Fixboot command needed

[Joe727]

Hi - what is the command prompt to repair the master boot record in Vista
5384? In XP it's fixboot and fixmbr.

I am running a triple boot PC. 98SE, XP Pro SP2 and Vista Beta 5384.

Thanks

Joe

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

It doesn't work that way in Vista. If you boot with the dvd you should see
some links in the lower left of the first screen. One of them offeres the
repair options.

 

[Joe727]

Tried those repair options, and they accomplished nothing. As far as I can
tell, there is not one specifically to repair the boot loader.

Any other thoughts?

Thanks

Joe

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Then you need to use BCDedit. It is not intuitive. You may also use
VistaBootPro which does have a graphical front end.
http://www.vistabootpro.org/intro.php

 

[Joe727]

I have VistaBootPro - the question is, how do I boot to Vista if it doesn't
appear on my selection screen at boot up?

It's the same wth BCDedit. It only works in Vista as far as I know.

Joe

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Not true. It works fine from XP.

I have VistaBootPro - the question is, how do I boot to Vista if it doesn't
appear on my selection screen at boot up?

It's the same wth BCDedit. It only works in Vista as far as I know.

Joe

 

[Georges Jullien]

Hi - what is the command prompt to repair the master boot record in Vista
5384? In XP it's fixboot and fixmbr.

I am running a triple boot PC. 98SE, XP Pro SP2 and Vista Beta 5384.

Thanks

Joe

---------------------------------------------

You can use bootrec /fixboot or bootrec /fixmbr in the "command prompt" of
the DVD :

Boot on the Vista DVD. Choose country. Next. Choose keyboard. Next.
Don't choose "install now" but "system recovery options" . If it is proposed
to repair at the end of the search, answer "no". Deselect all lines and clic
"next"
Choose "command prompt"
Type bootrec /? to access the bootrec help
A usefull command is also :
bootrec /rebuildbcd

Yours sincerely
Georges Jullien

 

[Chad Harris]

Joe--Precisely what did you try? I'm hearing "tried those options" the same
way I have heard for 7 years "tried Safe Mode in XP: when people have in
fact tried one Safe mode option instead of the four they should try since
one may work. Did you try all 3 options 1) Startup Repair and 2) System
Restore after clicking into System Recovery Options from setup?

CH

 

[Joe727]

There are five repair options IIRC, on the Vista repair screen. I don't
remember all the names. I am talking about booting to Vista, not XP.

I tried all of them, including System Restore, which did not work.

Joe

 

[Joe727]

OIC - thanks for that info.

Joe

Not true. It works fine from XP.

 

[Joe727]

---------------------------------------------

You can use bootrec /fixboot or bootrec /fixmbr in the "command prompt" of
the DVD :

Boot on the Vista DVD. Choose country. Next. Choose keyboard. Next.
Don't choose "install now" but "system recovery options" . If it is
proposed to repair at the end of the search, answer "no". Deselect all
lines and clic "next"
Choose "command prompt"
Type bootrec /? to access the bootrec help
A usefull command is also :
bootrec /rebuildbcd

Yours sincerely
Georges Jullien

Thanks for the information. However, for some unknown reason, the System
Recovery Options interface is reporting that my Vista installation is on
partition J instead of partition N. Drive J is actually on my second hard
drive.

98SE is on partition E drive 1 / XP Pro on partition F drive 1 / Vista on
partition N drive 1 / Boot Loaders on Partition C drive 1 which of course is
the Windows default. F & N are NTFS. C & E are FAT32.

I ran the bootrec /rebuildbcd and the bootrec /fixboot, but neither worked.
In fact, I had to install the XP Retail CD and use the Recovery Console to
run fixboot in order to boot into XP.

Any other suggestions other than reinstall Vista?

Joe

 

[Joe727]

Update - VistaBootPro doesn't repair the boot loader. Their website says
that funtion will be in their next release.

I couldn't get BCDedit or BCDedit.exe to work in a command prompt in XP Pro.

Joe

 

[MICHAEL]

There are five repair options IIRC, on the Vista repair screen. I don't
remember all the names. I am talking about booting to Vista, not XP.

I tried all of them, including System Restore, which did not work.

Hey, Joe. Not sure if this would help you, shouldn't hurt.

I ran Acronis from XP after Vista's install to give
Vista more space. I ended up not being able to boot
to Vista. "Couldn't find winload.exe" was the error. I
tried this, it worked.

Accessing bootsect.exe from
the DVD via XP, I ran the cmd "d:\boot\bootsect /nt60 F:"

"F" being my Vista volume as seen by XP.

-Michael

 

[halfspeed]

As a last resort boot to the Windows 98 boot disk (floppy)
choose no cdrom support and at the command prompt A: type in fdisk/mbr
this should restore the mbr. This has saved my skin many times over.

 

[Joe727]

Hey, Joe. Not sure if this would help you, shouldn't hurt.

I ran Acronis from XP after Vista's install to give
Vista more space. I ended up not being able to boot
to Vista. "Couldn't find winload.exe" was the error. I tried this, it
worked.

Accessing bootsect.exe from
the DVD via XP, I ran the cmd "d:\boot\bootsect /nt60 F:"
"F" being my Vista volume as seen by XP.

-Michael

Hi Michael - thanks for posting. I had to make an assumption about your
drive/partition letters. I assume D is your DVD drive and F is where Vista
is installed.

L is my DVD drive and N is where Vista is installed. F is where XP is
installed.

I ran L:\boot\bootsect /nt60 N: - I got a confirmation that the boot was
fixed but the Vista boot loader did not appear on reboot.

Joe

 

[MICHAEL]

Hi Michael - thanks for posting. I had to make an assumption about your
drive/partition letters. I assume D is your DVD drive and F is where Vista
is installed.

L is my DVD drive and N is where Vista is installed. F is where XP is
installed.

I ran L:\boot\bootsect /nt60 N: - I got a confirmation that the boot was
fixed but the Vista boot loader did not appear on reboot.

Your assumptions were correct. Sorry it didn't work.

Hope you figure it out.

Take care,

Michael

 

[Joe727]

Your assumptions were correct. Sorry it didn't work.

Hope you figure it out.

Take care,

Michael

Ok - thanks again.

Joe

 

[Michael Cecil]

I ran L:\boot\bootsect /nt60 N: - I got a confirmation that the boot was
fixed but the Vista boot loader did not appear on reboot.

You could always image your existing Vista drive to somewhere safe, boot
from the Vista disc and install Vista to get the booting fixed, then
restore just the Vista image without changing the boot drive.

 

[Joe727]

You could always image your existing Vista drive to somewhere safe, boot
from the Vista disc and install Vista to get the booting fixed, then
restore just the Vista image without changing the boot drive.

It's not a big deal. I can reinstall Vista. I am just checking it out
along with the new Office Suite Beta. Vista is very nice, but I sure miss
the little Cat helper in Office. I use the Cat instead of Clippy.

Joe

 

[Chad Harris]

You should definitely move up from the cat to a dog. Your life with
computers would get much better. I can also show you how to hack the dog
that is used as the search helper to make it have diverse sounds and do a
gamut of tricks so you can begin focusing on the priorities in life.

CH