"No Bootable Devices Detected"

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

Hi all. Before I changed to linux, I was on Windows 7. My computer already had 4 different partitions, and would not let me create more. And so, I had to delete one of the partitions. I chose to get rid of the “recovery” partition. I used “Macrium Reflect” to burn a bootable CD of my recovery stuff.

Anyways, fast forward to this morning. I got tired of the KDE desktop, and I decided to switch to Gnome. So, I went into windows 7, deleted the three OpenSUSE partitions, and moved the remaining space back to my C: (windows) drive. (don’t ask me why :S)

Anyways, so I take a look, after it’s done deleting/moving stuff, and I’m told that “no bootable devices detected”… This made me angry, as I am certain I didn’t delete any of the windows partitions. So, I thought, I’ll just use my recovery disk, because I quite literally, have no personal data on my computer to lose. Except, my recovery disk is not actually bootable. So, then, after screaming in rage, I booted up OpenSUSE from my KDE CD, and was gonna take a look at things in YaST. Except, YaST will not actually open.

Am I screwed? I was never given a windows CD, because it came pre-installed on my PC.

#2

Hi all. Before I changed to linux, I was on Windows 7. My computer already had 4 different partitions, and would not let me create more. And so, I had to delete one of the partitions. I chose to get rid of the “recovery” partition. I used “Macrium Reflect” to burn a bootable CD of my recovery stuff.

Anyways, fast forward to this morning. I got tired of the KDE desktop, and I decided to switch to Gnome. So, I went into windows 7, deleted the three OpenSUSE partitions, and moved the remaining space back to my C: (windows) drive. (don’t ask me why :S)

Anyways, so I take a look, after it’s done deleting/moving stuff, and I’m told that “no bootable devices detected”… This made me angry, as I am certain I didn’t delete any of the windows partitions. So, I thought, I’ll just use my recovery disk, because I quite literally, have no personal data on my computer to lose. Except, my recovery disk is not actually bootable. So, then, after screaming in rage, I booted up OpenSUSE from my KDE CD, and was gonna take a look at things in YaST. Except, YaST will not actually open.

Am I screwed? I was never given a windows CD, because it came pre-installed on my PC.

So I am not sure what you want to do for sure, but for Windows to load, the MBR (Master Boot Record) of the BIOS selected boot disk must be loaded with boot code (its blank on new disk by default for instance) and the Windows boot partition must be marked active for booting. If you have an original Windows boot disk, you can boot from that and elect for it to “fix” you Windows disk in order for it to start working. Once you install openSUSE and if you did not have an original Windows boot disk, you should not have remove the Linux installation, particularly if you really did not understand how a hard disk boot. Perhaps if you reinstall openSUSE, you can get both back to working. Here is some more info or partitioning with openSUSE:

Each hard drive can have up to four PRIMARY partitions, any of which could be marked active and bootable. No matter what you might hear, only one of the first four primary partitions can be booted from. That means you can boot from Primary partitions 1, 2, 3 or 4 and that is all. In order to boot openSUSE, you must load openSUSE and the grub boot loader into one of the first four partitions. Or, your second choice is to load the grub boot loader into the MBR (Master Boot Record) at the start of the disk. The MBR can be blank, like a new disk, it can contain a Windows partition booting code or generic booting code to boot the active partition 1, 2, 3, or 4. Or, as stated before, it can contain the grub boot loader. Why load grub into the MBR then? You do this so that you can “boot” openSUSE from a logical partition, numbered 5 or higher, which is not normally possible. In order to have more than four partitions, one of them (and only one can be assigned as extended) must be a extended partition. It is called an Extended Primary Partition, a container partition, it can be any one of the first four and it can contain one or more logical partitions within. Anytime you see partition numbers 5, 6 or higher for instance, they can only occur inside of the one and only Extended Primary partition you could have.

What does openSUSE want as far as partitions? It needs at minimum a SWAP partition and a “/” partition where all of your software is loaded. Further, it is recommended you create a separate /home partition, which makes it easier to upgrade or reload openSUSE without losing all of your settings. So, that is three more partitions you must add to what you have now. What must you do to load and boot openSUSE from an external hard drive? Number one, you must be able to select your external hard drive as the boot drive in your BIOS setup. Number two, you need to make sure that the external hard drive, perhaps /dev/sdb, is listed as the first hard drive in your grub device.map file and listed as drive hd0. I always suggest that you do not load grub into the MBR, but rather into the openSUSE “/” root primary partition which means a primary number of 1, 2, 3 or 4. If number one is used, then that will be out. You will mark the openSUSE partition as active for booting and finally you must load generic booting code into the MBR so that it will boot the openSUSE partition. I suggest a partition like this:

  1. /dev/sda, Load MBR with generic booting code
  2. /dev/sda1, Primary NTFS Partition for Windows
  3. /dev/sda2, Primary SWAP (4 GB)
  4. /dev/sda3, Primary EXT4 “/” openSUSE Partition Marked Active for booting (80-120 GB)
  5. /dev/sda4, Primary EXT4 “/home” Your main home directory (Rest of the disk)

<OR>

  1. /dev/sda, Load MBR with generic booting code
  2. /dev/sda1, Primary, booting NTFS Partition for Windows (small < 500 mb)
  3. /dev/sda2, Primary, NTFS Partition for Windows (Main / Large Partition)
  4. /dev/sda3, Primary EXT4 “/” openSUSE Partition Marked Active for booting (80-120 GB)
  5. /dev/sda4, Primary Extended Partition (Rest of Disk)
  6. /dev/sda5, Logical SWAP partition(4 GB, inside Extended)
  7. /dev/sda6, Logical EXT4 “/home” Your main home directory (Rest of the Extended partition)

Thank You,

#3

Anyways, so I take a look, after it’s done deleting/moving stuff, and I’m told that “no bootable devices detected”… This made me angry, as I am certain I didn’t delete any of the windows partitions. So, I thought, I’ll just use my recovery disk, because I quite literally, have no personal data on my computer to lose. Except, my recovery disk is not actually bootable. So, then, after screaming in rage, I booted up OpenSUSE from my KDE CD, and was gonna take a look at things in YaST. Except, YaST will not actually open.

Am I screwed? I was never given a windows CD, because it came pre-installed on my PC.

Why the panic?

Reinstall the windows boot loader!

#4

How exactly do I access this MBr?

I’m trying to reinstall opensuse, but because i had moved the extra space from my opensuse partitions back to my C: drive, the only place I have to store openSUSE is on my windows partitions… I can’t seem to find a way to create a new partition within the installer. When I use the C: windows partition, it says it’s going to shrink it, and create an extended partition etc, etc. The partitions mentioned are all the ones I had deleted earlier. Should I do this?

#5

@dvhenry I’m sorry haha

I have no idea what that is. I can’t boot anything other than the live openSUSE cd… I’m panicking because I just bought this PC. I don’t want it to be dead :open_mouth:

#6

I’m trying to reinstall opensuse, but because i had moved the extra space from my opensuse partitions back to my C: drive, the only place I have to store openSUSE is on my windows partitions… I can’t seem to find a way to create a new partition within the installer. When I use the C: windows partition, it says it’s going to shrink it, and create an extended partition etc, etc. The partitions mentioned are all the ones I had deleted earlier. Should I do this?

Since your PC does not boot, I would say this request to shrink Windows, add in a Extended Partition, load openSUSE into Logical Partitions and place the Grub Boot loader into the MBR is a good way to get running again. What other choices do you really have? Now consider that with a new PC, you could call tech support, say you blew away the partitions and want to reload. Perhaps they might send out a boot disk if it did not come with one. It might be worth a try.

Thank You,

#7

@dvhenry I’m sorry haha

I have no idea what that is. I can’t boot anything other than the live openSUSE cd… I’m panicking because I just bought this PC. I don’t want it to be dead :open_mouth:

By removing the openSUSE partitions you removed needed boot loader files, you now have no useable loader, this is why you can’t boot windows.
You need to reinstall the windows boot loader, I don’t use windows, but you could try something like this reinstall Windows 7 boot loader | Windows Reference

#8

dv: All of those require some form of a disk, I think, except the last one. And I deleted my recovery partition, so it’s not likely an option.

James: Thanks. I think I have a warranty allowing for any kind of screw up, including running over my pc with a car. So, I’ll take it in to where I bought it first, and maybe call HP support if they can’t help me.

One question: I used a key-finder to find the microsoft key for my PC, because I was making a recovery CD (which of course, didn’t work)… Would it be possible to download a copy of the windows 7 OS (with opensuse), install it, and use my CD key? Thanks.

#9

As dvhenry says, you probably just need to reinstall the windows bootloader. If you don’t have a windows DVD, there’s a lot of rescue-systems availabe. You can download them or you can buy a Linux magazine (at least where i live) which often come with DVD’s including such tools.
I my recent copy of “Linux Intern” there is a hint to Super Grub2 on www.bootproblems.com. I haven’t tried this one, but easily repaired the xp bootloader on a laptop with some other rescue live-DVD.
Good luck.

kasi

#10

dv: All of those require some form of a disk, I think, except the last one. And I deleted my recovery partition, so it’s not likely an option.

James: Thanks. I think I have a warranty allowing for any kind of screw up, including running over my pc with a car. So, I’ll take it in to where I bought it first, and maybe call HP support if they can’t help me.

One question: I used a key-finder to find the microsoft key for my PC, because I was making a recovery CD (which of course, didn’t work)… Would it be possible to download a copy of the windows 7 OS (with opensuse), install it, and use my CD key? Thanks.

Unless HP offers a disk, I don’t think you are going to find one free anywhere. You most likely have the OEM number. It is possible to use a disk from a friend and your number, but it will not work on a retail copy, only an OEM copy (like a friend that might have purchased Dell for instance). Further, once a number has been registered, you must go through the M$ phone system to get it to register again and Verify you have loaded this copy only once. If you actually get a real person, just state you had to reload due to a software problem and give no other details. Trust me if the copy has not been registered a bunch of times as would occur with a stolen number, they will register it for you, but you must get past the disk part (as in not having one). Perhaps since HP has announced they will be getting out of the PC business, they will have pity on you and send a bootable disk to you. I can guaranty by the time I got done talking with them, they would be sending me a disk. I just hate the “no disk for you” way most of the companies deal with their customer. I might add that all Dell purchases I have made did include a boot disk (32 bit however).

Thank You,

#11

I’m trying to reinstall opensuse, but because i had moved the extra space from my opensuse partitions back to my C: drive, the only place I have to store openSUSE is on my windows partitions… I can’t seem to find a way to create a new partition within the installer. When I use the C: windows partition, it says it’s going to shrink it, and create an extended partition etc, etc. The partitions mentioned are all the ones I had deleted earlier. Should I do this?

Yep! Do that.