FixMbr?

[ManyBeers]

WindowsXP SP 3
Just a couple of minutes ago I attempted to use fixmbr command from a
Recovery Console cd(a burned cd image file of recovery console) everything
went fine. I saw the command prompt window flash and it even gave me the
warning aboutm proceeding.
But whrn I rebooted grub(linux bootloader) was still there. There is nothing
wrong with my computer mind you, I can boot in to either system. The only
reason I am doing this is to make ntldr my bootloader. Why didn't fixmbr work?

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

WindowsXP SP 3
Just a couple of minutes ago I attempted to use fixmbr command from a
Recovery Console cd(a burned cd image file of recovery console) everything
went fine. I saw the command prompt window flash and it even gave me the
warning aboutm proceeding.
But whrn I rebooted grub(linux bootloader) was still there. There is
nothing
wrong with my computer mind you, I can boot in to either system. The only
reason I am doing this is to make ntldr my bootloader. Why didn't fixmbr
work?

Maybe you should boot off a real Recovery Console instead of a burned CD
image of one.

 

[ManyBeers]

Maybe you should boot off a real Recovery Console instead of a burned CD
image of one.
Ok I do have a recovery console entry in my boot.ini which was made from instructions taken fron Bill Castner's how-to at this sight http://aumha.net/

I just thought the cd would be better. I don't have an xp cd because my
laptop came with Recovery cds and no Recovery Console, So that is why I use
alternate methods to obtain it. Should I go ahead and use my boo.ini entry
and see if it works?
I also have a Win98 bootdisk. form bootdisc.com which you told me about.What
would you do?

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I just thought the cd would be better. I don't have an xp cd because my
laptop came with Recovery cds and no Recovery Console, So that is why I
use
alternate methods to obtain it. Should I go ahead and use my boo.ini
entry
and see if it works?
I also have a Win98 bootdisk. form bootdisc.com which you told me
about.What
would you do?

I would use the Win98 boot disk. Its "fdisk /mbr" will work very nicely for
your WinXP installation, regardless of the file system you use.

 

[ManyBeers]

I would use the Win98 boot disk. Its "fdisk /mbr" will work very nicely for
your WinXP installation, regardless of the file system you use.

Thanks for trying to help me out Pegasus but it doesn't matter now. My
laptop does
not support LBA(logical Block Addressing). When I set out to dualboot Mw
Windows xp install
and Ubuntu I read about LBA limitations so I knew to avoid any problems make
sure to install Ubuntu
on my second partition which is well inside the 8.5gb limit. But it was
several days later before
I actually whetn ahead and installed Ubuntu. And I changed it's location to
the 4th partition on my
drive(brain fart) which is well outside the LBA limits. It is too much
effort to change things now
So I will keep using Grub.

 

[Anteaus]

It's extremely rare to find one that doesn't support LBA. Some HP laptops
(530?) default to Large (bit-shift) access, and the issue here is that you
cannot change this to LBA without a complete reload of the disk. Why they do
this I don't know as LBA is the universal standard these days,

Though, I find that Ubuntu's insistence on modifying the MBR is as
undesirable as Vista's insistence on doing the same thing. There is in fact
no need for an OS to modify the MBR, and most other distros offer the option
of not doing so.

:

 

[Ronaldo]

Check this:

"use an open source tool called Super Grub Disk".
http://www.wikihow.com/Uninstall-the-Grub-Bootloader-from-a-Dual-Boot-XP-System-With-an-XP-CD



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

 

[Ronaldo]

Super Grub Disk download links

http://www.supergrubdisk.org/index.php?pid=4


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

 

[Stephen Harris]

WindowsXP SP 3
Just a couple of minutes ago I attempted to use fixmbr command from a
Recovery Console cd(a burned cd image file of recovery console) everything
went fine. I saw the command prompt window flash and it even gave me the
warning aboutm proceeding.
But whrn I rebooted grub(linux bootloader) was still there. There is nothing
wrong with my computer mind you, I can boot in to either system. The only
reason I am doing this is to make ntldr my bootloader. Why didn't fixmbr work?

Do you mean that you made a bootable cd image of Recovery Console
that loads before the processes of the operating system? The option
in boot.ini gives you a choice to load RC before Windows XP loads.

Even if you did make a bootable RC image, you don't know that it is
exactly equivalent in terms of files and settings as using cmdcons
installed on the disk. Remember this observation from AumHa,

"The only question many experienced hands with Windows is why it was
not included by default. The answer is in most cases was because the
OEMs did not want to pay a modest licensing fee to include it."

Bill Castner is not going to provide a method to circumvent MS policy
because he is a MS-MVP. Since Bill did not mention the possibility of
of writing this to a bootable RC cd, there is probably not a straight-
forward way of writing your C:\cmdcons files to a bootable functional
RC cd. If there is such a method, legitimate websites and MS-MVPs are
not going to say how to do this in order to circumvent MS policy. It
is possible for MS to approve the C:\cmdcons method and not approve
a bootable RC method and it does little good to speculate on why. It
is a very remote possibility that Bill Castner didn't mention the
possibility of creating a bootable RC cd because he didn't think of it.

The other things Bill mentioned to improve the flexibility of RC
with registry edits, OTOH, are likely to prove to be very valuable
for reasons that people who are not used to reading instructions
and following those instructions precisely and exactly can imagine.
Of course there are people who just have to find out the hard way
for why they should heed the advice to make backups including the
registry and the MBR.

ManyBeers wrote: > "There is nothing wrong with my computer mind
you, I can boot in to either system."

SH: So have you backed up this functioning MBR? So that in case
using fixmbr or fdisk /mbr doesn't work, and you wind up in the
position of being unable to boot to either OS, you can restore
an MBR that is known to allow you to boot to either system. This
actually happened to me when I was experimenting with both fixboot
and fixmbr and BootIt NG. You impress me as a dabbler,

So it is better to be safe than sorry, an ounce of prevention...etc
Stephen

 

[Stephen Harris]

Thanks for trying to help me out Pegasus but it doesn't matter now. My
laptop does
not support LBA(logical Block Addressing). When I set out to dualboot Mw
Windows xp install
and Ubuntu I read about LBA limitations so I knew to avoid any problems make
sure to install Ubuntu
on my second partition which is well inside the 8.5gb limit. But it was
several days later before
I actually whetn ahead and installed Ubuntu. And I changed it's location to
the 4th partition on my
drive(brain fart) which is well outside the LBA limits. It is too much
effort to change things now
So I will keep using Grub.

I think you can copy/tar the entire contents of the /boot partition
(4th) over to your second partition and then update fstab to point
to the new partition. If /dev/hda1 is your Windows partition then
/dev/hda2 will be your second partition which you can populate with
your /boot files. This idea should be checked over on a Ubuntu forum.

 

[ManyBeers]

Do you mean that you made a bootable cd image of Recovery Console
that loads before the processes of the operating system? The option
in boot.ini gives you a choice to load RC before Windows XP loads.

Yes. I realize that now.

Even if you did make a bootable RC image, you don't know that it is
exactly equivalent in terms of files and settings as using cmdcons
installed on the disk. Remember this observation from AumHa,

Well cmdcoms on my disk was dowmloaded from links in the Aumha how-to
So neither may be equivalent. My laptop has no Recovery Console natively
so when I saw that Aumha how-to it sounded like a good idea, even though
I had no idea how to use it. I do now...somewhat.

"The only question many experienced hands with Windows is why it was
not included by default. The answer is in most cases was because the
OEMs did not want to pay a modest licensing fee to include it."

Bill Castner is not going to provide a method to circumvent MS policy
because he is a MS-MVP. Since Bill did not mention the possibility of
of writing this to a bootable RC cd, there is probably not a straight-
forward way of writing your C:\cmdcons files to a bootable functional
RC cd. If there is such a method, legitimate websites and MS-MVPs are
not going to say how to do this in order to circumvent MS policy. It
is possible for MS to approve the C:\cmdcons method and not approve
a bootable RC method and it does little good to speculate on why. It
is a very remote possibility that Bill Castner didn't mention the
possibility of creating a bootable RC cd because he didn't think of it.

The other things Bill mentioned to improve the flexibility of RC
with registry edits, OTOH, are likely to prove to be very valuable
for reasons that people who are not used to reading instructions
and following those instructions precisely and exactly can imagine.
Of course there are people who just have to find out the hard way
for why they should heed the advice to make backups including the
registry and the MBR.

ManyBeers wrote: > "There is nothing wrong with my computer mind
you, I can boot in to either system."

SH: So have you backed up this functioning MBR? So that in case
using fixmbr or fdisk /mbr doesn't work, and you wind up in the
position of being unable to boot to either OS, you can restore
an MBR that is known to allow you to boot to either system. This
actually happened to me when I was experimenting with both fixboot
and fixmbr and BootIt NG. You impress me as a dabbler,

I don't know how to back up my MBR. I assumed if something went wrong I would
boot into my System Rescue CD and make Ubuntu the bootable partition again.,
which is relatively easy to do. It will restore Grub to the MBR. Hell ,I
used the SRCD to retrieve the GRUB stage 1 file and mounted a fat32 drive to
copy the file to(and I have never mounted a drive in my life...unmounted it
too). Mounting was done through a Terminal window in SRCD's graphic
environment and I unmounted the drive using Gparted another graphic tool. I
didn't think I could get in too much trouble so long as I could boot the SRCD.

 

[dennis]

I would use the Win98 boot disk. Its "fdisk /mbr" will work very nicely for
your WinXP installation, regardless of the file system you use.

You just need to make sure that your system doesn't break if the disk
signature changes (fdisk /mbr will make that change). Or at least, you
know how to recover from it.

 

[Stephen Harris]

Yes. I realize that now.

Well cmdcoms on my disk was dowmloaded from links in the Aumha how-to
So neither may be equivalent. My laptop has no Recovery Console natively
so when I saw that Aumha how-to it sounded like a good idea, even though
I had no idea how to use it. I do now...somewhat.

Yes, I think it is a great idea, even if you have an install disk.
The reason to load Ubuntu from the XP boot.ini was to ensure that
RC boot option (from C:\cmdcons) was maintained. When you booted up
you would get choices like boot from

Windows XP or
Recovery Console or
Ubuntu

I wasn't sure that if you used grub and you picked Windows XP that
it would present you with screen you started with before Ubuntu.

Windows XP
Recovery Console

I thought there was a chance that you would lose the RC option.
Now that you have grub installed and can find out, do you still
have the RC option when you choose Windows XP or whatever you
called the XP boot label? Does it offer the boot.ini choices of
Windows XP and Recovery Console? After you installed C:\cmdcons
did you follow the step where it had you write the Recovery
Console as a boot option to boot.ini? Or did you only try
creating a cmdcons cd. Here is a link to a grub tutorial,
http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/grub.html

I don't know how to back up my MBR. I assumed if something went wrong I would
boot into my System Rescue CD and make Ubuntu the bootable partition again.,
which is relatively easy to do. It will restore Grub to the MBR. Hell ,I

I don't understand this. I thought you were going to make the
first sector of the Ubuntu partition bootable so that the MBR
wouldn't be written to so that your RC option would be preserved.
Do you have both options appearing in your boot.ini

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" /cmdcons

Since you are using Grub, and it should offer you the choice
of booting Windows XP, when you select the Windows XP option,
does it also offer you the choice of the Recovery Console bootup.

 

[ManyBeers]

Yes, I think it is a great idea, even if you have an install disk.
The reason to load Ubuntu from the XP boot.ini was to ensure that
RC boot option (from C:\cmdcons) was maintained. When you booted up
you would get choices like boot from

Windows XP or
Recovery Console or
Ubuntu

I wasn't sure that if you used grub and you picked Windows XP that
it would present you with screen you started with before Ubuntu.

Windows XP
Recovery Console

I thought there was a chance that you would lose the RC option.
Now that you have grub installed and can find out, do you still
have the RC option when you choose Windows XP or whatever you
called the XP boot label? Does it offer the boot.ini choices of
Windows XP and Recovery Console? After you installed C:\cmdcons
did you follow the step where it had you write the Recovery
Console as a boot option to boot.ini? Or did you only try
creating a cmdcons cd. Here is a link to a grub tutorial,
http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/grub.html


I don't understand this. I thought you were going to make the
first sector of the Ubuntu partition bootable so that the MBR
wouldn't be written to so that your RC option would be preserved.
Do you have both options appearing in your boot.ini

Yes I do. And mt Recovery Console is stikk available even thoughGrub is the
bootloader. Whrn I make my menu selection in Grub it doesn't boot Windows it
boots
Windows Boot.ini and I can then select Recovery Console. In fact when my XP
wakes up from hibernation it displays Grubs boot menu(which I modified to
make XP the default after 10 seconds) , waits for ten seconds then displays
XP's boot menu
waits 5 seconds and then brings up my desktop.

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" /cmdcons

Since you are using Grub, and it should offer you the choice
of booting Windows XP, when you select the Windows XP option,
does it also offer you the choice of the Recovery Console bootup.

Yes it does so via XP's boot.ini .

 

[Anteaus]

There is no need to tar and untar. In principle you can transfer a Linux
install to another disk/location using plain ordinary cp with the -a switch,
it works much like xcopy did for win98. This should be done from a live CD
distro. -Linux has no equivalent of shadow copy so you cannot guarantee a
good copy from a running OS.

You then need to adjust fstab and the bootloader. fstab is easy, the
bootloader not always so. As I use lilo you would be better to ask a grub
expert here.

Other point to note is that you MUST transfer the permissions (which cp -a
does) XP (or even Vista) will work without permissions, Linux will not.

"I think you can copy/tar the entire contents of the /boot partition
(4th) over to your second partition and then update fstab to point
to the new partition. If /dev/hda1 is your Windows partition then
/dev/hda2 will be your second partition which you can populate with
your /boot files. This idea should be checked over on a Ubuntu forum. "

 

[Stephen Harris]

Yes it does so via XP's boot.ini .

Good. I guess it felt sort of heroic mounting and unmounting
partitions, not at all your usual Windows fare.

 

[ManyBeers]

Good. I guess it felt sort of heroic mounting and unmounting
partitions, not at all your usual Windows fare.

Oh yeah, lots of fun.I do know one thing-the only reason ntldr woul not boot
Linux
is because my BIOS does not support LBA(which I verified through Sony support)
GRUB does implement it.and can boot OS's located beyond 8.5 gb's. In fact the
Gparted partitioning tool clearly showed when Ubuntu was flagged to boot... my
storage drive which was located about 6.5 gb's in had an LBA flag on it. When
xp was flagged to boot that flag disappeared.

I know I could make ntldr do the job but it's just not
worth the time
and effort now.I.m happy with the way it is right now.

 

[Stephen Harris]

Oh yeah, lots of fun.I do know one thing-the only reason ntldr woul not boot
Linux
is because my BIOS does not support LBA(which I verified through Sony support)
GRUB does implement it.and can boot OS's located beyond 8.5 gb's. In fact the
Gparted partitioning tool clearly showed when Ubuntu was flagged to boot... my
storage drive which was located about 6.5 gb's in had an LBA flag on it. When
xp was flagged to boot that flag disappeared.

I know I could make ntldr do the job but it's just not
worth the time
and effort now.I.m happy with the way it is right now.

I think that Windows reads the disk geometry from the bios,but
Linux does not, it reads the disk geometry directly from disk,
so it doesn't need LBA. I don't know why they made laptops so
they couldn't switch to LBA in bios.

 

[Stephen Harris]

Oh yeah, lots of fun.I do know one thing-the only reason ntldr woul not boot
Linux
is because my BIOS does not support LBA(which I verified through Sony support)
GRUB does implement it.and can boot OS's located beyond 8.5 gb's. In fact the
Gparted partitioning tool clearly showed when Ubuntu was flagged to boot... my
storage drive which was located about 6.5 gb's in had an LBA flag on it. When
xp was flagged to boot that flag disappeared.

I know I could make ntldr do the job but it's just not
worth the time
and effort now.I.m happy with the way it is right now.

I tested this (am replying from Ubuntu) and the boot.ini method works
although I have a desktop and LBA enabled. My experience was that I
got practice deleting and reinstalling my Linux distributions.

 

[ManyBeers]

I think that Windows reads the disk geometry from the bios,but
Linux does not, it reads the disk geometry directly from disk,
so it doesn't need LBA. I don't know why they made laptops so
they couldn't switch to LBA in bios.

Yes I believe you are correct.