Multiboot Massacre - I killed my rig and can't get it back up

[baaj]

At wits end, so thought I'd try you experts here...

Installed, I have

C: Windows Xp Professional (English)
F: Windows Vista Beta (expired and need to remove)
G: Windows XP Professional (Chinese)
I: Kubuntu

I was trying to remove vista from the boot record and I messed it all up.

Now nothing boots. I've been wanting to give linux another shot, so I thought, "hey, I'll just install the new kubuntu and I'll fix everything from there." It installed, but also doesn't boot.

How can I restore the boot record, so I can get into at least one of these OS's and fix the rest from there?

I've tried DOS from a boot disk, and I can see the invisible boot directory, using a dir -a and think i see the error. A directory reads 'Boots' not 'Boot' but the DOS does not recognize the ATTRIB command to let me rename it.

Thanks to anyone who can help me solve this.

 

[Billb2]

"I was trying to remove vista from the boot record "
If you could be a little more specific, are you manually editing the boot sector on the hard disk?
Editing boot.ini, or what?

 

[Nothinman]

You were most likely using the Vista boot loader so removing Vista broke that. From an XP repair console fixboot or fixmbr might be able to help you with the Windows side of it but you'll probably need to install GRUB to the MBR or the boot record for the partition that it's on and do the "boot linux from NTLDR" hack if you want to boot Linux.

Depending on what exactly you did you might just need to set the active partition to one with a boot record already installed, if that works you'll have at least one bootable OS and can go from there.

 

[Navid]

Download the LiveCD image from this site.
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/
Burn to a CD and boot to it.

It will show you which partition is active.


Make XP on C active.
Hide all the other operating system partitions.

Reboot.
If it fails to boot, boot to your XP CD and do a fixmbr and reboot again.

This should fix your XP.

Now, boot to the LiveCD again and unhide the other partitions. Make sure XP is active and reboot.

Now, you should be able to see all the other partitions from XP and salvage any files.

 

[yoshi115]

I experienced a similar problem when Vista RC1 expired on me. I hope you backed up your important file. I agree with Navid. Try to set XP as the active partition and utilize fixmbr. Else, wipe the drive with BootItNG and reinstall the OS. Everyone experiences OS problems. Probably once every two years when the OS blogs down. It happens. Good luck.

Another suggestion. Get a hold of Partition Magic and utilize its bootloader. It automates many processes for multiple partitions. Vista Bootloader sux a fat one.

 

[thegorx]

did you try

bootsect.exe /nt52

or do a google search for

bootsect.exe /nt52

It might help

 

[baaj]

RESOLVED!

Among the many different paths suggested, I chose the linux/grub route to get things back on track, which worked to get me back into XP, where I was able to remove vista (following a tutorial this time, instead of repeating the ugly hacking job which landed me in this situation in the first place)

Thanks all for your input.