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I have an HP laptop Pavilion DV4. Last night, I installed Ubuntu and there was an problem about partitioning the hard disk, and I think I deleted the Windows boot record.

I didn't burn a recovery disc but there is built-in recovery partition on the hard disk.

All I want to do is to perform a Factory Restore but I need recovery disc. I could burn that disc from the recovery partition using HP recovery manager, but can't burn now. I can't also boot HP recovery manager using F11 key, because it has the same boot error.

I want to boot Windows 7 and want to burn recovery disc. How can I boot into my old windows 7. If I can boot it, I can burn Recovery Disc and I will make Factory Restore if it's needed.

I didn't make any changes to windows 7 partition but I did a problem about Boot Record.

There is a system partition on hard disk with the size of about 200 MB.There is BOOT folder too.

Installation of Ubuntu also failed, so I'm booting from Live Ubuntu USB.

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  • Can you tell us what went wrong when installing Ubuntu? I posted an answer with help on how to recover, but depending on just what went wrong I might have made quite a few wrong assumptions.
    – Hennes
    Jul 14, 2012 at 0:35
  • the ext4 file system creation in partition #5 of SCSI1 (0,0,0) (sda) failed It is error message
    – Naing
    Jul 14, 2012 at 0:46

2 Answers 2

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Borrow a Windows 7 DVD, boot off that, and try the recovery option.

If your Windows partition is still intact, it will detect it and rewrite the boot sector. Alternatively you could try this manually with the command-line tools available.

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  • I already tried Windows Startup Repair and bootrec.exe command in command prompt ,but it doesn't work. Is there any way to boot that Windows 7 from external media.Once I can boot the old Windows, everything will be OK.
    – Naing
    Jul 14, 2012 at 0:30
  • What exactly did you try? Are you absolutely sure your Windows partition is still good?
    – user3463
    Jul 14, 2012 at 0:31
  • Yeah, Windows partition is still good, It looks like the same before.I checked it by booting ubuntu.
    – Naing
    Jul 14, 2012 at 0:34
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Googling on 0xc0000225 yields several boot errors due to a missing or corrupt BCD. BCD stands for boot configuration data. It stores information on how to boot and from which partition.

If that is corrupt then windows will not start. You might be able to repair that if you can boot into repair mode, either via F8 or from a alternative windows install DVD or windows install pen drive.


The first thing to consider is do you really want the HP installation back, or do you want a working windows install. Most vendors install a ton of bloatware. Cleaning them up usually takes a lot of time. Personally I make a backup (just in case) and install a nice clean windows. Activate it, update it and then I make a second backup (to use in case I ever need to reinstall).

Given that your current installation is broken I would get a clean windows image, then

  • Wipe the disk clean
  • partition it (allowing space for Ubuntu you installing that later does not require any partition magic)
  • Install windows, activate and update it.
  • Make a backup of this working install (via ghost, Acronis, FOG, windows backup, ...)


Regardless of what you do, getting something which succesfully boots it the first step.

Digital river is a windows reseller which sell clean, legal copies of windows 7. You can download a clean image from here. If you choose a version matching your windows licence on the laptop then you can even activate it. (There is no need to buy a windows licence from them)

Another thing you might want to do is to 'burn' the iso on a USB pen drive and boot that. My experience is that this is much faster then using the DVD, though you loose time transfering it to the pen drive. I consider that worth it if you are going to use that pen drive a few times. A program to do that easily can be downloaded from the Microsoft website here.

Two more points:

  1. I suspect that the problem is in the BCD store. Read more about how that works here on technet.
  2. If you are going to play around with that file then easy BCD might come in handy.

If you move the windows iso to a pen drive then you can delete the file ei.cfg. This will allow you to install any version of windows with only one pen drive. You will still need the matching activation key.

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  • Thanks I will try it. Can you explain more exactly about "restore a working windows"?
    – Naing
    Jul 14, 2012 at 0:37
  • I tried to answer that but ran out of the 589 chars for a comment. Will edit the answer to include it.
    – Hennes
    Jul 14, 2012 at 0:48
  • How can I reactivate my windows if I install a new clean windows. Can I boot from external media (just booting) and use the old windows ?
    – Naing
    Jul 14, 2012 at 1:16
  • If you install a new windows it will ask for the key during the installation. That key is usually on a sticker somewhere on the laptop. It is a string of numbers in the form of "12345-12345-12345-abcde-12cd4". Most of the time it is on the bottom of the laptop (a most inconvenient place during installation) or sometimes even below the battery (e.g. modern Dell laptops). I recommend locating this first and writing it down somewhere accesable.
    – Hennes
    Jul 14, 2012 at 1:19
  • I found the key. I will make a clean Windows 7 installation. Can you guide me through? Where should I download Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit japanese version.
    – Naing
    Jul 14, 2012 at 1:35

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