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Need to fix boot loader [solved]


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My primary slave hard drive broke. It was holding my unusable version of fedora because I could not even boot to a console on it. Eventually that hard drive broke (said hard drive error in the bias) so I removed it. Unfortunately it screwed up GRUB and now I can not even boot the first hard drive. Which is support to work. When it gets to Grub, it just says GRUB HARD DRIVE ERROR or sometimes if I am somewhat lucky it'll bring me to the grub console.

 

I need to solve this solution fast because finals are coming up and I do not have time to mess around with Linux or Windows for that matter. Does anyone know a way to fix grub and boot into windows or just flat out reinstall the windows boot loader (desperate times means desperate measures). I will probably have more time to experiment more with linux this summer, but unfortunatly right now I am still in school.

 

Thanks for the help,

SwiftDeath

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Does anyone know a way to fix grub and boot into windows or just flat out reinstall the windows boot loader (desperate times means desperate measures).

 

Depends what version of windows you have. For win9x, winMe, you boot of the start up floppy and run this at the DOS prompt:

 

fdisk /mbr

 

I've never done it myself, but I'm told the above also works with winxp, win2000. For these, you can also boot off the install cd, go into rescue mode and do "fixmbr".

 

The above should restore your windows boot loader.

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Put in the Mandrakiva install CD1, reboot, hit f1 and type rescue. Install the bootloader again.

 

I tried that and it did nto work. I stuck in my old Mandrake 10.0 Official First Cd. It said it could not the find the bootloader. I think the problem is its a GRUB bootloader that was installed by Fedora Core 3.

 

I've never done it myself, but I'm told the above also works with winxp, win2000. For these, you can also boot off the install cd, go into rescue mode and do "fixmbr".

 

The above should restore your windows boot loader.

 

I hope that works. I'll try it once I am out of school. I have Windows XP Professional installed with Service Pack 2.

 

Thanks for the help,

SwiftDeath

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Put in the Mandrakiva install CD1, reboot, hit f1 and type rescue. Install the bootloader again.

 

I tried that and it did nto work. I stuck in my old Mandrake 10.0 Official First Cd. It said it could not the find the bootloader. I think the problem is its a GRUB bootloader that was installed by Fedora Core 3.

-boot cd1

-press F1 at the splash screen

-type rescue and press Enter

-choose Mount your partitions under /mnt

-choose Got to console

-type chroot /mnt and press Enter

-varify grub is installed with rpm -q grub and if it is not do urpmi grub

-install grub to the mbr with;

grub-install hd0

or

grub-install /dev/hda

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-boot cd1

-press F1 at the splash screen

-type rescue and press Enter

-choose Mount your partitions under /mnt

-choose Got to console

-type chroot /mnt and press Enter

-varify grub is installed with rpm -q grub and if it is not do urpmi grub

-install grub to the mbr with;

grub-install hd0

or

grub-install /dev/hda

 

After mount your partitions. I got a frownie face and a cannot find root partition error. When i typed chroot /mnt, an error message came up saying Program quit abnormally (step 2) or something close to that.

 

I've never done it myself, but I'm told the above also works with winxp, win2000. For these, you can also boot off the install cd, go into rescue mode and do "fixmbr".

 

I am afraid to try this, because Windows said the mbr was irregular (probably because of grub). It later said CAUTION: This process may destroy all partitions and all information on those partitions. That caution leaves me a little afraid to go ahead with that.

 

My plan right now is to copy the broken hard drive, put the copy in the computer, and maybe it'll work temporarily. Does anyone else have any ideas?

 

Thanks for the continued help,

SwiftDeath

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the CAUTION it gave is normal, however the irregular mbr is not good

 

you could try

fixboot

then

fixmbr

but....

 

cd1 restore the windows bootloader probably won't give you a hasle about doing it but....

 

the question is what is irregular? If it's because the partition table is wacked who know what'll happen if you overwrite the mbr. If it's just the mbr, then how could you hurt it by replacing it?

 

It's basically a -bkup everything and just do it- situation...oh, and never put a linux bootloader in your mbr again, if you want to avoid this sorta thing in the future. I don't.

https://mandrivausers.org/index.php?showtopic=11887&hl=ntldr

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  • 4 weeks later...
Guest essenby

My apologies for jumping in on this particular bandwagon but I have a similar problem. I installed Mandrake 10.0 on my system in an unused portion of by slave 200Mb dive. The Master drive contains WinXP Home and installing Mandrake has placed GRUB as the bootloader on this drive I believe

 

I would now like to remove Mandrake in order to resize the partitions/space it occupies. (I can’t do it with Mandrake in-situ as I need to resize the Home partition which DiskDrake won’t do because it is always in use. I know I could use brut force and simple delete the partitions, but I would still be faced with the GRIB bootloader.

 

My problem is that I do NOT have a WinXP CD as the operating system was pre-installed and consisted of a system recovery solution installed on a special hidden partition which is accessible via the Windows bootloader, which of course I don’t see now!

 

Can anyone suggest ho I can re-install the Windows bootloader or at least help GRUB to load that particular option so that I can restore my windows system if I need to?

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My problem is that I do NOT have a WinXP CD as the operating system was pre-installed...

 

Can anyone suggest ho I can re-install the Windows bootloader or at least help GRUB to load that particular option so that I can restore my windows system if I need to?

 

I have done the following in 10.1; I assume the procedure is the same with 10.0.

 

Boot from your 1st Mandrake install CD, press F1 at the initial menu, you'll then get a command line with boot: as the prompt. Enter rescue as the command. Then select option to "Restore Windows Boot Loader."

 

Before doing that, though, I'd make sure I had a floppy that will boot directly into XP (boot.ini, ntldr, etc), just as a safeguard.

Edited by jboy
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  • 8 months later...
Guest essenby

jboy - Please accept my humble aplogies for not telling you this before. Your advice was spot on. My Windows boot loader was restored perfectly and all is now well. Masny thanks for your patience and assistance.

 

essenby

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