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ih8bills · 04:19 AM

I have a good idea of what's wrong now-- exactly which files I don't know... but when you uninstalled Linux from your PC (most likely) something in the MBR got corrupted.

I think the longer-- step-by-step version of the InfoWeek article is the way to go-- You can trust Fred Langa's advice ... believe me. He has saved my behind more than once.

If you have a floppy drive... and don't mind spending just a little (for this type of software)...
you could get this:
Boot Manager, Partition Manager, and Drive Image Utility - BootIt Next Generation

it will allow you to manage/resize do almost anything with your partitions/boot files-- blows the rest (Partition Magic, etc ) away-- for less money.
It does take some reading to use it-- but once you get used to it-- you can do amazing stuff with it.

It can be run from a bootable CD-- too I like the floppy better-- it's slower-- but Windows will recognize a floppy drive even when CD's are not "seen". Plus -- the floppy does not require any "burning software" to create the disc.

ih8bills

I have to turn in for the night...I'm beat.

Keep me "posted"

nickmayfield

so i just realized that my hard drive when i did the fixboot with windows xp cd took it from ntfs to fat12. thats not good i'm sure. i can open it but everything is nothing but funny charactors.

ih8bills

FAT 16 or FAT 32-- not 12... correct ?
It could not have converted the whole disc -- just the boot sector files-- which should be fixable...

nickmayfield

yeah i thought that was weird too. but it came up fat12. i had never heard of 12. and the hard drive now thinks its 10megs or gigs i can't remember i already pulled it out.

ih8bills · 01:47 AM

Originally Posted by nickmayfield

yeah i thought that was weird too. but it came up fat12. i had never heard of 12. and the hard drive now thinks its 10megs or gigs i can't remember i already pulled it out.

I never heard of FAT 12 either...

I'm going to try to find a solution for this-- I'll be back.

Well I found out that FAT 12 is usually used for floppy discs

File Allocation Table - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

ih8bills

I think your safest bet is to do a "Repair Install" of XP
this is NOT the recovery console--
you actually run setup-- the difference is that you will not lose any files.
Used like this setup just goes through-- puts all the settings/files back to their defaults-- but skips over all the intact parts and "foreign files" your stuff. I have done this many times... piece of cake.

This will make sure that everything is put back right-- we could bang our heads against the wall all night --and still end up with a problem trying to fix this manually.
Only one question-- you do have a full XP version, correct??
Not some "recovery disc"??

here's a guide from Tweak XP's site:

Make sure the BIOS is set to boot from the CD (put the CD above the HD in the boot order)

Insert the XP CD and boot to it

When you see " To setup Windows XP now, press ENTER", go ahead and press ENTER

You will now see an option to repair Windows by pressing "R". Do not select this option - it will only take you to the Recovery Console which is not what we want to do. Instead, choose to continue the installation

When you see the license agreement, press F8 to agree

On the next screen make sure your current XP installation is selected and then press "R" to repair XP

At this point XP will begin to install on top of itself, replacing damaged, missing or altered system files. Follow the instructions on the remaining screens to complete the Repair Install. It will look very much like a normal (new) OS installation.

If all goes well your repaired XP installation will remain iintact, keeping your personalized settings and installed programs as they originally were. Remember, choose the second repair option, not the first.

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