Cannot boot Windows 7 64bit GPT USB flash drive installer

[Member kaye]

Hello Friends!

My laptop is triple boot: Windows 7 64bit, Debian 64bit, and AntiX 64bit.

The partition table of the hard drive is GPT.

I messed up the windows bootloader or whatever you call it, so executing update-grub doesn’t help.

I need to boot a windows installer to repair it, and I have a USB flash drive Windows 7 64 bit GPT, but I cannot boot it.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever successfully booted it in this particular laptop before.

I’ve toggled the legacy OS boot to no avail (enabled and disabled)

Any ideas?

Thank you for your time.

[Moderator BobC]

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Did you try running boot repair with ESP selected?

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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It should be possible to boot all three systems from antiX or Debian, and for that matter, Windows may have improved methods of booting other operating systems.

You can try fixing the boot loader for antiX or Debian and see if that provides a way into your Windows system. If the bootloader in Windows turns out to be mandatory to fix Windows, then a bootable Windows media source (CD, DVD, USB) may be necessary. Try all three approaches. If you have success, let us know the specific steps you used.

If you’re still struggling, someone who still has a Windows – Linux multi-boot configuration may be able to assist; I had one in the past, but I’m no longer familiar with the most current Windows boot loader methods; anything I find would only be what I read on the Internet.

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Brian Masinick

[Moderator BobC]

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I was reading it that you were trying to boot from the hard drive and it wouldn’t boot to the windows manager option on grub. If the grub setup was the problem, then boot repair might correct it.

If you are actually trying to boot from a Windows 7 64bit GPT USB flash drive, then you might need to change the boot options to tell it to try that first. I doubt their installer will show or worry about antiX or Debian, so if you have anything you want to keep on the hard drive from the antiX or Debian installs, I’d suggest backing them up before running the windows install programs in case it might erase them or make them inaccessible.

Getting the machine to boot from a Windows USB flash drive is really a windows question, not an antiX or Debian one, but you need to be careful that you don’t wipe things out by mistake.

PS: find out what function key provides boot options. On my Dell its F12. You need to press it before grub tries to load.

• This reply was modified 12 months ago by BobC.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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BobC wrote:

I was reading it that you were trying to boot from the hard drive and it wouldn’t boot to the windows manager option on grub. If the grub setup was the problem, then boot repair might correct it.

If you are actually trying to boot from a Windows 7 64bit GPT USB flash drive, then you might need to change the boot options to tell it to try that first. I doubt their installer will show or worry about antiX or Debian, so if you have anything you want to keep on the hard drive from the antiX or Debian installs, I’d suggest backing them up before running the windows install programs in case it might erase them or make them inaccessible.

Getting the machine to boot from a Windows USB flash drive is really a windows question, not an antiX or Debian one, but you need to be careful that you don’t wipe things out by mistake.

PS: find out what function key provides boot options. On my Dell its F12. You need to press it before grub tries to load.

IF it is the case that the hard drive wasn’t booting Windows for one reason or another, then you may be able to “chainload” to any of the three systems.

“5.1.2 Chain-loading an OS

Operating systems that do not support Multiboot and do not have specific support in GRUB (specific support is available for Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD) must be chain-loaded, which involves loading another boot loader and jumping to it in real mode.

The chainloader command (see chainloader) is used to set this up. It is normally also necessary to load some GRUB modules and set the appropriate root device. Putting this together, we get something like this, for a Windows system on the first partition of the first hard disk:

menuentry “Windows” {
insmod chain
insmod ntfs
set root=(hd0,1)
chainloader +1
}
”
Source: https://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub/html_node/Chain_002dloading.html

Read more from that page for additional information.

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Brian Masinick

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