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#1
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Screwed something up :(
I have my system setup with a single 80GB SATA drive. I had it
paratitioned as 1 x 2GB FAT32 C: drive, and 1 x NTFS E: drive. WinXP Pro booted on drive E:. I decided to format drive C: usng my DOS 7.1 floppy. Big misake. Now WinXP won't bootup. I'm guessing formating C: destroyed the MBR . I didn't have Windows Restore active... Not sure if it would have helped anyway. Using an NTFS DOS bootdisk, I can read , and copy files I need to drive C:, then format drive E:, and fresh install WinXP. Is there a way to repair the MBR so WinXP wil reboot again? |
#2
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Screwed something up :(
Larry Roberts wrote:
I have my system setup with a single 80GB SATA drive. I had it paratitioned as 1 x 2GB FAT32 C: drive, and 1 x NTFS E: drive. WinXP Pro booted on drive E:. I decided to format drive C: usng my DOS 7.1 floppy. Big misake. Now WinXP won't bootup. I'm guessing formating C: destroyed the MBR . More likely it had installed the basic boot stuff on the C drive and that actually booted the E drive. I didn't have Windows Restore active... Not sure if it would have helped anyway. No it wouldnt. Using an NTFS DOS bootdisk, I can read , and copy files I need to drive C:, then format drive E:, and fresh install WinXP. No, you dont need to go that route. Is there a way to repair the MBR so WinXP wil reboot again? You should be able to boot the XP CD and do a repair install. Operate as if you are going to install XP on the E drive, dont format that partition. The install will claim to have found an existing XP install and offer to repair it. Accept that offer and that should fix it. The FIXBOOT operation from the repair console after booting the XP CD should fix it too, thats a completely different repair approach, confusingly named too similarly. |
#3
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Screwed something up :(
On Sun, 15 Oct 2006 17:16:52 +1000, "Rod Speed"
wrote: Larry Roberts wrote: I have my system setup with a single 80GB SATA drive. I had it paratitioned as 1 x 2GB FAT32 C: drive, and 1 x NTFS E: drive. WinXP Pro booted on drive E:. I decided to format drive C: usng my DOS 7.1 floppy. Big misake. Now WinXP won't bootup. I'm guessing formating C: destroyed the MBR . More likely it had installed the basic boot stuff on the C drive and that actually booted the E drive. I didn't have Windows Restore active... Not sure if it would have helped anyway. No it wouldnt. Using an NTFS DOS bootdisk, I can read , and copy files I need to drive C:, then format drive E:, and fresh install WinXP. No, you dont need to go that route. Is there a way to repair the MBR so WinXP wil reboot again? You should be able to boot the XP CD and do a repair install. Operate as if you are going to install XP on the E drive, dont format that partition. The install will claim to have found an existing XP install and offer to repair it. Accept that offer and that should fix it. The FIXBOOT operation from the repair console after booting the XP CD should fix it too, thats a completely different repair approach, confusingly named too similarly. OK. I tried booting from the CD, and doing what you said. It detects the WinXP installation, but only give s me the option to either install to different directory, or install over it. I also tried the FIXBOOT option, but it says the NTLDR is missing when I try to reboot. Not sure what to do now. |
#4
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Screwed something up :(
Start over. johns |
#5
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Screwed something up :(
Larry Roberts wrote:
On Sun, 15 Oct 2006 17:16:52 +1000, "Rod Speed" wrote: Larry Roberts wrote: I have my system setup with a single 80GB SATA drive. I had it paratitioned as 1 x 2GB FAT32 C: drive, and 1 x NTFS E: drive. WinXP Pro booted on drive E:. I decided to format drive C: usng my DOS 7.1 floppy. Big misake. Now WinXP won't bootup. I'm guessing formating C: destroyed the MBR . More likely it had installed the basic boot stuff on the C drive and that actually booted the E drive. I didn't have Windows Restore active... Not sure if it would have helped anyway. No it wouldnt. Using an NTFS DOS bootdisk, I can read , and copy files I need to drive C:, then format drive E:, and fresh install WinXP. No, you dont need to go that route. Is there a way to repair the MBR so WinXP wil reboot again? You should be able to boot the XP CD and do a repair install. Operate as if you are going to install XP on the E drive, dont format that partition. The install will claim to have found an existing XP install and offer to repair it. Accept that offer and that should fix it. The FIXBOOT operation from the repair console after booting the XP CD should fix it too, thats a completely different repair approach, confusingly named too similarly. OK. I tried booting from the CD, and doing what you said. It detects the WinXP installation, but only give s me the option to either install to different directory, or install over it. OK, likely its decided its unsafe to try a repair install. You can certainly start over as you proposed to do. I also tried the FIXBOOT option, but it says the NTLDR is missing when I try to reboot. Yeah, its too stupid to replace that. Not sure what to do now. You could just copy ntldr there manually. |
#6
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Screwed something up :(
"Larry Roberts" wrote in message ... On Sun, 15 Oct 2006 17:16:52 +1000, "Rod Speed" wrote: Larry Roberts wrote: I have my system setup with a single 80GB SATA drive. I had it paratitioned as 1 x 2GB FAT32 C: drive, and 1 x NTFS E: drive. WinXP Pro booted on drive E:. I decided to format drive C: usng my DOS 7.1 floppy. Big misake. Now WinXP won't bootup. I'm guessing formating C: destroyed the MBR . More likely it had installed the basic boot stuff on the C drive and that actually booted the E drive. I didn't have Windows Restore active... Not sure if it would have helped anyway. No it wouldnt. Using an NTFS DOS bootdisk, I can read , and copy files I need to drive C:, then format drive E:, and fresh install WinXP. No, you dont need to go that route. Is there a way to repair the MBR so WinXP wil reboot again? You should be able to boot the XP CD and do a repair install. Operate as if you are going to install XP on the E drive, dont format that partition. The install will claim to have found an existing XP install and offer to repair it. Accept that offer and that should fix it. The FIXBOOT operation from the repair console after booting the XP CD should fix it too, thats a completely different repair approach, confusingly named too similarly. OK. I tried booting from the CD, and doing what you said. It detects the WinXP installation, but only give s me the option to either install to different directory, or install over it. I also tried the FIXBOOT option, but it says the NTLDR is missing when I try to reboot. Not sure what to do now. Do the same as you did to do the fixboot and do a fixmbr and see if that works. Ed |
#7
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Screwed something up :(
No. All you can do is reformat the harddrive completely and do a fresh
install. -- DaveW ---------------- "Larry Roberts" wrote in message ... I have my system setup with a single 80GB SATA drive. I had it paratitioned as 1 x 2GB FAT32 C: drive, and 1 x NTFS E: drive. WinXP Pro booted on drive E:. I decided to format drive C: usng my DOS 7.1 floppy. Big misake. Now WinXP won't bootup. I'm guessing formating C: destroyed the MBR . I didn't have Windows Restore active... Not sure if it would have helped anyway. Using an NTFS DOS bootdisk, I can read , and copy files I need to drive C:, then format drive E:, and fresh install WinXP. Is there a way to repair the MBR so WinXP wil reboot again? |
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