Unbootable Laptop Please Help.

[heretolearn]

Trying to recover a bootitbm laptop that HAD a working bootitbm boot menu which is now garbled and
unusable. Unbootable laptop please help.

bootitbm with win8.1/7 dual boot with 2 boot partitions, 3 data volumes. Used bootitbm partition work to resize existing partitions to make a new ntfs partition to install androidx86. During install of android I stupidly answered ok when asked if I wanted to include grub sounded like something extra but not needed.

Booted to the new Android OS partition recognized as active under bootitbm. OS loaded normally and worked fine UNTIL I tried restart the laptop. Then NOT ONLY could I not reboot, I could NOT EVEN turn off the power on the laptop. power off button not working. Removed the battery, but still caught in a perpetual grub-debug-menu-auto-rebooting to Android in a vicious cycle.

I then attempted to restore the boot partitions using a recent image made with another companies product before the android change using their windows PE "rescue" boot usb. It reported re-image was "successful" but now when I reboot I get this:

"failed to changed current desktop size:0"
AND "failed to load amdrive\netlic64\netlic64.inf

bootitbm boot menu then APPEARS to load: "bootit EMBRL 4.00"...
the green/blue bootitbm menus SEEM to appear but the image is totally garbled and unreadable.
When I clicked return I got "this partition does not contain an operating system. IF you are
about to install a new OS then insert the installation diskette into drive A:" "Press any
key to run the BIOS bootstrap loader. It then goes to try to connect to the Ethernet and then
back to the blue/green attempt to show the bootitbm boot menu.

I cannot get to a readable bootitbm menu since the screen is garbled. I'm guessing it's now default
set to boot from the android partition. Using bootitbm first install usb renders the same garbled blue green screen which I think is the formerly working bootitbm boot menu.

I now have a totally bricked laptop and inaccessible several data partitions-all previously working that had a fully functional bootitbm which now tries to appear but just a garbled screen image.

Most of my data was backed up to an external drive but I need some recent files that were not yet
backed up. How did this happen?? -I'm all ears. Is there a way to fix this mess? Honestly to me this shows that bootitbm is vulnerable to outside corruption and/or that the other product "rescue" usb is not does not install proper screen settings?

If nothing else I'd like to get my recent data back.

As part of the other image product "restored image there is a button to access windows command line. Does that offer any solution? Any knowledgeable helpful solutions welcomed. Thanks for reading.

[TeraByte Support]

As far as GRUB installed, you'd would follow this: https://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/kb ... o-the-mbr/

But probably too late at this point since you restored something over the top of the system.

You can boot to the BIBM UFD boot media to look around in partition work.

[heretolearn]

If you mean the original bootitbm install flashdrive, I already tried that. You did not understand my post. I cannot see anything either booting the laptop or booting from the flashdrive because the image on the screen is scrambled and unreadable.

o.p.:
"I cannot get to a readable bootitbm menu since the screen is garbled. I'm guessing it's now default
set to boot from the android partition. Using bootitbm first install usb renders the same garbled blue green screen which I think is the formerly working bootitbm boot menu."

[TeraByte Support]

If you're sure you're booting from the UFD that used to work, then that means something in your hardware or firmware has changed or corrupted. It can be your monitor for the given mode and resolution, try resetting that via the OSD option it should have while in that mode (if laptop has nothing, try an external monitor). You may also want to try resetting the BIOS back to default or optimized values. You could try creating a new UFD on another system as well, using defaults, and/or a different USB port.

[heretolearn]

thanks for your on point reply. It's either corrupted bootitbm boot code or the other companies "rescue" disk did not supply neccessary video drivers. What's the OSD option? I came to you as the experts on boot matters are here.
Hardware was working ok before the disaster-2nd time linux program has seriously screwed up a laptop.

Bios seems to be working. I'm guessing grub screwed up bootitbm because I get the message "you have no OS
installed-if you're trying to install an OS put the install disk (from memory) into drive A."

I need to get critical data back on other data volumes.

I am considering the following. Please let me know which you think might work?

1) click on windows command button from the others companies reimage screen
try to use xcopy or similar if I can see the data volumes IF it actually goes to windows command.

2) Use a "windows to go" boot usb to access the partitions-don't know how hard that will be.
As far as I know the only usb port for booting that works is a usb 2.0 or earlier

3) I will also try reinstall bootit bm on a new flash drive. But when I boot from that what do I do next?

4) The other companies support is worthless. It was a mistake to not come to you first.

Thanks for any help you can give

[heretolearn]

P.S. If grub damaged bootitbm boot code then why am I seeing garbled images of what appears to be the booitbm
boot menu previously working ok.

[Brian K]

heretolearn,

Can you boot from the other companies boot media and not get a garbled display?

[TeraByte Support]

I'd create another BootIt boot disk and try booting it on another system. For partwork, you can boot full version of Image for Linux or Image for Windows as well.

[heretolearn]

Sorry for the late replies. I am having REALLy bad luck
My crappy Lenovo 13 win 11 machine's only ssd drive is starting to go bad, cannot wake up from sleep, w/out disabling the boot SSD, so I can't use sleep.

I was able to use the other products re-imaged screen windows command
button to access the windows command shell from their boot usb after reimaging the drive.
So it appears it is not a hardware problem.

I can dir /s all my volumes/data but this is an old laptop and the space key was not working and
registry re-routed to the comma key so the only way to issue most dos commands is with a script batch file.

I don't think it's a video hardware problem.
The re-imaged screen is showing normally but that's booting from their usb rescue disk.

Yet the bootitbm install disk reports embr loading...and then on "return" reports "NO OS"
I believe the bootitbm install usb is ok.

I have a good recent tbi image of the boot partitions on an external drive with a good embr included. Can that be used anyway to reimage the drive using the .tbi file?

Grub did something to the drive that forced it to
only boot from the new android partition I made.
But how to correct this?

I might be able to use a "windows to go" usb to boot the machine from usb to copy recent data and use dispart.exe
or other tools. The "windows to go" usb would have to be
created using rufus on my win11 64bit machine. The old
laptop is 32bit.

Sincere Thanks for all the replies trying to help. Sorry for any formatting problems in this post.
This is one reason I won't change to Linux no warning before they mess up your computer.

[TeraByte Support]

Sounds more like it was booting the installed version and not the UFD. What exactly did it say loading... (it's not "EMBR") and how many loading...