Restoring the MBR on a CD-ROM less Notebook

Sat May 22 10:11:11 UTC 2010

I guess I wasn't clear enough...

I am way beyond fixing GRUB. I have run the Recovery process, and I only
have Windows 7 on the hard disk. I have no Ubuntu or GRUB.

Here is the partitioning state:

sda1: 15Gb for Recovery
sda2: Bootable 80GB for Windows 7 System (OS)
sda5: Extended NTFS for DATA

I now need help with dumping the Winsows 7 Recovery CD to a USB stick in a
way the BIOS will recognize it as a CD.

The BIOS supports booting from USB because it booted the Ubuntu Live CD I
made with usb-creator. It didn't work with the Rescue CD...

.:====================================================:.

Amichai Rotman

Registered Linux User#: 201192 [http://counter.li.org/]
Registered Ubuntu User #12851 [http://ubuntucounter.geekosophical.net]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
.:====================================================:.

On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 20:07, Tom H <tomh0665 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 10:41 AM, Amichai Rotman <amichai at iglu.org.il>
> wrote:
> > On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 16:21, Tom H <tomh0665 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 3:07 AM, Amichai Rotman <amichai at iglu.org.il>
> >> wrote:
> >> > On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 07:22, Tom H <tomh0665 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> At the grub rescue prompt:
> >> >>
> >> >> Run "ls" to display your disks and partitions
> >> >>
> >> >> Run "set" and check the values of "root" and "prefix"
> >> >>
> >> >> If "root" and "prefix" are incorrect (if you do not know what they
> >> >> should be, run "ls (hdX,Y)/boot" for the different values of X and Y
> >> >> since search isn't available in rescue mode), run
> >> >> set root=(hdX,Y)
> >> >> set prefix=(hdX,Y)/boot/grub
> >> >> to set them to the correct values
> >> >>
> >> >> Run
> >> >> insmod normal.mod
> >> >> or, if necessary,
> >> >> insmod /boot/grub/normal.mod
> >> >>
> >> >> Run
> >> >> linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.x.x root=/dev/sdXY ro
> >> >> initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.x.x
> >> >> boot
> >> >> (use tab completion)
> >> >
> >> > Thank for the great info, except there isn't any Linux on it now. I
> need
> >> > to
> >> > re-create Windows 7 boot loader or whatever.
> >> > I started a live Ubuntu 10.04 stick and I found out the partitin I
> need
> >> > to
> >> > boot is /dev/sda2...
> >>
> >> You're welcome.
> >>
> >> What I forgot to say in my earlier email is that once booted up in
> >> Ubuntu, you would have had to run "grub-install" and "update-grub" to
> >> set up grub properly and then check whether you could boot into
> >> Windows by paging through /boot/grub/grub.cfg to see whether there is
> >> a Windows entry and then trying to boot from it.
> >>
> >> If you just want to fix Win7, you have to boot from a recovery CD and
> >> run "bootrec /rebuildbcd", "bootrec /fixmbr", "bootrec /fixboot" (in
> >> ascending order of change to the Win setup).
>
> > I "got rid" of the "grub rescue>" prompt with the following steps:
> > 1. Booting the Notebook from a USB Live Ubuntu Lucid.
> > 2. Installing the mbr package.
> > 3. running the following in a console: "install-mbr -i n -p D -t 0
> /dev/sda"
> > now I, when i boot the Notebook, it gets to the regular Win 7 boot loader
> > thats gives me a error saying that due to a hardware change there is a
> > problem starting Windows and I should start a repair from a Windows 7
> > Installation CD.
> > I got that CD, but no CD drive. I tried to use dd to dump the ISO I've
> made
> > from that CD to a USB stick, but it wouldn't boot from it.
> > I know the CD is bootable. Can someone tell me what's the syntax for dd
> to
> > make a USB Stick "look like" a CD to the system? Maybe the bs= parameter?
> > Is there away to create a bootable USB stick with those tools mentioned
> at
> > the end of Tom's last post?
> > As for the fact I am a Linux guy trying to fix a Windows problem -
> believe
> > me I am doing this under protest - it's my sister's Netbook and she
> insists
> > I put Windows back after trying Ubuntu Lucid for a week. Not because she
> > wasn't happy with it - she actually liked it very much, but she says she
> > wants to give Windows 7 a try too and she is afraid she won't be able to
> get
> > help if she has a problem with her computer (I don't live near enough to
> pop
> > in if she gets stuck)...
>
> I posted earlier a Win7 fix involving the mbr package and install-mbr.
>
> From the links in that other thread, it looks like:
> . Windows recovery/security software (whether that of MS, Dell, etc)
> writes over the area of the disk where grub installs stage 1.5 or
> core.img (it probably tags the grub file as a security threat)
> . the mbr package allows grub to bypass that file
>
> The commands that I had posted earlier are grub commands. grub2 goes
> to a grub prompt if it finds its configuration and cannot boot and it
> goes to a grub rescue prompt if it cannot find its configuration. The
> grub rescue commands are a subset of the grub prompt commands; so, for
> example, you cannot use "search" as you would with a grub prompt to
> find the grub directory.
>
> If you run update-grub, you should have a Win7 entry and be able to boot to
> it.
>
> One last thing is that the Windows partition must not be marked as
> bootable. It is the partition with the kernel that must be marked
> bootable; so either / or /boot if it is mounted separately.
>
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