I have ubuntu on my second hard drive and I wanted to replace it with gentoo, who's ISO I have on my windows hard drive. I cleared the mbr through linux (oregonstate. edu/~creliar/sysadmin/fixmbr.html) which was supposed to be just like fdisk /mbr, which worked fine before, but instead now I can't get into ubuntu OR windows! All I can get into is PHLAK (live cd linux) and UBCD (ultimate boot cd). HELP!!!!!!

I would normally suggest booting a Linux CD and reinstalling grub as a bootload via the "grub-install /dev/hda" command. But I'm new to this sort of thing and it's not a permanent solution, as it will give you a basic grub console to work with (you want a menu). So, here's a page that takes it from there:
Oh crap, I just typed 'grub-install /dev/hda1'!

Hopefully someone else can give you better advice, though.

-- the dudeman

....maybe I shouldn't answer questions to which I don't have the answer....always learning....

I was thinking maybe to do that, but I couldn't add XP to it anyway. Plus, PHLAK is horrible (learned that the hard way).

adding XP is a piece of pie...plus three lines of code...

The "makeactive" might no be required.

-- the dudeman

You can't use the CD you used to install ubuntu, in some recovery mode?


I haven't used this stuff, and I don't know if it's free, but it claims to work with ext2fs also

http://www.bykeyword.com/downloads/s...load-6938.html

You see, the problem is I'm trying to get into WINDOWS. And I have tried rootnoverify, it didn't work :-( It reports an error. I'm gonna look for my windows disc. The reason I'm trying to get into windows is that I already have downloaded the gentoo ISO in windows, but I was told to try ubuntu because it was simpler, but ubuntu wasn't much better than PHLAK (You can't get into root, NOTHING is gui, and EVERYTHING has to be sudoed, and not much is included). Any idea of what to do if I can't find my old windows xp rescue disc? Anything I can do with UBCD?

You should be able to boot any live evaluation CD and have access to the windows files, even if they are in a partition separate from linux. I know that on knoppix, you could see all the partitions, then just either right of left mouse click the partition you want to make readable and check a box to make it so. I assume that means you can also move such files wherever you'd like.

as i said:
ubuntu = BAD

I guess I really don't understand.....if you want the gentoo iso burned from your Windows partition, use a live-evaluation CD to turn burn the iso directly onto a CD (I know this would probably require a second CD drive).

All I can access is PHLAK and UBCD, and neither have the necessary tools.

okay, if you had a second CD-R drive, boot with PHLAK, download knoppix to either your broken ubuntu or Windows partitions, then burn the knoppix iso to CD, then boot from knoppix to burn your gentoo CD. If you had a second computer, perhaps you could also exchange files this way.

might be simpler to find the windows cd :-/ thanks anyway. isn't knoppix an distro anyway?

It's a live evaluation CD which does have the tools to access windows partitions and burn to CD

is there any way to just restore the windows mbr?

you need a 98 boot floppy. Then boot with cd-support. when up and going type, fdisk/mbr. That should fix windows. Using fdisc /mbr from linux sometimes messes things up. Also try it with no space, fdisk/mbr.