please help.....grub screwed my MBR!

[shonuff 0]

ok let me explain from the beginning. i am a windows user and i decided to try linux out. so i got the ubuntu distro and installed it on my backup hard drive. everything worked just fine. BUT. i decided that i didn't want linux on that hd anymore so i tried to uninstall it. the problem is that i can't get rid of the GRUB boot loader. it is written to my master boot record on my main HD. i have tried everything i could find online. when i try from DOS the fdisk /mbr command it tells me "error: can't save original MBR. Operation unsuccessful." well that sucks, so i try the next thing i see. using the windows recovery thing. so i load the windows cd and when it says press 'r' for recovery center, i do so and then the computer just restarts. this may be because i have service pack 2 installed but the disk is an original without the SP2, i don't really know. anyways does anyone have any suggestions. i have heard some tell me to just format both drives but i originally used the one as a backup for all my stuff but then just put that stuff on my windows drive for this linux experiment. so if i format both i lose EVERYTHING. PLEASE HELP!!!!!

[danleff 0]

OK, did you try the following;

 

Code:

1.Restore Windows XP MBRTo start the computer and use the Recovery Console to replace the MBR1.Insert the Windows XP Professional Setup CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive. 2.Restart the computer. If prompted to press a key to start the computer from the CD-ROM, press the appropriate key.3.When the text-based part of Setup begins, follow the prompts. Press the R key to repair a Windows XP Professional installation. 4.If you are repairing a system that has more than one operating system installed, from the Recovery Console choose the Windows XP Professional installation that you need to repair. Note: If you press ENTER without typing a number, the Recovery Console quits and restarts the computer. The Recovery Console might also show valid installations of Windows NT 4.0. However, the results of attempting to access a Windows NT 4.0 installation can be unpredictable.5.When prompted, type the Administrator password. If you do not have the correct password, or if the security database for the installation of Windows XP Professional you are attempting to access is corrupted, Recovery Console does not allow access to the local disks and you cannot repair the MBR. 6.To replace the MBR, at the Recovery Console command prompt, type: fixmbr

 

...and you have a full version Windows XP cdrom?

 

 

[shonuff 0]

yes i tried all that and when i hit 'r' it started to do something then just restarted the computer. i don't get it. yes i have a windows pro cd but it is from before SP1. thanx.

[shonuff 0]

please can anyone help?

[danleff 0]

Quote:

when i try from DOS the fdisk /mbr command it tells me "error: can't save original MBR. Operation unsuccessful."

How did you try this, from a DOS boot disk, or did you try to install DOS?

Is this a Dell or Gateway system?

[shonuff 0]

i built this system myself actually. asus mobo, intel cpu, its a fairly new system (3.06 processor), maybe a year or 2 old. i used a DOS boot disc to get to DOS. when i do fdisk /mbr, it gives me a menu. one of the selections is to restore the MBR and when i select that is when i get that error message. thanx alot.

[danleff 0]

Can you give me a link to where you got the boot disk?

[shonuff 0]

for the boot disc i just used nero and made a cd rom boot disk because my floppy drive is screwed at the moment.

[shonuff 0]

i should probably let you know about this too. in case it means anything. the distro of linux that i have is ubuntu. i tried fedora/redhat but when it was finished installing i got a grub error 15 on startup of computer, it would not pass that part, couldn't start the computer.

[shonuff 0]

hey if im just screwed and there's nothing i can do, can someone please at least tell me how i might be able to access my documents and such on my windows drive from within linux and vice versa. thanx.

[shonuff 0]

anyone?

[danleff 0]

Originally posted by shonuff:

Quote:

hey if im just screwed and there's nothing i can do, can someone please at least tell me how i might be able to access my documents and such on my windows drive from within linux and vice versa. thanx.

 

 

Be patient Grasshopper. As folks enter the forum, they will try to help.

 

I will be on the road until late 9/21, so perhaps others can jump in.

 

Reading over the bits of information that you have given on each post, I wonder if you still have Windows on the primary master drive?

 

When you installed Ubuntu, you were able to dual boot and get into Windows XP?

 

How did you "uninstall" Ubuntu?

 

You had grub as your bootloader, but if you wiped the secondary drive partition that Ubuntu was on, you wiped the grub bootloader information to read your drives and boot. When you just wipe the drive that Linux was on that held the grub information, you effectively trash grub's ability to boot. The drive and boot reference files are effectively gone. Grub on the MBR doews not know what to do.

 

I have an older version of Nero, but what boot image file did you use to burn the cd for dos?

 

If the XP recovery console just rebooted and did not give you a choice of which installation of Windows (even if it was a single installation) then I wonder if the boot.ini file is still there at all for Windows. You have had so many installations (and failures) of Linux distros, I wonder if you trashed your Windows installation by mistake.

 

When installing grub in any of the installations, you told grub to install to the Master Boot Record?

 

And your sure that each installation was on the secondary drive, which would have been hdb not hda, if this drive is jumpered primary slave?

 

You can't read Linux files (well not for a newbie without special windows software) or manipulate them from Windows.

 

You can read your Windows files from Linux, but not write to the drive. Well at least not fully yet. Writing to NTFS is still being worked on and is not totally safe.

 

You can recover your Windows data information in a number of ways. If the partition is intact. If you just want to have Windows, you can do a reinstallation on the second drive. It will write an MBR to boot each installation from a Windows bootloader menu. that way you can recover your files. That is, if your c: drive/partition is still there.

 

Are you using any partitioning software at this time like PartitionMagic?

[shonuff 0]

ok i'll try to answer the questions in order.

 

windows is on the primary drive. one is 30gb and one is 120gb so they are hard to confuse.

 

the windows installations has only been on there for about 2 weeks, and yes when i installed ubuntu on the secondary drive i was able to use grub to boot into both windows and ubuntu. in fact i can still boot into both of them just fine, but as soon as i "uninstall" ubuntu, by which i mean use my maxtor cd to format that secondary hard drive into a storage drive, thats when i start getting all the errors. those errors also occured when i tried installing fedora core on that drive instead. and with fedora core i even chose the option to rewrite that grub.

 

now you asked what image i used for the boot cd. well i never selected one, i only chose from a menu on nero, "create bootable cd" and the i clicked burn. that was it.

 

yes when i installed ubuntu i allowed it to put grub on the main HD MBR.

 

each installation was in fact on the secondary drive. im currently typing this on the windows installation on hda.

 

no i have no program like partition magic.

 

now what you were saying about recovering my files. are you saying to install windows on my secondary drive. then copy the files over to that drive. then reinstall it on the first drive, copy the files back, then format the second drive? i would like ot keep my main HD as the 120gb one. also, if i do that is it possible that i get a grub error as soon as linux is not on there again?

 

thanx alot for all your help.

[cashman31 0]

had similar problem but was able to recover windows mbr using mandrake cd1.

if you are able to get your hands on mandrake 10.1 cd rom disc 1, just boot from that cd, at the boot prompt press F1, type rescue. in the options menu there will be restore windows boot loader.

 

I think this should solve your problem

[shonuff 0]

im not quite sure what mandrake is. can someone give me an idea so i know what to look for?

[shonuff 0]

ah i see its a distro of linux ok cool im dl'ing it right now and i'll try it out. let you know what happens.

[shonuff 0]

eh i tried the mandrake thing. when i selected to restore windows bootloader it said that no known linux boot loader found.