Restore/reinstall Windows 7 from Ubuntu

gerbear1

Hi all, my computer had Windows 7 running on it fine, then I installed Ubuntu from USB. I selected the option to have Ubuntu running along side Windows 7 but the installer froze while installing Ubuntu, I shut down the PC and started again. I realised now the secon time I selected the new option I had which was remove previous Ubuntu version and re-install rather than selecting to install it along side Windows 7. So I guess I've now lost Windows 7 ! Luckily I backed up my main stuff so if I need to do a clean install of Windows 7 it's not so bad. The problem is I don't have a recovery disk, I do have a product key at the bottom of my laptop for Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit. I've been looking around the net on how to do this, the first step seems I need an ISO file of Windows 7. I can see a torrent for it, but I don't want to do that because I thought I would be able to download this legally from Microsoft's site and use my product key.

I'm open to correction on all of the above. Can anybody tell me how I can restore or (if necessary) re-install Windows 7 without have the Windows 7 DVD?

PS, I wasn't sure if this came under Unix or Windows forum, because I'm trying to do this from Ubuntu. I saw several sites on the net telling me about what executables I need to download, which doesn't help me much.

Edit: Extra info, I guess I lost Windows:

root@gerbear-NV55C:~# sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000e686b

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 195452927 97725440 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 195454974 234516479 19530753 5 Extended
Partition 2 does not start on physical sector boundary.
/dev/sda5 195454976 234516479 19530752 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Johnboy1951

You need to get hold of Windows and reinstall ...... yes you appear to have wiped your previous Windows from the disk.

Just be careful from where you get the install medium ......

boomslang

If you bought the laptop airly recently there is a chance it still has the recovery partition intact. Unless ubuntu wiped the whole drive, but some recovery partitions are not removeable easilly. Check your laptop manual for disaster recovery. If that fails then you need to run installer from an iso. Contact the vendor - they may be able to supply a copy of the os for you.

Johnboy1951

boomslang wrote: »

If you bought the laptop airly recently there is a chance it still has the recovery partition intact. Unless ubuntu wiped the whole drive, but some recovery partitions are not removeable easilly. Check your laptop manual for disaster recovery. If that fails then you need to run installer from an iso. Contact the vendor - they may be able to supply a copy of the os for you.

There is no recovery partition on the disk ...... as the output of fdisk shows.

gerbear1

I re-installed Windows 7 and now I can only boot to Windows! I give up!

Johnboy1951

gerbear1 wrote: »

I re-installed Windows 7 and now I can only boot to Windows! I give up!

That is normal ...... Windows will not give you the option to boot other OSs.

There is a means of reinstating other OSs in the Grub boot loader ........ IF you did not allow Win to overwrite the other OS.

MS only recognizes 3 file systems, FAT, NTFS & CDFS (I know), so it doesn't care or not aware you have any other file systems. This is why it's recommended to install a MS system first.

Supergrub is a handy tool in situations like this.

FSL

If you didn't overwrite the partition Ubuntu on it you can use a utility called easybcd add unit os's to the windows boot menu.

gerbear1

OK, here's what I did. I found an ISO of Windows 7 (from Microsoft's site), follow a guide I found from Google on how to install it using a USB stick. Once that was done, I then decided to install Ubuntu again, which I think was unnecessary. This time I used the Windows install available on the Ubuntu website. I now have Windows 7 and Ubuntu working as dual boot, just what I wanted.

My problem now is that I have a 320GB hard drive. In Windows I see about 200GB in my C: drive. I know when I originally installed Ubuntu I gave it a partition of about 100GB. In device manager in Windows I can see 100GB showing up as system reserve, but I can't do anything with it.

When I boot to Ubuntu I get the following:

gerry@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000e686b

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 2048 195452927 97725440 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 195454974 234516479 19530753 5 Extended
Partition 2 does not start on physical sector boundary.
/dev/sda3 * 234516480 234721279 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda4 234721280 625139711 195209216 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda5 195454976 234516479 19530752 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 16.2 GB, 16236150784 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1973 cylinders, total 31711232 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x04dd5721

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 63 31711231 15855584+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT


The full 320GB showing up. Is it possible to make this viewed in Windows too? Or how can I lower it down to about 50GB?