Cannot Boot XP after Ubuntu 7.10 Installation

[NoBootIdea]

Greetings,

Sometime ago I installed Ubuntu 7.10 on an USB flash drive attached to the
laptop (a few months old AMD based Dell Inspiron 1501), then I lost the USB
drive.
When I tried to boot without the USB drive I was getting a GRUB Error 21 or
26.
I then read some postings about removing the GRUB, but it did not work (the
GRUB Error has been replaced with "Operating System Not Found").
Since then (about 3 weeks ago) I have been reading all the message boards
and tried pretty much everything, except re-installing Windows which I am
trying to avoid if possible. Here is a list of what I tried (some multiple
times) without any success so far:

- FixMbr from RECOVERY CONSOLE
- FixBoot from RECOVERY CONSOLE
- Bootcfg /Rebuild (it comes back with Error, I tried Chkdsk /p which says
the disk is OK) from RECOVERY CONSOLE
- Ran REPAIR from Windows XP setup CD ("R" option when going into SETUP, not
into RECOVERY CONSOLE). The repair detects the C:\Windows installation and is
asking if I want to REPAIR it (yes).

I have another USB stick I made with a reduced version of Windows XP and I
can boot from it order to access the HD, so I know the HD is detected by the
BIOS and working.

I appreciate any suggestions or ideas...thanks!

 

[Sharon F]

Greetings,

Sometime ago I installed Ubuntu 7.10 on an USB flash drive attached to the
laptop (a few months old AMD based Dell Inspiron 1501), then I lost the USB
drive.
When I tried to boot without the USB drive I was getting a GRUB Error 21 or
26.
I then read some postings about removing the GRUB, but it did not work (the
GRUB Error has been replaced with "Operating System Not Found").
Since then (about 3 weeks ago) I have been reading all the message boards
and tried pretty much everything, except re-installing Windows which I am
trying to avoid if possible. Here is a list of what I tried (some multiple
times) without any success so far:

- FixMbr from RECOVERY CONSOLE
- FixBoot from RECOVERY CONSOLE
- Bootcfg /Rebuild (it comes back with Error, I tried Chkdsk /p which says
the disk is OK) from RECOVERY CONSOLE
- Ran REPAIR from Windows XP setup CD ("R" option when going into SETUP, not
into RECOVERY CONSOLE). The repair detects the C:\Windows installation and is
asking if I want to REPAIR it (yes).

I have another USB stick I made with a reduced version of Windows XP and I
can boot from it order to access the HD, so I know the HD is detected by the
BIOS and working.

I appreciate any suggestions or ideas...thanks!

Assuming you removed GRUB completely and that only XP will be running on
this computer, go to the MS Knowledge Base. Select XP as "product" and
search for "fixboot xp"

I add XP to the search string to narrow down the search results - you
should get about 12 articles. What you're looking for in this material is
details on the command line utility (fixboot.exe) that will rebuild the
boot sector.

 

[NoBootIdea]

Assuming you removed GRUB completely and that only XP will be running on
this computer, go to the MS Knowledge Base. Select XP as "product" and
search for "fixboot xp"

I add XP to the search string to narrow down the search results - you
should get about 12 articles. What you're looking for in this material is
details on the command line utility (fixboot.exe) that will rebuild the
boot sector.

Thanks Sharon,

I used the LiveCD version of "Gparted" to set the flag on the Win XP
partition as bootable.

After that I was able to boot into Win XP (it went through a "Repair"
installation using the CD, but I ended up with the same original
configuration without having to re-install the other applications).

Thanks again and Happy New Year!