Fix the MBR in Windows XP

[toffer]

Hey... new to the forum... I'm having some problems installing winxp & was hoping you guys may be able to offer some advice. I used to have my machine set up as a dual boot (win2k & fedora core 4) with grub being the bootloader. It was giving me a ton of problems so I eliminated linux & reinstalled win2k. Now I'd like get winxp pro running on my machine... so go through setup & the machine reboots... when it restarts after the initial setup, it just quits. It tells me "press a key to boot from cd rom". If I just let it go, grub eventually comes up but does nothing. I've tried booting into recovery mode & using fixmbr with no success. Any suggestions? Thanks.

[Big Booger]

I don't know why you have grub as a bootloader if you only have XP and 2000 on the computer.

To Remove Grub From Your MBR. just use the command fdisk /mbr...
boot your computer with win 98 or ME and start computer with cd rom Support. at the command prompt enter the command fdisk /mbr and then reboot your computer... your Grub is removed...

Try that.

[toffer]

Well, I don't actually have xp installed yet...

[toffer]

I don't have a win98 or me disk... are you talking about a bootdisk or the cd installation disks of these operating systems... ?

[phishhead]

well if you linx and win2k and you just want xp I would format the whole disk and just install xp as usual.

[toffer]

Well, I tried that... that's my problem ->

"Now I'd like get winxp pro running on my machine... so go through setup & the machine reboots... when it restarts after the initial setup, it just quits. It tells me "press a key to boot from cd rom". If I just let it go, grub eventually comes up but does nothing. I've tried booting into recovery mode & using fixmbr with no success." I can't get xp to install... goes through the usual set up, then when it reboots, it won't continue the install. It looks for grub (and I've used fixmbr in repair mode on it successfully before, else I couldn't have installed win2k). It just doesn't make any sense.

[Big Booger]

Well, I tried that... that's my problem ->

"Now I'd like get winxp pro running on my machine... so go through setup & the machine reboots... when it restarts after the initial setup, it just quits. It tells me "press a key to boot from cd rom". If I just let it go, grub eventually comes up but does nothing. I've tried booting into recovery mode & using fixmbr with no success." I can't get xp to install... goes through the usual set up, then when it reboots, it won't continue the install. It looks for grub (and I've used fixmbr in repair mode on it successfully before, else I couldn't have installed win2k). It just doesn't make any sense.

If you ran the XP setup from the disk and CHOSE to format the entire disk, it should have overwritten the bootloader. That is if you formatted all the partitions on the drive.

Make sure you have formatted them all, and then try the Xp installation again,

Using the procedure below:
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase...p_sg_clean.asp

[rik]

Also, if the XP setup sees any partitions, delete and recreate them. Then format your drive.

[toffer]

Yes, I know all this & that's what I did, thinking that would fix it. Still no luck. Maybe part of the problem is this...

I admittedly have a pretty limited understanding of how bootloaders work, so bare with me here. I have 2 seperate hard drives. One is booting win2k, the other is storage. My intention was to install xp on the hd I was using for storage. That way I could still boot up my pc in the event that xp didn't install correctly. My guess is that when the boot screen comes up, it's looking for the boot sector on the "storage" hard drive & there is none (does that make sense?) I am reformatting the drive & making sure any previous partitions are erased. I tried the fixmbr thing in xp recovery mode & nothing seemed to happen.

[Big Booger]

Yes, I know all this & that's what I did, thinking that would fix it. Still no luck. Maybe part of the problem is this...

I admittedly have a pretty limited understanding of how bootloaders work, so bare with me here. I have 2 seperate hard drives. One is booting win2k, the other is storage. My intention was to install xp on the hd I was using for storage. That way I could still boot up my pc in the event that xp didn't install correctly. My guess is that when the boot screen comes up, it's looking for the boot sector on the "storage" hard drive & there is none (does that make sense?) I am reformatting the drive & making sure any previous partitions are erased. I tried the fixmbr thing in xp recovery mode & nothing seemed to happen.

The fixmbr will only work if XP is installed on the drive. If it is not installed, then it won't work I believe.

I would totally start over, with a clean install of windows 2K, wiping the entire hard disk (that should get rid of the grub loader), and then install XP on the second hard disk. That should then make XP's boot loader the default and 2K an option on the Xp boot loader menu.

[juanab]

The disk ( a WD raptor sata 74 gb) fail to boot after a strange system lock.
Using thunderbird and opening a note, the screen went almost blank and system froze. After that no boot capability any more.

Inserted the failing disk as secondary drive on another system.
This system has its own primary sata drive, working all rigt with WIN XP.
Went to my computer  manage  disk management, and it said that Drive 1 is fine (they showed the right size and usage) but drive 2 (the problem drive) wasn't active. I set it to active. And the message is that the disk is unformatted and unallocated.

For all I read on this fantastic forum plus others p[laces, the MBR record could be damaged.

The disk was formatted as 4 partitions NTFS (20 + 20 + 20 + rest of disk), being the first partition the active boot unit.
Is there a simple way to read the information actually on the MBR record and see were the problem could be.?? Or any better suggestion>???

Thanks in advance

Juan

[rik]

I believe there is a way to actually "read" the MBR but it's done using a Live Linux cd...I'll have to look around, but I'm thinking that it's on Knoppix or maybe Whoppix.

Anyone else know?

Anyways, it isn't an easy task by any means. The FIXMBR should fix the problem and let you back to your data unless the drive has just died altogether.

[georgejr05]

Boot from the windows XP CD, press the "R" key in the setup in order to start the restoration console. Select your windows XP installation from the list, and enter the administrator password.
Enter the command: "FIXMBR" (without the quotes) at the input prompt and confirm the next question with a "Y" (without the quotes). Use exit to restore the computer.

I had to use this on a PC that I had corrupted the MBR with by using a boot manager.

Worked perfectly. This may have been posted before, and if so, forgive me. If not, now you know how to repair your MBR. By the way MBR stands for Master Boot Record. THis procedure kind of replaced Fdisk I think.

BB

tnx your "fixmbr" helps alot.. it works with me.

[Big Booger]

tnx your "fixmbr" helps alot.. it works with me.

Glad it helped! Welcome to Techzonez.

[georgejr05]

yes sir...first timer here at techzonez.. i only search at the net..by the way, do you have a recommended site to download SP2..tnx.

i install the SP2 in my XP Home Edition that i downloaded in internet (i dont remember the site) after installing it, there is a prompt to re-start my computer, then the problem came....good thing there is a site like this.
im george from Philippines.IT here in a small Consultant Company.