Restoring the MBR on a CD-ROM less Notebook

Goh Lip g.lip at gmx.com
Sat May 22 11:02:55 UTC 2010


On 05/22/2010 06:11 PM, Amichai Rotman wrote:
> 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...
>

Usb-creator works only for *ubuntu cd's. Unetbootin for any distro but 
fairly sure it won't work for windows cd.
If you cannot get a usb-port cdrom drive to start your windows cd, you 
might want to try this instead....

Get a usb drive at *your* computer (not your sister's), and at your 
ubuntu os, create a grub rescue to the thumb drive.

grub-install --root-directory=/media/usbstick/ /dev/sdb

note: mount your usb drive
       format to ext2
       create /media/usbstick or /mnt/usbstick or whatever
       recheck it is /dev/sdb or /dev/sdc or whatever


Take that usb to your sister's computer, boot that to a grub prompt and 
follow my earlier message.....

However note that Windows will *not* be (hd0,1) and most likely (hd1,2) 
or (hd2,2) now. To recheck, at grub prompt type 'ls'



> grub> set root=(hd0,1)
> grub> chainloader +1
> grub> boot
>

So most likely.....

grub> set root=(hd1,2)
grub> chainloader +1
grub> boot

> [note]
> I assume from your message ubuntu is in /dev/sda2
> I also assume there is no separate /boot partition
> I again assume windows is in /dev/sda1
>
> ps: if you have a grub-rescue cd, just pop in the cd and do the
> 'grub>' thing.
>
> [at this point, you should be in windows, else I'll give up too]
>
> Now, at windows, open a command and do this
> X:\windows\system32>bootrec /FixMbr
>
> caveat: not sure if this will work, no reason to try it.
> if this doesn't work, then download easybcd, run the .exe file and
> repair accordingly (again repeat caveat -  why not download easybcd.exe
> first?)
>

Worth reminding getting the easybcd.exe file ready


> Hope this helps, if not, I don't think I can help you further, except
> perhaps sending you a grub rescue cd.
>
>
> If you have all this cleared, then think about using a gparted cd to
> clean up the hard drive, again, carefully.


Good luck - Goh Lip




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