XP boot loader gone - cannot install Vista

[RT]

Hi:

I was installing Novell's SLES 10 and chose the wrong spot to put the
boot loader.

I had previously installed windows XP (SP1) and then SuSE retail 10.0
and have had it booting via GRUB.

After the mistake I found that booting into XP no longer worked. (I
have since found out that XP, on an NTFS partition, not only uses the
Boot Sector, but also the first 16 sectors of the data portion of the
partition.) I suspect that the XP boot has been damaged although the
NTLOADER file (and one other file) still appear to be there and appear
to be the correct size (as viewed from Linux).

I just went out and bought Vista Home Premium Upgrade and tried to
install it. However, it appears that I need to be able to boot XP in
order to run the Vista install.

To make matters worse, we have recently moved countries and I've been
unsuccessful at finding the XP disc. Someone at work loaned me a
Server 2003 disc (which I've copied, but only for repairing my PC as I
don't want to run 2003) and I've tried to use its repair mode but
again this seems to have failed.

Can anyone thnk of a sequence of steps that I can follow, or is there
a (free??) CD image out there that can be used to repair XP so I can
install Vista so my 9 year old son can be happier. (I work mainly on
Linux myself and use XP for games.)

Thanks in advance.

Ross

 

[neil]

If you use XP for games I wouldn't try updating to vista at the moment, you
may find the games don't work.
What about downloading the 6 disk set of floppies from MS to boot your
system and try to repair XP, or dont you have a floppy disk drive.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310994

Neil

 

[RT]

If you use XP for games I wouldn't try updating to vista at the moment, you
may find the games don't work.
What about downloading the 6 disk set of floppies from MS to boot your
system and try to repair XP, or dont you have a floppy disk drive.http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310994

Neil

Hi Neil:

Thanks for the quick reply.

I purchased Vista cuz I hoped that I could repair XP or upgrade -
would have been happy with either one.

Thanks, though, for the warning about the games. I guess repairing XP
is the best choice.

The windows computer I am using doesn't have a functional floppy drive
and the Linux box does, but sometimes Linux does not perfectly format
a disc and windows refuses to recognize it. Anyway, I will follow the
link you provided and see where that leads me.

Thanks for the help in the meantime.

Ross

 

[neil]

I'm not sure now from reading your second post if you are dual booting Linux
& XP or not. The idea I had was that you could download & create the set of
boot disks and use those to boot from, then go to the recovery console and
use the FIXBOOT command or possibly FIXMBR.

See how you go, best of luck
Neil

 

[RT]

I'm not sure now from reading your second post if you are dual booting Linux
& XP or not. The idea I had was that you could download & create the set of
boot disks and use those to boot from, then go to the recovery console and
use the FIXBOOT command or possibly FIXMBR.

See how you go, best of luck
Neil

Hi Neil:

Thanks again for the help.

There are two computers involved in the house, the Green Goblin (my
son likes the name) and an Internet connected computer running XP.

The green Goblin multi-boots XP, SuSE Linux 01.0 (retail), and SLES
10. This is "our" computer and is an AMD-64x2 with other decent (for
gaming) hardware. My son uses XP on this machine to watch videos and
play 3D shooter and driving games. Linux (retail version) can also
play the videos.

The "Internet computer" (also running XP) is owned by the home owner.
Unfortunately the Internet Computer does not have a functioning floppy
disc. I downloaded the 4 MB file you recommended, but I cannot write
to floppies (as it needs to do when it runs). I will take the file to
my Linux computer and see IF I the .exe file can be extracted with
Linux tools and IF there are images, then I should be able to "dd"
them to a set of floppy's.

Note that the only working XP computer is the owner's Internet
Computer (but its floppy drive is dead).

However, I can move files back and forth between both computers using
USB flash drives.


With luck I will be able to eventually use the FIXBOOT and
FIXMBR commands and, if my luck holds, get XP working again.

Thank you.

Ross

 

[neil]

Had another thought, is your computer running XP on a FAT32 file system or
NTFS. If it is FAT32 then the floppy disk creator seems to run in command
prompt so perhaps it will run if you can boot from a win98 boot disk with
the downloaded file in a convenient folder.

just a thought
Neil

 

[RT]

Had another thought, is your computer running XP on a FAT32 file system or
NTFS. If it is FAT32 then the floppy disk creator seems to run in command
prompt so perhaps it will run if you can boot from a win98 boot disk with
the downloaded file in a convenient folder.

just a thought
Neil

Hi Neil:

Thanks for the ongoing efforts. They are appreciated.

XP on the Green Goblin is installed into NTFS partitions. XP on the
Internet Machine (the one with a defective floppy disk drive and the
computer I am now using) also has NTFS partitions.

Hmmm. A win98 boot disk. Hmmm.

Oops. I don't have win98 or win98 boot disks.

My son hogged the computer all day yesterday and I was busy with work
as well, so I have not had a chance to try "wine" or other DOS
programs running under Linux. Hope to try today (before he trys to
take over again).

Thanks for the win98 thought. Don't know many people here, but maybe
one of tehm has a win98 disk.

Regards.

Ross

 

[neil]

Hi,
Just to be sure, you understand you can't access an NTFS partition from
MSDOS dont you.??
The question about possible being FAT32 was because i thought you may be
able to boot using a win98 floppy disk & then run the MS floppy disk creator
you have downloaded. Assuming you could copy the file to the FAT32
partition, unless you can create one using Linux.

It may be easier to ask the house holder if you can fix the defective floppy
drive on their machine, (quite cheap these days, in the UK anyway) unless
you can use a machine at work perhaps.

Keep on trying
Neil

 

[RT]

Hi,
Just to be sure, you understand you can't access an NTFS partition from
MSDOS dont you.??
The question about possible being FAT32 was because i thought you may be
able to boot using a win98 floppy disk & then run the MS floppy disk creator
you have downloaded. Assuming you could copy the file to the FAT32
partition, unless you can create one using Linux.

It may be easier to ask the house holder if you can fix the defective floppy
drive on their machine, (quite cheap these days, in the UK anyway) unless
you can use a machine at work perhaps.

Keep on trying
Neil

(^-^)

Yep, I think I'm going to have to fix his floppy drive.

Tried to use a DOS emulator on Linux, and it failed to open the
Windows executable stating that the program required a graphical
environment.

As far as 98 goes, I understand that it cannot access an NTFS
filesystem, and that 98 would only be used for making the floppies. I
hope to either find a better emulator (perhaps wine) or fix the home
owners floppy drive.

Thanks again for the help. Much appreciated.

Ross