[ltp] Rescue and recovery broken after installing Gentoo

[Ben Jencks]

Well, I happen to have a WinXP cd lying around, so I started the
recovery console on that. FIXMBR didn't do anything (the freebsd loader
still ran), but FIXBOOT and FIXMBR in combination made it so I got a no
NTLDR error on boot. Unfortunately, I still can't load R&R from disk, or
use R&R from cd to restore to factory condition. I suppose I could try
installing the copy of XP I have, but its product key is already used
(maybe the key on the thinkpad will work?). Is it possible to use the
windows MBR to load another operating system without having windows
installed?

Ben Jencks

jgidi@umd.umich.edu writes:

> Hi Ben,
>
> I had a similar, but not identical, situation with my R51. My goal was
> to have a
> dual-boot WinXP/Linux system with the Software Restore working properly. I
> discovered that if I wrote GRUB to the MBR, the Restore function was broken.
>
> I eventually resolved the problem by using the Windows bootloader to
> call GRUB,
> which was written on a /boot partition. Restore now works perfectly on my
> system. Apparently it just can't handle having anything other than the Windows
> bootloader on the MBR.
>
> You can probably recover your Recovery system by using a Windows boot disk to
> rewrite the MBR. I don't recall the exact steps necessary to do this, but
> Google is your friend :)
>
> Joe Gidi