UEFI Recovery

[American_Oxygen]

Hi Everyone,

Brief history of the problem:

I tried to convert my partitions from GPT dynamic back to basic, changed the code manually and got BSOD during startup, Windows was not loading but at least was trying to. UEFI (nice graphic BIOS menu) was working fine at that stage.

I booted from a Linux distro and tried to change partitions codes back. At this stage something went wrong and I lost HP_Recovery and HP_Tools partitions. Nice graphic BIOS menu gone, the system stopped loading at all.

I booted from a USB again and tried to restore the partitions. My partitions are looking like this now:

MBR (1MB) - System (300MB) - SYSTEM (400GB) - Unallocated space (46GB) - HP_RECOVERY (15GB) - HP_TOOLS (5GB)

I was able to successfully mount them and check the files - all look normal.

Tried to repair my Windows, booted from an ISO and it gave an error "System Recovery Option is not compatible with the version of windows you are trying to repair" whereas I am sure the version is the same. Tried to install Windows from scratch - turned out it doesn't see the disk at all (I didn't try to inject the drivers though).

Now I am a bit unsure how to proceed. I can't repair Windows as it doesn't see the disk. I can't go into BIOS settings either, just diagnostic options. My HP_TOOLS and HP_RECOVERY seem to be healthy but just somehow not accessible. Should I fix my UEFI first? But how?

Some extra info: when the laptop starts it gives me standard options F1, F2, F9 (select boot device). Under F9 I can see options like 'HDD', 'Upgrade Bay' and 'USB' (if inserted) but both 'HDD' and 'Upgrade Bay' lead to a plain message stating 'no bootable device found'.

Please advise, any help is much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[American_Oxygen · Accepted solution]

Alright, I guess I will post my solution here for future generations.

1. I recovered and re-activated HP_TOOLS partition using this instructions:

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Other-Notebook-PC-Questions/How-to-use-the-HP-BIOS-update-uefi-utility/...

2. I backed up my entire HDD using external USB drive using gparted (debian based) live usb. Then I removed damaged partition table completely, gdisk command if someone interested. I am not 100% sure but I believe I changed table from gpt to msdos.

3. Then in BIOS/UEFI - still not sure what it is - nice graphic BIOS-like interface - changed my HDD type from AHCI to IDE.

4. Booted from Windows ISO and this time it detected my disk. Even more, I managed to launch repair and restore all my partitions  and bootloader.

5. Tried to run - got a BSOD, but at least it was loading my old Windows now.

6. Changed HDD type back from IDE to AHCI - and voila! - my old Windows started normally.

Now it's back in basic disks as I wanted, the only thing that all partitions except system look damaged now. I assume Windows repair tool just didn't care about them. It's a bit odd as I was able to read the files on them from Linux and both systems say it's a healthy NTFS but it doesn't look right. Probably I will try to re-create them using my backup but this is another story already.