I have been running Ubuntu off a flash drive on my Windows 7 laptop and now suddenly Windows won't boot

Question

I installed Ubuntu 14.04 LTS on a USB flash drive and have been using it on my Windows 7 laptop. During the startup process I would press F12 and then select to boot off my USB drive. Ubuntu would then boot. If I didn't do that, Windows 7 would start booting up.

Now today Windows 7 won't boot up at all. It prompts me to run Windows Startup Repair. I did that, and selected the boot repair option, but it says it is unable to fix anything. The only programs I have installed in Ubuntu are Chrome and Android Studio. I tried the Boot Repair program, but it gives me the following error:

GPT detected. Please create a BIOS-Boot partition (>1MB, unformatted filesystem, bios_grub flag). This can be performed via tools such as GParted. Then try again.

Does anyone have any ideas? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

The only other response mentions REMOVING THE USB. Have you done this before trying to boot to W7? If not, I bet if you remove it and then turn it on, it will boot just fine. I have had this happen to me a few times, and at first your heart drops and then, oh ya...

Good luck.

Answer 2

The error message you were quoting earlier is a grub error message so you did perform a "boot repair" from your ubuntu installation which will repair your ubuntu install on the usb stick, not your windows hdd.

First remove the usb device from your PC (if attached) and try to boot your windows install normally. If you don't succeed, try to repair your disk by booting off your windows install dvd.

Could it be possible, that you booted off your usb stick, which will load the boot loader on the usb stick (most likely grub) and then you tried to boot your windows installation from within grub?