[ltp] Restore WinXP MBR?

[Jordan Benjamin]

Well, I did get this to work. I ended up making a CD equivalent of a DOS 
boot disk using tools from http://www.nu2.nu/bootcd/ and then just doing 
fdisk /mbr. I didn't know the linux fdisk could do this as well, so 
that's helpful for the future.

As for the questions below, at the time I was trying to do this I had 
just wiped the drive with the IBM restore CDs, so there was just WinXP 
on there. However, the problem with the reference to a Windows install 
cd below is that there is no such thing shipped with a ThinkPad (and I 
don't have a shrinkwrapped copy of XP).

Back to that issue that got me into this mess in the first place though: 
has anyone tried to dual boot linux and Windows using grub as the first 
bootloader? I.e., grub is installed in the MBR and ntldr is only in the 
Windows partition? All the dual boot howtos I've seen say you have to 
have ntldr go first, which is OK but annoying.

Jordan


Tim Prince wrote:

>On Friday 21 November 2003 01:44, Jordan Benjamin wrote:
>  
>
>>So, while trying to get my partitions set up properly I installed grub
>>into the mbr for the whole disk of my T40. Although this is not a
>>problem for linux, I can't boot Windows anymore (this is required
>>sometimes for me).
>>
>>I went ahead and got the recovery CDs from IBM (for which I was charged
>>$40 since I've had the machine over 30 days...I hate computer
>>companies). They restored everything but the MBR.
>>
>>I don't have a floppy drive; any suggestions? Would I be able to use any
>>usb floppy drive to boot my ThinkPad (to use a windows boot floppy to
>>fix the mbr)?
>>    
>>
>
>One of the suggestions is to give some information.   Which Windows? Which 
>filesystems? Which linux?  I'm running happily with SuSE grub booting XP/
>NTFS.  XP doesn't recognize the floppy on my T40, although linux does.  If I 
>reminded you how to restore Windows boot loader from the Windows install CD 
>for both 2K and XP, you'd probably decide you wanted some other kind of 
>Windows.   I wouldn't advise you doing that without planning your next step.
>
>
>  
>