Cannot Dual Boot as Bracktrack Partition Not recognised As Bootable

[hitmen]

Look at my attachment. I got a 66.84GB primary partition when it should be a bootable partition (ext3).
The 2.87GB is a swap partition.
I dunno what the system reserved 100MB NTFS is for. Can anyone enlighten?
My backtrack is not detected as bootable. Help!!

[Teiknethal]

When installing backtrack it allows you to edit the partitions and re size if needed. Use this program, as resizing via the windows "disk management" cannot, and will not make partitions bootable. While installing, select the partition you wish to install on and hit delete. The click create partition (I think that's the button) and at the top you should be able to set it as primary or logical, select primary and format it. Then it should show a check mark on the main partition screen under the box labeled as "format" (Again, I think that's the box name). You should be able to continue and it should auto install grub dual boot manager. On your next reboot you should be able to select the backtrack boot or "Vista/Longhorn" boot.

Sorry if that is not what you are looking for.

[oODigiXOo]

Looks like it was created by Windows 7 for bitlocker encryption and the Windows Recovery Environment(WinRE). It could be that this is causing problems with booting into backtrack, but don't take my word for it as I am just a n00b as well. This link explains how to get rid of it:

Hack to Remove 100 MB System Reserved Partition When Installing Windows 7

[dustyboner]

you can only have 4 primary partitions total. the backtrack installer will create the 4th primary and install bt4 on it. so if you want to use the 66.48GB for backtrack, you need to merge it with the 2.87GB partition. then run the installer, once it get to the partitioning part, you can choose to split the merged partition back into the 66GB and 2GB.

[RavenDT]

After examining the picture you posted, I see you have a Vista version of Windows (Either Windows Vista or Windows 7).

The 100MB NTFS partition labeled "System Reserved" is automatically created to house the new "Windows Boot Manager". Older versions of windows used to use NTLDR which received its settings from boot.ini. This is not the case for Vista versions.

The easiest way to dual boot Windows and Backtrack in this case is to use Grub as your primary bootloader and WBM as a secondary. Reason being is, Grub cannot load Windows and Windows Boot Manager cannot boot Linux. You have to chainload them. Highly recommend having Grub chainload WBM.

Comparison of boot loaders - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I highly recommend you do whatever possible to remain calm during this procedure, because it can be extremely stressful when it appears that you have lost your Windows OS, but like I said, remain calm.

Make sure you have the CD/DVD that you used to install your Windows OS handy.

1.) Boot into any form of Linux, such as the Backtrack Live CD.

2.) Run fdisk

3.) Delete the 100 MB partition. (You cannot delete this partition with Windows booted; Windows never lets you delete anything that they deem "critical")

Also, you may wish you delete your 66 GB partition with backtrack on it and reinstall it later to make this easier. You can delete the swap partition. Make sure you DO NOT delete your native Windows partition. A hint: You should have two NTFS partitions: the 100MB and another. Delete ONLY the 100MB one.

4.) Once you deleted the 100MB partition, reboot with the Windows Installation DVD in the drive. You may have to change the boot order in your BIOS settings.

5.) Once the Install loads, there should be a screen that has a green arrow and says "Install Windows Vista (or 7)". Below that there should be an option to repair your computer. Click that.

6.) There are two ways of fixing your boot loader. There's one option to Repair the Windows Startup. The description is something to the effect of "Choose this option to fix problems preventing Windows from starting up." When you choose that option, it should detect that there is a partition with Windows on it. Follow the instructions and it will attempt to recreate the bootloader on the native Windows partition (because the 100MB System Reserved partition is gone. This is what you want).

7.) Click the reboot button or whatever and take the DVD out. If Windows still fails to boot, repeat steps 5, 6, and 7.

If this does not fix your Windows Boot Loader, there is a second option. Boot back onto the install DVD, but this time when you go into the repair options, click the Command Recovery Console. Execute the following commands:

bootrec.exe /fixmbr
bootrec.exe /rebuildbcd

Hopefully those worked alright. Then try:

bcdedit.exe /enum all

You should see the boot loader settings for pulling up Windows.

If so, try rebooting. If it still doesn't work, keep repeating until it does. It'll eventually get fixed. Once it does, proceed to step 8.


8.) Now that Windows is booting up fine without the 100MB partition, now you can install Backtrack and Grub Legacy! Reboot your computer with the Backtrack Live CD in the drive.

9.) Go through the Backtrack install. When it comes time to do your partitions, recreate the 100MB partition in the beginning of the Hard Drive. Either make it ReiserFS or Ext3 (not sure about that, someone confirm?) and set that partition to mount as /boot. This is where you want Grub Legacy's files to go.

10.) Recreate the partitioning scheme you'd like for / and swap. Keep in mind that if you wish to install other operating systems, you will not be able to if you make them primary partitions. The only thing that absolutely needs to be a primary partition is the 100MB one for the boot loader. Everything else can be an Extended or "Logical" partition. Your choice. (Because Windows has its own bootloader installed on its partition, that should be a primary partition).

11.) Once you've finished specifying the partition scheme, continue with the installation. Later on it will ask about installing a boot loader. Make sure the box is checked and it will install the Grub Legacy boot loader to that hard drive (probably /dev/sda or something like that). Install it to the entire hard drive, not a specific partition.

What this does: Linux understands that when you specify a specific partition for /boot, it will install the bootloader's files to that partition (the 100MB one) however, that is considered "Stage 2" code. The "Stage 1" code still has to be installed to the Master Boot Record (MBR) which is the first 512 bytes of the Hard Drive. When you allow it to install that boot loader, it will basically install the code there to call and reference the configuration files located on, say, /dev/sda0 (an actual partition). This is what you want.

12.) Reboot after Backtrack is installed. It _should_ have picked up your Windows partition and allow you to boot that. If not, fixing that is not difficult, but every time I've installed Backtrack, it has picked up Windows in the Grub configuration and choosing that option boots Windows just fine.

13.) If you so choose, you can configure your legacy Grub (found in /boot/grub/menu.lst) to make Windows the first choice of your booting, and you can change the delay to like 5 seconds, etc, etc.


In Summary:
When your computer turns on, the BIOS runs. The BIOS checks the boot sequence and sees if there is any valid boot code. If there is no CD in the drive, the next thing to check is the Hard Drive. It sees that the MBR has valid boot code and hands over control to it. The MBR (the first 512 bytes of the Hard Drive) will have the Stage 1 code for Grub. It will do its thing and execute its code in the 100MB partition for Stage 2. That is the Grub that you see come up that asks you to boot into Backtrack or Windows. When you select backtrack, it will already know how to load BT and will do its thing. If you select Windows, it will "chainload" which means it will set the root for the operating system to your Windows partition, and then will call the boot code located there, which is Windows Boot Manager. WBM will know how to load Windows and do its thing.

I have done all this successfully and have a nice Dual Boot going with Windows 7 and Ubuntu (with grub 2). I've done it with Backtrack and Windows 7 (with legacy grub). My current issue is trying to get Grub 2 to load Backtrack (There's a reason BT comes with Legacy Grub and Ubuntu comes with Grub 2 *growls*).

Let me know if this doesn't work for you.

-RavenDT

[hitmen]

Thanks! It worked