***NOTE: if their is a forum dedicated to installation, plese move it there***

I had Ubuntu Linux on a dual boot partition with WINXP, and decided to install Mandriva Linux (newest version) in Ubuntu's place. I fired up the Mandriva DVD, did the steps, and got to partitioning. There I selected "partition manualy" and deleted the ubuntu partion, making a new ext3 partion for mandriva in its place. I clicked OK, and after being prompted with a message box saying "This Will Write to Partition Table. Continue?" so I selected "yes". Then after hearing a bit of processing noise, i got a list of errors, saying "kernel missing." Clicking ok brought me back to the partitioning menu...

Doing this over a few times got me *really* mad. I took out the dvd and rebooted. Now all i get everytime i turn on my box is a "GRUB ERROR 22" I believe my MBR is messed up...

HELP!!!

thx in advance

How we may be of service to you?

You have an aborted installation from Mandriva. That means it doesn't work. The Disk may be faulty for all we know or your hardware may have conflict with Mandriva. There is nothing we can do unless you have done a MD5 sum check on the iso image.

Your previous Ubuntu has been trashed by overwritting on it so it can't work either. Neither can we put back a system partially cut away.

What kind of help do you need from us?

Boot up a DOS floppy and type fdisk /mbr can get your XP back on line if that is what you after.

Unfortunatly, I don't have a floppy drive. Would doing an installation of Ubuntu again fix GRUB???
I don't want to try to fix mandriva, so i guess i will try. I can't use my WINXP CD because i have no idea what the administrator password is, even though the box is mine...

i could use a gentoo live cd to use fdisk, but that might not have good effects.


Microsoft writes:
SUMMARY
The MS-DOS Fdisk utility usually updates the master boot record (MBR) only if no master boot record exists. Repartitioning with Fdisk does not rewrite this information.

Fdisk has an undocumented parameter called /mbr that causes it to write the master boot record to the hard disk without altering the partition table information.

Warning Writing the master boot record to the hard disk in this manner can make certain hard disks partitioned with SpeedStor unusable. It can also cause problems for some dual-boot programs and disks with more than four partitions.

Note that there is a prob with dual boot systems... Is this applicable here?

PS I want to recover windows and dont really care for now if i need to install a distro

I always use a DOS floppy's fdisk /mbr to fix a XP's MBR.

I also have, just for satisfying my self, used a XP's installation CD's fixmbr to fix a DOS 6.22 MBR.

As far as I am concerned the two are the same.

You can get got of a Win2k or any XP installation CD, drop into the recovery console and type

fixmbr

The password requested by XP installation CD protects the files only and should not affect the use of fixmbr.

The mbr is not a part of the filing system. It is stored in sector 0 of every partition permanently reserved for the boot loader. MBR is the first 512 bytes of it. It is important because the BIOS reads it.

C'mon saikee you know better than that !!!!!
Every partition ??? - nah. Every disk I'd accept - partitions have boot sector records, not MBRs.

Just rattling your chain - don't take it too seriously ...

syg00,

Yes you are right. The MBR is only the relevant for the first primary partition. So the red addition should make it technically more precise.

.

Strangely as it may sound as I always store every boot loader in its root partition and so replicating any one into the MBR is effectively placing its first 512 bytes there.

That is how I rotate my boot loader in the MBR.

Any system that has either Grub, Lilo or NTldr (from XP or Win2k) can take over the MBR to manage the booting.

tinybit, the author of Grub4DOS, has recently alerted me of his software with which I can launch Grub inside any DOS partition. That effectively makes every one of my 50+ systems capable of multi-booting the rest, by hooping from one boot loader to another. This can all be done without the use of the MBR because Grub can be booted from a floppy or a CD.

great thanks for the tips!

now ill be able to use my webcam to talk wit family over thanksgiving.

Thank You!

*I understand that fixmbr is not risky*

UPDATE: After reinstalling ubuntu, both os's now work