpayload=keep
        insmod gzio
        insmod part_msdos
        insmod ext2

        set root='(hd0,msdos5)'
        search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 3cf7895c-b625-4a20-be2e-aee4192fcf1f
        echo    'Loading Linux 3.1.0-7.fc16.x86_64 ...'
        linux   /vmlinuz-3.1.0-7.fc16.x86_64 root=/dev/mapper/vg_vikaspc-lv_root ro single rd.md=0 rd.dm=0  KEYTABLE=us quiet SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 rhgb rd.luks=0 LANG=en_US.UTF-8 rd.lvm.lv=vg_vikaspc/lv_swap rd.lvm.lv=vg_vikaspc/lv_root
        echo    'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
        initrd  /initramfs-3.1.0-7.fc16.x86_64.img
}
### END /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/20_linux_xen ###
### END /etc/grub.d/20_linux_xen ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###
menuentry "Windows 7 (loader) (on /dev/sda2)" --class windows --class os {
        insmod part_msdos
        insmod ntfs
        set root='(hd0,msdos2)'
        search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root BE5EC8485EC7F6E5
        chainloader +1
}
menuentry "Windows Recovery Environment (loader) (on /dev/sda3)" --class windows --class os {
        insmod part_msdos
        insmod ntfs
        set root='(hd0,msdos3)'
        search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root A43ADDF33ADDC30A
        drivemap -s (hd0) ${root}
        chainloader +1
}
### END /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries.  Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment.  Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.
### END /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries.  Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment.  Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.
### END /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/41_custom ###
if [ -f  $prefix/custom.cfg ]; then
  source $prefix/custom.cfg;
fi
### END /etc/grub.d/41_custom ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/90_persistent ###
### END /etc/grub.d/90_persistent ###

After some help, it seems the probable cause is SFS filesystem for the main windows drive. Help on how to convert sfs to ntfs in best possible way without loosing data will be appreciated.

SOLUTION: It turns out that you have to install linux by creating an extended partition on the hard disk. Which I should have figured out earlier.

On the new HP laptops its a bit complicated to create an extended partition. TO work through this problem read this.

Improve this question
7
  • Could you please post your /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
    – YordanNG
    Commented May 9, 2012 at 22:54
  • Updated with grub.cfg file
    – Jor-el
    Commented May 10, 2012 at 9:09
  • Is this the whole file ??? Where are the menuentryies ?
    – YordanNG
    Commented May 10, 2012 at 9:37
  • yes, that was the whole. I found menu entries in /etc/grb2.cfg file, which I pasted above.
    – Jor-el
    Commented May 10, 2012 at 9:54
  • You can try to change the menuentry "Windows 7 (loader) (on /dev/sda2)". Change set root='(hd0,msdos2)' to set root='(hd0,msdos3)'. Because this is your active partition. I am not familiar with grub2. It is different from grub. But it won't hurt trying.
    – YordanNG
    Commented May 10, 2012 at 11:12

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