Had Ubuntu and XP dual booted on a friends pc. He wanted Ubuntu removed.

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C

Crow550

Platinum Member
Oct 4, 2005
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Since Ubuntu was on another partition I removed it and an extended partition and resize the XP partition back to full size and now XP won't load and the GRUB menu was still popping up.

So I tried popping in the XP cd and using recovery console and typing in fixmbr and fixboot. Now the Grub menu is gone, but nothing is loading....


What can I do to fix this?


Thanks.
 
S

SickBeast

Lifer
Jul 21, 2000
14,377
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Boot up the XP CD.

Get into the Recovery Console during the installation. A few minutes in, you will have the chance to push "R" to open it.

Then, you follow a few prompts to ask you what hard drive your installation is on and such.

Then, at the command prompt, type:

FIXMBR

That will restore your Master Boot Record, which is a hidden part of your hard drive that tells it where your operating system(s) are.

:beer:
 
C

Crow550

Platinum Member
Oct 4, 2005
2,381
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81
Would installing xp on another partition help? Then remove that partition afterwards.....
 
S

SickBeast

Lifer
Jul 21, 2000
14,377
19
81
Originally posted by: Crow550
Would installing xp on another partition help? Then remove that partition afterwards.....
Click to expand...
Yeah you could do that. It might get confusing, but it should work and would allow you to recover your documents and that.

Actually if you want to do that, your best bet would be to load up the Ubuntu CD, and then use Gparted to shrink down the current Windows partition, and then erase everything off of it aside from your documents and files that you want to keep.

That way you will only have 1 instance of XP on your computer. :beer:
 
VinDSL

VinDSL

Diamond Member
Apr 11, 2006
4,869
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www.lenon.com
Originally posted by: Crow550
Which app do I use on this UBCD?
Click to expand...
Hrm...

I think I'd start with TestDisk. ;)

SOURCE: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

TestDisk is a powerful free data recovery software! It was primarily designed to help recover lost partitions and/or make non-booting disks bootable again when these symptoms are caused by faulty software, certain types of viruses or human error (such as accidentally deleting a Partition Table). Partition table recovery using TestDisk is really easy.

TestDisk can
  • Fix partition table, recover deleted partition
  • Recover FAT32 boot sector from its backup
  • Rebuild FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 boot sector
  • Fix FAT tables
  • Rebuild NTFS boot sector
  • Recover NTFS boot sector from its backup
  • Fix MFT using MFT mirror
  • Locate ext2/ext3 Backup SuperBlock
  • Undelete files from FAT, NTFS and ext2 filesystem
  • Copy files from deleted FAT, NTFS and ext2/ext3 partitions.
TestDisk has features for both novices and experts. For those who know little or nothing about data recovery techniques, TestDisk can be used to collect detailed information about a non-booting drive which can then be sent to a tech for further analysis. Those more familiar with such procedures should find TestDisk a handy tool in performing onsite recovery.
Click to expand...
 
VinDSL

VinDSL

Diamond Member
Apr 11, 2006
4,869
1
81
www.lenon.com
Originally posted by: Crow550
I'll try it.

Have personal experience with this program?
Click to expand...
Yeah, I've used it a lot, but I hardly consider myself a TestDisk expert. It's one of those 'kinda confusing' utilities that requires a lot of putzing around.

I've used TestDisk several times to restore my Win2K drives when they've crashed. Matter of fact, I got a 200GB Seagate in this machine that I restored (sort of) with TestDisk. You can't boot off of it, but all the data is accessible, so I run it as a secondary - been that way for like a year. I think it has bad clusters in the boot sector - something TestDisk can't repair.

LoL!

I kludge through the options in TestDisk until I get lucky and hit the right combination - the same as you'll be doing... :D
 
VinDSL

VinDSL

Diamond Member
Apr 11, 2006
4,869
1
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www.lenon.com
Hey, I was just thinking...

I digress...

I was going to dump openSuSE 11.1 off this machine last night, because it had some irreconcilable issues. I was running KDE & Gnome on the same install, and one of the recent KDE 4.2 upgrades broke it.

I was going to dump openSuSE and install Fedora 10, but I kept getting this gag-reflex. Sooo... I decided to reinstall openSuSE 11.1 Gnome (only).

When I reinstalled openSuSE, I was in a whimsical mood and decided to use LVM-based partitioning, which is actually pretty cool - however, I'm having problems dual-booting this machine using GRUB now.

I've been into GParted about 50 times in the last 24 hours. No kidding!

What happens is: I boot into openSuSE (PAE) just fine, using GRUB. I boot into W2K just fine too, but after booting into W2K, W2K won't give-it-up to GRUB, sooo...

What I have to do is: Boot off a CD, go into GParted, remove the 'boot flag' from the W2K partition, and place the 'boot flag' on the LVM extended partition - then GRUB starts working again - until I boot into W2K - then I gotta invoke GParted again.

Kinda confusing (yes I'm using the MBR) - trying to figure out what's going on - but I'll figure it out (or go back to ext3)!

Back on topic...

Anyway, my question to you is: Have you tried using GParted to flag the XP partition as 'boot'? Just curious. That might be all you need to do... :)
 
C

Crow550

Platinum Member
Oct 4, 2005
2,381
5
81
I did.....I think it's cause I mistakenly deleted the extended or logical partition? However......I don't know if that was for XP or Ubuntu. There was 3 partitions......XP, Ubuntu and the extended or logical one.
 
C

Crow550

Platinum Member
Oct 4, 2005
2,381
5
81
Tried it......Now I get two listings for Windows XP and none will load it. It says something like Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem....

Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware.

So now how do I fix this?
 
C

Crow550

Platinum Member
Oct 4, 2005
2,381
5
81
Screw it. Time for a fresh install.

I asked if he had anything to back up. He said he didn't put anything important on it yet.

So time to goto town. Fresh install.

DBAN Boot & Nuke and install XP. :D
 
G

growled

Member
Jan 20, 2009
81
0
0
Originally posted by: SickBeast
Boot up the XP CD.

Get into the Recovery Console during the installation. A few minutes in, you will have the chance to push "R" to open it.

Then, you follow a few prompts to ask you what hard drive your installation is on and such.

Then, at the command prompt, type:

FIXMBR
Click to expand...

Don't you have to do bootrec.exe /fixmbr and then bootrec.exe /fixboot to get it to work?
 
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