mbr help ..

[xIcculusx]

i had linux on 1 HD
win2k on aother

i wanted to reload win2k , knowing i cant do this with linux there , i removed the linux HD

now when i boot it its all

10101010101010101 ... etc
i know ive fried my mbr , the question is , how can i fix it . its been so long since i did this i cant remember how i fixed it ...

[Timbo]

We could use some more information to help you. things such as what you did exactly to install Winblows, and what your hard drive configuration was/is.

[Linuxcool]

To restore your mbr, you boot up into dos and run the command ' fdisk /mbr '.

[xIcculusx]

ok

i had 2 HD , for this we will call them HDwin and HDlin for obvious reasons

now HDwin was partitioned into 2 fat 32 sections , one ran win98 one ran win2k.

on HDlin i installed a copy of manrake 8.0 and use the graphical lilo booter

well my sound card crapped out and some how screwed ym linux up , it also was acting funny in win2k so i decided its best to re-install everything , i wanted to re-install linux so i could put in all the packages and win2k so i could get rid of the win98/win2k dual boot , plus it was just time


so ..


i start the win2k install and have it format the 2nd paritionb ( this is the one that held win2k before) it goes through the loading process fine and reboot to continue the install , when it reboots lilo comes up , i select windows and it boots to the old win98/win2k boot , i assume this is cause lilo has mbr control now.

so i think being smart ill take off the linux HD that way it cant boot to it.
well bad news for me , cause now when i boot the HD it gets past the update screen where it displays your system devices and such then it just goes ...


010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010
101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101
00101010101001010100101010101010101010100101010101 0101010101010101010 ..... etc

this is where im stuck .. im sure i have to delete the mbr which would be fdisk mbr or something off a win boot disk , but it wont work ..

that help ? i hope sop cause i spent all day on this thing looking for a asnwer online and in faq's and just general stuff , basicly it seems the mbr is partialy or fully in linux and since i cant boot linux i have no way to acces it , and ofcourse wonderful MS wont tough it.

[ 14 July 2001: Message edited by: xIcculusx ]

[Linuxcool]

Did you try running fdisk /mbr?

Did you try putting the second hd back in to see if you can boot into linux?

If you can boot into linux, try running this command as root /sbin/lilo -u . This should restore the mbr.

[xIcculusx]

yes sir , that did the trick , my error was that i thought the command was fdisk mbr .. can you say DOH !!
you wuld think this simple solution would be in every faq online, but not once did i see it , they wanted me to download booters and run all these funny command lines .

god that caused me to lose some info i really didnt want to lose :(

oh well live and learn and remember. thnx for your help man

[ 15 July 2001: Message edited by: xIcculusx ]

[slapNUT]

A little late but never the less Three ways to restore MBR:
Windows - fdisk /mbr
Linux - cat /boot/boot.0300 > /dev/hda
Linux - dd if=/boot/boot.0300 of=/dev/hda bs=446 count=1


The cat one is dangerous, if you have made any changes to the drives partitioning since the backup was made.

[TC]

fdisk /mbr rewites the Master boot record. But you need not worry with NT and W2K as they do not write to the mbr at all. Just point lilo or any other boot manager to the NT/W2K partiton and the NT loader will work after the other boots.

TC :cool:

[xIcculusx]

thnx guyz :)

[Linuxcool]

You're welcome.