MBR Code written brings 1234F: after Linux installation

Using TestDisk to repair the filesystem
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harald1
Posts: 3
Joined: 03 Nov 2016, 14:20

MBR Code written brings 1234F: after Linux installation

#1 Post by harald1 »

The issue I am facing is that after installing Linux on a partition, none of the 2 Windows OS on other partitions are available for booting, while it is possible to boot Linux.

I tried to use testdisk to fix this using these instructions: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step .
In these instructions at NTFS Boot sector recovery section, it shows a screenshot with bad sector and after this is repaired. On my system both partitions with Windows had 'Boot sector' and 'Backup boot sector' on OK. In my opinion this makes actually sense, as they were working fine until installing Linux Mint. Even so, I have used the option 'Rebuild BS' for sda5 , without success though.

Now I have used the tool to write the MBR Code and at restart it displays: " 1234F: "

Hitting 1 ,3 or 4 returns the same immediately, hitting 'F' makes the cursor go to the next line for a while and then " 1234F " is shown again.
Hitting 2 brings the cursor to the next line and it stays like that.


The only way to get back to boot Linux again is to run the boot-repair utility from Linux, which enables to repair/reset grub (which I understand is a kind of boot manager for Linux).


The partitions look like this:

Code: Select all

============================ Drive/Partition Info: =============================

Drive: sda _____________________________________________________________________

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders, total 312581808 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Partition  Boot  Start Sector    End Sector  # of Sectors  Id System

/dev/sda1    *             63    20,964,824    20,964,762  83 Linux
/dev/sda2          20,964,825   312,560,639   291,595,815   f W95 Extended (LBA)
/dev/sda5          20,964,888    62,910,539    41,945,652   7 NTFS / exFAT / HPFS
/dev/sda6          62,910,603   125,821,079    62,910,477   7 NTFS / exFAT / HPFS
/dev/sda7         125,821,143   188,731,619    62,910,477   7 NTFS / exFAT / HPFS
/dev/sda8         188,731,683   312,560,639   123,828,957   7 NTFS / exFAT / HPFS
Windows OS is on sda5 and sda7.

If needed, a detailed summary file generated by the boot-repair tool from Linux here: http://paste.ubuntu.com/23419847/


I would appreciate if you can help me make all 3 operating systems available for booting again using testdisk. I really hoped that writing MBR Code would fix it..
I have asked for help in the ubuntu/boot-repair forum and I was told that "Boot Repair will not repair the Windows boot" .

Thank you.

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cgrenier
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Re: MBR Code written brings 1234F: after Linux installation

#2 Post by cgrenier »

I don't know if Windows can be started from a Logical partition...

Code: Select all

grub2-install /dev/sda
can used from a Linux LiveCD/USB to reinstall the multiboot. The log you have linked to say that gurb has been reinstalled, so it should be already ok.

harald1
Posts: 3
Joined: 03 Nov 2016, 14:20

Re: MBR Code written brings 1234F: after Linux installation

#3 Post by harald1 »

Hi,

and thank you for answering to my question.

After a lot of testing and fixing I got to the point where it should work, but the boot is stopping at the error: "Reboot and select proper device".
I applied http://www.deskdecode.com/reboot-and-se ... explained/ .

I have also set the hard drive to be primary master as it was not, and still the same message shows up at start time.
When trying to set the partition active as indicated in the "Set partition as active on Windows XP section" from https://neosmart.net/wiki/set-partition ... Windows_XP , I get stuck at step 7. After typing 'diskpart' the partitions are displayed; there is no option to type anything the only options available are ESC=Cancel and L=delete (its in german, german word for delete starts with L). If you think it is useful, I can write here the partition list, which diskpart displays.


In short I need help on setting the partition active with diskpart and correcting and progressing from the "Reboot and select proper device" error.

harald1
Posts: 3
Joined: 03 Nov 2016, 14:20

Re: MBR Code written brings 1234F: after Linux installation

#4 Post by harald1 »

Hi,

I have finally made it after 4 days of work and frustration...

CountryMan811B
Posts: 2
Joined: 06 Mar 2017, 20:58

Re: MBR Code written brings 1234F: after Linux installation

#5 Post by CountryMan811B »

I am dealing with the exact same error (1234F) after restoring my entire hard drive from found partitions using Testdisk's deep search option. This all occurred after doing a Diskpart "clean" command which I thought I was doing on an individual partition but the clean command was performed on the entire hard drive.

Luckily, I had an up-to-date partition layout showing beginning and ending sectors of each partition. I also had a picture of the hard drive layout from running Gparted at the same time. Additionally, I had up-to-date backups of my GPT hard drive's EFI System partition and grub boot partitions, but restoring these still left me getting the 1234F error at boot time.

I realize there is more I can try to do to attempt to get up and running but before doing so, I was interested in knowing what finally got you up and running as you mentioned in your November 5, 2016 post where you said "I have finally made it after 4 days of work and frustration".

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cgrenier
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Re: MBR Code written brings 1234F: after Linux installation

#6 Post by cgrenier »

You need to set one of your partitions as *(bootable) instead of P(rimary) or L(ogical).
In the mean time, you can try to press 1,2,3 or 4 to boot from partition 1,2,3 or 4.

CountryMan811B
Posts: 2
Joined: 06 Mar 2017, 20:58

Re: MBR Code written brings 1234F: after Linux installation

#7 Post by CountryMan811B »

Thanks for your very fast reply, cgrenier. Not sure why, but during the deep search process which took 6-8 hours on my 1TB drive, my grub partition was not found thus, I was not able to change it to (*) and had to add it manually. Among the several thousand items found, I was able to recover all but the grub partition and 1 or 2 others. To do this, I had to muddle thru all of them to find the ones I needed, setting them to (P) as I found them. Lucky for me, I had an almost up-to-date listing of the 20+ partitions on my hard drive showing beginning and ending sectors of each which I obtained thru the "sfdisk -l" command in a Linux terminal a few days prior. Just to clarify, I like to explore different Linux distros and keep the ones I like on my hard drive along with Windows 10 and two data partitions.

Is having several thousand entries a normal thing? Almost all of the duplicated entries were off by 1 or just a very few sectors.

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