Problem reinstalling Windows 7

**Rakoua** · December 13, 2012, 08:26 AM

Recently my Thinkpad E520's system drive got wiped, presumably because of my dual boot with Ubuntu. I tried reinstalling Windows, but it didn't work. I also tried the recovery disks, but apparently they were damaged or something because it failed too, and I had already removed the partition (I do still have the files somewhere, but not an image of the partition... could I use those somehow though? There's a 10gb .wim file there). So now I'm stuck booting Ubuntu from a CD until I can get W7 up and running again.
I tried to install it multiple times with several different disks, but none of them worked (I downloaded them from one of the sites with non pirated W7 and put in the activation key I got with the laptop), mostly they just stopped working at 0% expanding files or took forever to get past that point. Any help would be appreciated, and has anyone had a similar problem before?

**karamazovmm** · December 13, 2012, 09:57 AM

ok I think your problem may lie with the mbr and the modification that grub makes to it. Download the mbr for your notebook and you should install everything fine. Also wipe out the drive

another thing to be aware is if the partition that you are trying to use has either the mbr in the partition scheme or not, meaning if you accidentally created a partition under ubuntu, it might create a MBR even if you used EFI and windows doesnt like that at all.

**Ybbon** · December 13, 2012, 10:43 AM

Well there is no reason why the dual-boot would wipe your partition unless you did it wrong. I've had dual boot for years without a problem and I don't see why you would need to boot Ubuntu from a CD either. What state is it in now? Do you data in the windows that you want to keep? If not, it may be better to try making the whole disk Ubuntu then use the GParted to create a partition for windows via that and install windows 7 there.

**karamazovmm** · December 13, 2012, 10:31 PM

and oops its the bootmgr that grub messes up, the problem might be there, the mbr is the master boot record

**Rakoua** · December 15, 2012, 02:55 PM

I don't have anything on the disk anymore, the Ubuntu I upgraded refused to boot and I think that something went wrong during the install. I now reinstalled an older version of ubuntu and it's booting extremely slowly... slowly I mean 30 minutes and counting, I only got past the login screen recently... And it also took very long to install, by that I mean 12 hours. Could the disk be dead?

**Ybbon** · December 15, 2012, 03:50 PM

Well that is seriously screwy, ubuntu for me is faster than win7. I have both on the same SSD so not difference in disk speed. Are you able to take the disk out and check it in another system as a separate?

**Rakoua** · December 15, 2012, 04:21 PM

I tried installing 12.10 again and it failed at creating ext4 filesystem... It was faster than W7 for me too before, but now pretty much nothing works. Currently I don't really have a system to check it on, but I could do it later. I have quite a few cds for disk diagnostics though, due to the fact that my sister's HDD died a few years ago too. Should I run a disk surface test?

**PoleCat** · December 15, 2012, 08:36 PM

Originally Posted by Rakoua

...Should I run a disk surface test?

It might be the best way to go forward. Have you found the reason for this>

Recently my Thinkpad E520's system drive got wiped

That's something I'd solve first. Good luck!

**Rakoua** · December 20, 2012, 02:19 PM

Alright, the disk was dead, I bought a new Scorpio Black and I just installed Windows, took a full 20 mintues and so far works like a charm. Still installing drivers, but it should all be ready by tomorrow.