[ltp] Restore WinXP MBR?

[Tim Prince]

On Friday 21 November 2003 15:03, Jordan Benjamin wrote:
> Re: [ltp] Restore WinXP MBR?
> From: Jordan Benjamin <jordanb@caltech.edu>
> To: linux-thinkpad@linux-thinkpad.org
>
> 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
As I'm still not clear on what you're asking, or why previous responses didn't 
answer your question, I'll rattle on.
My T40 does support booting from floppy, when the floppy is plugged into the 
docking machine.  Today I booted an old floppy version of PartitionMagic, but 
it wasn't prepared to do anything useful for me once it booted.   XP still 
doesn't recognize the floppy, although it installed the floppy controller 
driver.
I don't know what you mean by your comment about having ntldr go first.  Yes, 
you must go through ntldr to start XP.  In principle, it's up to you whether 
you get to Windows by starting ntldr from grub, or get to linux by starting 
grub from ntldr.  As far as I'm concerned, the only point against the latter 
is the complaints I'll get from my employer's support people if I have to go 
back to them to straighten out their tangled XP configuration.  If it comes 
to that, I'll probably back out grub from MBR before they do their thing, and 
put it back afterwards.