"John Reimer" <terminal.node@gmail.com> wrote in message news:dru2ui$1m0q$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> Matthew wrote:
> > My laptop is WinXP, and I had Linux on it. I've only tried the Linux a couple of times, since the shared FAT partition I hoped would enable me
to
> > work with both OSs always came back corrupted in XP's eyes.
> >
> > GRUB is (was) the loader
> >
> > The first 500MB is the first partition, which is FAT.
> >
> > Stupidly, last night I tried to run CONVERT on it, to make it NTFS, and
then
> > changed my mind before (I thought) it had done anything.
> >
> > Now it won't load. All I can get is the GRUB command screen, and I know *nothing* about how to get back my partition from there. Or, if I use
the
> > WinXP recovery disk, I can get into the woop-de-doop management console (i.e. a crippled DOS box) and I *nothing* about how to get back my
partition
> > from there.
> >
> > The C:\boot.ini file is still ok.
> >
> > If anyone knows how to tell the MBR or whatever to "go windows" and see C:\boot.ini, I would be **massively** grateful.
> >
> > Many thanks in advance
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > Matthew
> >
> >
>
>
> I assume you no longer care about the Linux install.
>
> Can you try going into the the Windows Recovery Console and using the "fixmbr c:" command?
>
> Here's a site that explains some of the commands available in the console:
>
> > http://www.windowsnetworking.com/j_helmig/wxprcons.htm
>
>
> In the long run, it may be safer and easier to run a linux distribution in Vmware's free vmplayer tool.  That way you can run Linux from your windows desktop. It's a quick and effective way to work with Linux these days, especially if you don't want to compromise your partition setup with a dual OS install.

The boot partition is (or was) C:

The WinXP OS partition is D:

I've tried "fixboot X:" and "fixmbr X:", with C and D serving as different permutations of X, but to no avail. It keeps whittering about not being able to find "<Windows root>\system32\hal.dll", which would obviously trouble the little dear.

I'm going to try "fixmbr multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)" and "fixmbr
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\Windows", after which I truly have no
clue. Oh dear, I *really* don't want to reinstall this friggin thing.

Any other ideas?

Many, many thanks for all the suggestions. I am back and running.

The fixboot and fixmbr did the trick, it was just that I also needed to make the partition list correspond with what was expected in boot.ini. Rest assured I am *never* trying any of that again, and will be purchasing Ghost and/or PartitionMagic (- any opinions on either/alternatives??) forthwith.

Thanks again. Very very happy bunny here. You're all getting a credit in my book! :-)

Cheers

Matthew

"Matthew" <matthew@hat.stlsoft.dot.org> wrote in message news:dru2pj$1lsh$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> The problem was encountered on my laptop. I'd installed the Linux boot
> over
> a year ago and abandoned attempts to use it. It's just that I was stupid
> enough to start messing with the boot partition on a machine on which
> there
> was uncomitted data - code and three chapters! - while in the last
> two-week
> high-pressure phase of trying to get my book finished.

The only thing I can suggest is getting one of those "disk image" utilities and create an image of your laptop drive onto your main system. Then, search it for strings in the data you want to save, and snip it out and reassemble it by hand.

"Matthew" <matthew@hat.stlsoft.dot.org> wrote in message news:dru7qu$1pjn$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> Many, many thanks for all the suggestions. I am back and running.
>
> The fixboot and fixmbr did the trick, it was just that I also needed to
> make
> the partition list correspond with what was expected in boot.ini. Rest
> assured I am *never* trying any of that again, and will be purchasing
> Ghost
> and/or PartitionMagic (- any opinions on either/alternatives??) forthwith.
>
I've never used Ghost, but PartitionMagic has always worked well for me on these kinds of things.
> Thanks again. Very very happy bunny here. You're all getting a credit in
> my
> book! :-)
>
> Cheers
>
> Matthew
>
>
> 

Matthew wrote:
> My laptop is WinXP, and I had Linux on it. I've only tried the Linux a
> couple of times, since the shared FAT partition I hoped would enable me to
> work with both OSs always came back corrupted in XP's eyes.
> 
> GRUB is (was) the loader
> 
> The first 500MB is the first partition, which is FAT.
> 
> Stupidly, last night I tried to run CONVERT on it, to make it NTFS, and then
> changed my mind before (I thought) it had done anything.
> 
> Now it won't load. All I can get is the GRUB command screen, and I know
> *nothing* about how to get back my partition from there. Or, if I use the
> WinXP recovery disk, I can get into the woop-de-doop management console
> (i.e. a crippled DOS box) and I *nothing* about how to get back my partition
> from there.
> 
> The C:\boot.ini file is still ok.
> 
> If anyone knows how to tell the MBR or whatever to "go windows" and see
> C:\boot.ini, I would be **massively** grateful.
> 
> Many thanks in advance
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Matthew
> 
> 

If you'd like to run Linux, but not have to deal with the (apparent?) messiness of dual-booting, you can check out http://colinux.org/.  It's a fabulous tool that allows you to run a slightly modified Linux kernel (pre-compiled disk images available for boot) *alongside* Windows.  It's not virtual PC technology; the two are actually running cooperatively alongside each other.  You get a nice Linux console popping up on your Windows desktop.  You can even share disk partitions between the two systems.  Very cool.

I've also heard of another tool called Xen that fits into this category, but I don't know much about it.

I have a dual-boot Gentoo and Windows XP system, and it's fantastic! I'm running in Gentoo right now.  All my data is on NTFS partitions (since it can handle files >2GB and I have a lot of video).  Also, I use a special multi-track USB 2.0 audio interface which works flawlessly in both systems, to which I was quite shocked (on the Linux side at least)!

Last thing:  I've also seen an NTFS project for Linux which makes use of the original Windows binary driver for the filesystem.  Apparently, someone had enough free time to completely reverse engineer all the undocumented APIs involved in the usage of file systems on Windows.  I'd like to try this out, as I've heard it can perform all the functions that the native Windows driver can - including write support which has been a problem for Linux (and still is).

If you'd like some help getting kicked off in the right direction, I can definitely help.

--
Regards,
James Dunne

On 2006-02-02 14:20:01 -0800, "Matthew" <matthew@hat.stlsoft.dot.org> said:

> My laptop is WinXP, and I had Linux on it. I've only tried the Linux a
> couple of times, since the shared FAT partition I hoped would enable me to
> work with both OSs always came back corrupted in XP's eyes.
> 
> GRUB is (was) the loader
> 
> The first 500MB is the first partition, which is FAT.
> 
> Stupidly, last night I tried to run CONVERT on it, to make it NTFS, and then
> changed my mind before (I thought) it had done anything.
> 
> Now it won't load. All I can get is the GRUB command screen, and I know
> *nothing* about how to get back my partition from there. Or, if I use the
> WinXP recovery disk, I can get into the woop-de-doop management console
> (i.e. a crippled DOS box) and I *nothing* about how to get back my partition
> from there.
> 
> The C:\boot.ini file is still ok.
> 
> If anyone knows how to tell the MBR or whatever to "go windows" and see
> C:\boot.ini, I would be **massively** grateful.
> 
> Many thanks in advance
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Matthew

Why can't you get your data back under a linux boot disk?

-S.

James Dunne wrote:
> 
> If you'd like to run Linux, but not have to deal with the (apparent?) messiness of dual-booting, you can check out http://colinux.org/.  It's a fabulous tool that allows you to run a slightly modified Linux kernel (pre-compiled disk images available for boot) *alongside* Windows.  It's not virtual PC technology; the two are actually running cooperatively alongside each other.  You get a nice Linux console popping up on your Windows desktop.  You can even share disk partitions between the two systems.  Very cool.

That's awesome.  If it runs faster than VMWare I'm sold.

> I've also heard of another tool called Xen that fits into this category, but I don't know much about it.

I scanned their web page quickly--it seems to be a high-performance virtual machine.  So likely not as integrated as coLinux, but more flexible.


Sean

Sean Kelly wrote:
> James Dunne wrote:
>>
>> If you'd like to run Linux, but not have to deal with the (apparent?) messiness of dual-booting, you can check out http://colinux.org/.  It's a fabulous tool that allows you to run a slightly modified Linux kernel (pre-compiled disk images available for boot) *alongside* Windows.  It's not virtual PC technology; the two are actually running cooperatively alongside each other.  You get a nice Linux console popping up on your Windows desktop.  You can even share disk partitions between the two systems.  Very cool.
> 
> That's awesome.  If it runs faster than VMWare I'm sold.
> 

From my experiences, colinux is fast at the command line stuff.  But don't expect to see it run X windows very well (vmware is much better optimized for that).  X Windows programs have to be run through a local network interface on colinux (using a separate X server service on win32) and, as a result, are really quite boggy.

Furthermore colinux can be a real pain to setup correctly on some machines (check out their wiki sight!).  If you have tons of time and patience on hand, colinux is for you.  Otherwise vmware is the safest bet.

Colinux does serve a nitch, though, and it's quite well performing and fun to use for certain tasks... especially compiling.

-JJR

Matthew wrote:
> Many, many thanks for all the suggestions. I am back and running.
> 
> The fixboot and fixmbr did the trick, it was just that I also needed to make
> the partition list correspond with what was expected in boot.ini. Rest
> assured I am *never* trying any of that again, and will be purchasing Ghost
> and/or PartitionMagic (- any opinions on either/alternatives??) forthwith.
> 
> Thanks again. Very very happy bunny here. You're all getting a credit in my
> book! :-)
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Matthew
> 
> 
> 


One wonderful application I bought is called bootitng, by Terabyte. It's a very highly rated (though little known, perhaps) partition, backup, and boot manager.  I think it's less expensive and more powerful, in some ways, then PartitionMagic/Ghost.  It's backup features might not be quite as comprehensive as Ghost's, but it's other features do well to make up for  any lack.

Have a look here:


> http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/


There's also a more complete disk imaging software there.  The one provided with booitng is good, but does not run from within windows, so some people might prefer to purchase the image application also.

-JJR

Matthew wrote:

> 
> The boot partition is (or was) C:
> 
> The WinXP OS partition is D:
> 
> I've tried "fixboot X:" and "fixmbr X:", with C and D serving as different
> permutations of X, but to no avail. It keeps whittering about not being able
> to find "<Windows root>\system32\hal.dll", which would obviously trouble the
> little dear.
> 
> I'm going to try "fixmbr multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)" and "fixmbr
> multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\Windows", after which I truly have no
> clue. Oh dear, I *really* don't want to reinstall this friggin thing.
> 
> Any other ideas?
> 
> 


Well, I'm glad you figured it out.  I couldn't remember how to correctly access the drive using those commands.  Seems strange you have to reference the correct partition with such a long string.

-JJR