Re: boot manager for XP / Win7 (+ others)

Tech-Archive recommends: Repair Windows Errors & Optimize Windows Performance


"John Smith" <someone@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:%23YLTU3mRKHA.1876@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Yes, XOSL puts its own code into the Master Boot Record so that it knows
where to find the loader. Restoring the MBR is child's play. Here is one
method:
- Boot the machine with a DOS boot diskette, e.g. from www.bootdisk.com.
- Type this command: fdisk /mbr

That's all! And contrary to popular opinion, this works regardless of the
type of partitions you have (FAT/NTFS) because the MBR is independent of
the file systems.

Thanks for the reply.

I had a hell of a time trying to fix the MBR on a previous set up. I
installed Win7 whilst in an XP session. Then deciding to uninstall Win7
which was a bit of a pain as Win7 wrote boot files to the XP partition.
Then installed Ubuntu with its GRUB. Tried to get rid of Ubuntu by booting
the XP CD and going to recovery console and typing FIXMBR. But since my
motherboard's sata isnt recognised by the XP CD had to load the driver
from floppy. FIXMBR didnt work. This and that happend. It turned into a
mess. Had to restore XP from a backup as I couldn't get in.

You mentioned that you use 'fdisk /mbr'. I was using 'fixmbr'. Is there
any difference between the two? There is also a 'fixboot' command.
Actually, i should google search this :)

Will read further into XOSL. Thanks again!

JS

Fdisk.exe is a DOS command. Fixmbr and fixboot are Recovery Console
commands. Unfortunately you cannot use fdisk.exe for a SATA disk unless you
have a SATA driver for DOS (which is unlikely). Furthermore, unless the
author of XOSL has updated his boot loader, you can probably not use it on a
SATA disk.


.

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