Hello everyone, so was running Windows 7 ultimate and Zorin, with a swapfile partition. I merged the C partition with another blank partition and now I'm in grub rescue mode...how can I boot Windows up, or Zorin?
Thanks!

Hi Celsiusrising,

Welcome!

Since you altered the partitions, grub probably points to the wrong ones now. (hd 0,1) is sda1, (hd 1,1) is sdb1. Those examples are just so you know how drives and partitions are enumerated in grub.cfg. Don't change the basic format of those designations, just the numerals.

You need to look at your partitions and determine which partition holds Linux. Then, before you get the grub prompt, during the grub boot menu, press 'e' for edit. Adjust all the values so they are correct. The first 'root=' entry refers to /boot. The second one, in the 'linux' line, refers to '/'.

If those are on the same partition, they should be equal to the same thing. Set those according to the device node instead of the UUID, ie which device '/boot' and '/' are on, /dev/sdXy.

Alternatively, you can boot a Debian install disk, choose rescue, and open a chroot shell on '/' of the installed system. Then it's just like working on the installed system. From the prompt, type 'bash', to get a decent shell. Then run 'update-grub'.

The system should boot into zorin after that. You might get lucky and Windows will work too.

5 members found this post helpful.

Since I last posted, I've managed to get in to Windows with an installation repair disks let's see what I might be to accomplish from here

Great! Thanks for the update.

Since I last posted, I've managed to get in to Windows with an installation repair disks let's see what I might be to accomplish from here

Awesomemachine,
I got in with the win7 installation disk, but no luck with repairs, not that I had really high Hope's of success. It goes back to the grub rescue screen on restart . So I suppose the debian rescue disk is the next effort, and I'm wondering if I can access it with my machine if I download it to my phone any thoughts?

The phone might not have sufficient storage to hold a DVD-sized iso. You can try it with the zorin install media. You probably need to choose 'advanced > rescue' on boot.

Awesomemachine;
I managed to get windows to boot last night with HBCD. I havent had a chance yet to see if the swapfile/linux installation is still extant, but I'd like to thank you for all your help up to this point. I appreciate it very much!