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I have a machine that was dual-booting Windows 7 and Ubuntu 12.04. I used the Disks program in Ubuntu to make a disk image of my windows partition which I saved on an external disk. I then reformatted the main drive and installed Ubuntu 12.10. I created a spare partition and restored that Windows disk image to that partition.

Is it possible to boot Windows? I have run boot-repair and Grub now gives me both Ubuntu and Windows options but when I select Windows I get only a black screen with blinking cursor. I ran Startup Repair from Windows Recovery (via USB stick) but still no luck, though it did find the Windows partition successfully. I also tried running lilo inside Ubuntu but still can't boot Windows. Any other ideas?

PS, I'm on a Netbook with no DVD drive so I can't just reinstall Windows though if that is my only option I can borrow an external DVD drive eventually.

kd7iwp
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    You can install windows from USB http://superuser.com/questions/113153/install-windows-7-through-usb-drive. As for saving recovered widndows installation, did you copy both windows partitions, 100MB boot partition and system partition? – week Nov 12 '12 at 15:34
  • No, when I originally had installed Windows I followed a procedure (I forget where I saw it) that allowed me to delete the 100mb boot partition and integrate it with my main partition. – kd7iwp Nov 12 '12 at 19:19
  • Then most likely you haven't got a bootable flag on that partition. It's a simple procedure, from windows recovery console run `diskpart` , `select disk numberofdisk`, `select partition numberofpartition`, `active`. Or from some linux usb distro run `fdisk` and command `a`. – week Nov 12 '12 at 19:30
  • Thanks, tried that but now when I boot to Windows at the Grub loader I get 'A Disk read error occurred, press Ctrl + Alt + Del to restart' – kd7iwp Nov 12 '12 at 20:15
  • Now it's the time to restore mbr with windows recovery `yourdrive:\boot\Bootsect.exe /NT60 All`. If this won't help goto Answer from BroScience. – week Nov 12 '12 at 20:54

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boot up to startup repair and go to the recovery console. from there rebuild bcd.

bootrec /RebuildBcd

BroScience
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  • Good idea. Tried it but oddly enough bootrec reports "total identified Windows installations: 0". Even `/scanos` reports that. Yet when Startup Repair opens it sees the installation. – kd7iwp Nov 12 '12 at 22:14