Boot Repair Disk not running; No internet access

I was installing Ubuntu 13.04 alongside Windows 8 from a flash drive yesterday. I had installed it next to Windows 7 before on a similar device before and had not encountered any problems.

Firstly, in the installation screens, Ubuntu wouldn't connect to the wifi, I thought this would clear up after I installed it however (it didn't). When I got to the partitioning screen it was a bit odd. The last time I installed Ubuntu it was divided into occupied space and free space, this time the hard drive was different. There were like 6 different partitions, something like Recovery, System Volume, sda/1, sda/2, sda/3, sda/4, sda/5. The majority of space was on sda/4 (something like 480 gb out of 500) so I clicked somethings and half of sda/4 split into sda/6. I chose to mount on sda/6 and the rest installed fine (although w/o internet)

When I restarted the computer, it booted straight to Ubuntu without giving me an option to load Windows 8. The computer also wouldn't connect to the internet through wifi or Ethernet.

To try and fix the booting problem I burned the Boot Repair disk (I tried it twice) but both times it sort of just sat there. I'm not sure if I burned it incorrectly or something else. From what I've read something is supposed to come up quite easily, and it didn't. I also tried 'boot-repair' in the Terminal and that didn't work either. Due to the lack of internet apt-getting boot repair was also crossed off as an option

I can post anything as needed (I'm not really sure what would help)

my flaccid boot repair:

Thank you in advance!

1 Answer

Try preparing a USB flash drive or CD-R with my rEFInd boot manager. When you boot with that disk, you should get the rEFInd menu, which should enable you to boot either Windows or Linux. If this works, do the following:

1. Boot to Linux using rEFInd.
2. Open a Terminal window.
3. In the Terminal, type sudo mkdir -p /boot/efi
4. In the Terminal, type sudo parted /dev/sda print.
5. Examine the output from parted to identify your EFI System Partition (ESP): It should have a FAT filesystem and the word "boot" under the "Flags" column. It's usually the first or second partition.
6. Mount the ESP to /boot/efi by typing sudo mount /dev/sda1 /boot/efi, changing /dev/sda1 to some other partition, if necessary.
7. Download the Debian-package version of rEFInd.
8. Install the Debian-package version of rEFInd by typing sudo dpkg -i refind_0.7.5-1_amd64.deb, changing the path to the file if necessary. (If somebody reads this in the future, the version number may be different, too.)
9. Reboot and enter your firmware setup utility. This is usually done by hitting Del or a function key as the computer powers up, but details depend on the computer.
10. Locate the option to support BIOS-mode (aka CSM or legacy) booting and disable it. Alternatively, there may be a boot order option that will enable you to set rEFInd to boot before the computer tries any sort of BIOS/CSM/legacy-mode boot. Unfortunately, options in firmware setup utilities vary greatly from one computer to another, so it's hard to be specific about what you should do. If you can't find anything relevant, just reboot normally and hope for the best.

With any luck, this procedure will get rEFInd working as your primary boot manager; it should boot Windows or Linux.

If you can't get rEFInd to boot or if you have problems with the procedure, please run the Boot Info Script. This will generate a file called RESULTS.txt. Post it to a pastebin site and post the URL that it provides you here. This will give us more information about your setup, which is necessary to give you more customized advice.