URGENT: Microsoft overwrites boot loader!
Don Wilde
dwilde1 at gmail.com
Fri Jul 17 08:27:08 UTC 2020
On 7/16/20 7:40 PM, Manish Jain wrote:
>
>
> On 2020-07-17 01:49, Don Wilde wrote:
>> The [deleted] ones in Redmond have done it again. My multi-OS GRUB2
>> boot loader is gone, and in its place is a 500M partition called
>> 'Windows boot loader'.
>>
>> The purpose is to force us to look at MS' new version of Edge. All my
>> old boot files are gone.
>>
>> It's taken me much of the morning to get underneath this, since on
>> this unit my only OS (other than Doze 10) with a WM and GUI is Ubuntu.
>>
>> That's the last time I will allow this, and I'm calling those
>> [deleted]s tomorrow to give them a piece of my mind. After that I
>> will erase every vestige of that obscene OS from my disk.
>>
>
> If I understand correctly, it's just that your Grub boot-loader is gone.
>
Yes, exactly.
> That should not be much of a problem if your system is MBR+BIOS.
>
Unfortunately, it's GPT under EFI. I can access all my files through the
F12 key on this Dell tower, be it Windows, Linux or FreeBSD, but if I
allow it to boot with the Doze HDD in the system, it boots to that one.
> If your system is MBR+BIOS, the following should work.
>
> Boot with your FreeBSD CD/DVD/memstick, and write out boot0 to all
> your disks:
>
> boot0cfg -B /dev/<disk0>
> boot0cfg -B /dev/<disk1>
> boot0cfg -B /dev/<disk2>
>
> Next, boot with your Ubuntu CD/DVD/memstick, and write out Grub to
> your Ubuntu / partition. If Ubuntu / is /dev/sdb2 :
>
> sudo mount /dev/sdb2 /mnt
> sudo grub-install --force --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sdb2
>
> Reboot. When booting Ubuntu the first time, first press 'e' at the
> Grub loader menu to edit the configuration, delete the complete if..fi
> block, check that your line beginning with 'linux' is accurate and
> then press F10. Once the system has booted, run 'sudo update-grub'.
>
I appreciate the good data, Manish. I'm going to make sure I've gotten
all my files off the Doze partition and then wipe it completely. FreeBSD
is going to be my primary host OS and I'll keep my other drive for
whatever flavors of Linux I need to work with for work. Based on what
I've hseen on these threads, MS is still saddled with a number of bad
legacy architectural choices as well as poor management choices, and
both of those contribute to the challenges the use of their OS brings.
I simply won't accept any contract that requires me to work with
Windows. I've survived well enough without that skill set and I see no
problem going forward.
--
Don Wilde
****************************************************
* What is the Internet of Things but a system *
* of systems including humans? *
****************************************************
More information about the freebsd-stable
mailing list