[ltp] how to restore original MBR and partition table

[Jeffrey Taylor]

Quoting Joe Zien <jozien@comcast.net>:
[snip]
> I did not get a cd-rom for the Thinkpad with XP, there is a rescue and 
> restore partition
> on the hard drive that allows you to restore XP to factory condition
> but that wipes out your whole hard drive including all my linux partitions.
> I just want to restore the XP partition table and MBR.
> Is that possible without wiping out the whole drive?
> 
> Using an XP cd-rom that I got for my tower, I tried to use the restore
> function "fixboot" and "fixmbr" but I got error that it couldn't find the
> c:\ drive.
> 
[snip]
> The main question is can you restore the original partition table
> and MBR without re-installing XP from the rescue and restore
> function on the Thinkpad?
> 

It is my experience that the rescue and restore partition (on my T41) will
respect the partitioning and restore only the first partition.  I have done
this several times successfully.  It has been reported several times on this
list that the rescue CDs repartition the whole disk wiping out any other OS
like Linux.

Jeffrey