Restoring the MBR on a CD-ROM less Notebook

[Tom H]

On Sat, May 22, 2010 at 6:11 AM, Amichai Rotman <amichai at iglu.org.il> 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...
> .:====================================================:.
>
> 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?

I misunderstood what you meant by the "tools" above since this is a
Linux list...

AFAIK, the MS way is to create a Recovery CD/DVD but there must be a
googlable was of doing so on a USB stick.