I deffintly messed up...big time.

[Rival904]

Ok, so on my main machine, I installed the 64bit version of Edgy a few weeks back. And due to the fact of nothing working with that version (flash, etc etc) I decided to remove it, but I had no idea of the proper method.

So I booted to the live CD, used the partion manager on the CD and deleted all the Linux partions, great right? Well, thats what I thought at first.

I rebooted, posted as normal, then, it tried to load GRUB(which I thought was GONE) but apprently not, it obviously cant find it, and gives me an error, not allowing me to do anything or boot into XP Pro.

Fearing that I would loose all my data, I tried to install the 64bit version again, so I could boot normally, but now, I get an error saying it cant resize my HD.

WTF happened and how can I fix it? I would love it if I didnt have to wipe my whole HD, but that looks like my only option as of now.

And yes, I am very new with Linux.

 

[dicecca112]

yeah you can fix it, you have to repair your bootmbr using the Windows CD. I can't find it at the moment, but I know for a fact its been discussed here. I'll post when I find it

Edit:

Just stick in your Windows install CD and choose repair console and then at the prompt type: FIXMBR

 

[aaronjb]

Both FIXMBR and FIXBOOT from the XP Install CD in "repair" mode should work.

 

[MRD]

Here's the problem. Grub installs partly in the master boot record. This part of grub then makes a call to the main portion of grub, including the configuration files, which are stored in the /boot directory of your linux install. When you deleted the linux partition, you deleted that part of grub, so now grub can't work and boot XP for you. Your XP partition is most probably fine. There are a number of ways to fix this problem. You can make some new Linux partitions and install Linux again, set up grub, and re-add XP to your grub boot list. You can also use your windows cd to rewrite a standard windows mbr so that Windows can boot without grub at all. I think the command for that is fixmbr from the recovery console... but not quite sure.

The problem is unlikely to be catastrophic, provided you didn't actually delete your windows partition too (it sounds like you didn't).

Not quite sure what you mean by the error resizing your hard drive, what are you trying to resize?

BTW, I think fixboot is not what you want... pretty sure it's fixmbr, I believe fixboot does bad things.

 

[Rival904]

FIXMBR lets me get to the boot screen, then my comp restarts. Oh well, I'm already half way in on the fresh copy of XP Pro.