Hi,
This is just a comment, not a question. It might be of some help to some
double booters.
I have a Compaq laptop that came with Windows 7 in 3 partitions. I
installed Linux using partition 4 as extended and installed grub there,
with a separate logical /boot partition.
setup --stage2=/boot/grub/stage2 --force-lba (hd0,3) (hd0,5)
Originally partition 1 was marked bootable, and I changed that to #4.
This method is typical of many installs. Others prefer to install grub in
MBR. Each one has its advantages and problems.
Windows service pack 1 upgrade failed, with a numeric error 0x800F0A12. The
description says that Windows can not access the Windows system partition.
The suggested repair was using bcedit and mountvol /E. Not knowing what
that is really, I stopped.
Instead, the trick was just to mark again partition #1 as bootable, boot W7
and retry the SP upgrade. Success. After done, mark again partition 4 as
bootable (using a live CD) which restores grub and thus, Linux booting.
Happy penguin again! 
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)
In addition to not being able to load a Service Pack in Windows, not having the boot partition marked active can also prevent using the Built-In Windows backup program from working. And, another oddity on the Windows 7 backup relates to the overall complexity (ie: number of hard drives and partitions installed) even if the Windows 7 boot partition is marked active. The default size of this partition when it exists is about 100 MB. But, even when all is correct, Windows 7 may be unable to backup with complex partition configurations without manually increasing the size of this boot partition. While no exact figures I can find exist, making it 499 MB and no larger, appears to allow full backups to occur when also marked active for booting. So, its my suggestion, if you have a choice and the need to use the Windows backup, is to keep Windows on its own hard drive. I used a partition copy application to save the main Windows partition else were, increased the Windows boot partition size to 499 MB and then moved the main Windows partition back. I am sure other methods could be used.
Thank You,
On 2011-10-18 01:26, Jonathan R wrote:
>
> Good note Carlos.
> Here is the link to the Microsoft article on that stop code; ‘Windows 7
> and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) installation
> error: 0x800F0A12’ (http://tinyurl.com/5r2r6s5)
Yep, I read it.
They do quite a job of explaining things, but in this case I guess they
were wrong. How were they know that Linux exists? >:-)
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)
On 2011-10-18 01:56, jdmcdaniel3 wrote:
>
> In addition to not being able to load a Service Pack in Windows, not
> having the boot partition marked active can also prevent using the
> Built-In Windows backup program from working.
I don’t know about that. I have an image of everything saved on DVDs, but I
think I made a windows backup before installing Linux. Then I reduced its
main partition by about half to leave space for Linux.
> The default size of this partition when it
> exists is about 100 MB.
Yes, mine is like that.
> So, its my
> suggestion, if you have a choice and the need to use the Windows backup,
Too late for me to change any of that. I’m happy with saving images for
restoring windows. I’ll do one after I installed that SP. Maybe I’ll try
clonezilla.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)