hi guys,
need ya help.....

i'm dual booting window xp sp2 and fedora core 4...
but i deleted the linux partition and after i restart, was not able to start window xp...
i know something is wrong the the grub but not sure how to fix it....

so i used the window xp disc to enter the recovery console..used the commands, fixboot C: and fixmbr...
after finishing both, still unable to start XP...

can anybody tell me the correct way to do it??

thx

still unable to start XP...
what is exactly happening then? Any errors?

I can props help u ,i've had this problem b4 but I need to know the layout of your partition table and if u know where the bootloader was located (if u can) i.e. on the MBR or the first section of the boot partition

if you ran fixmbr and windows doesnt start you may have accidentally killed windows. post any error messages you have, or better yet, get a live cd and check all your partitions.

i would recommend using BackTrack since it works well with NTFS partitions. It will also automount them for you and you can easily check to see if stuff is still there. Would also be a good place to rewrite parts of your MBR if you have to.

that time i was still unable to start window...cant really remember the error msg...but when i type fixmbr, i noticed this msg

"Writing a new master boot record to your system partition could damage your partition tables and cause your partitions to become inaccessible",

mostly probably the partitions become inaccessible, thats y unable to load window xp...

its on the MBR

kill window?? what do you mean ???

only ran the command fixboot and fixmbr..and nothing else...

Ha1f means that you might have removed something that's essential for windows (e.g. you deleted the windows partition as well or Windows is on a non-bootable partition).

Use a live CD (e.g. knoppix) and run fdisk.
It will show which partitions you still have and which one is bootable. If the windows one is not bootable, make it bootable using fdisk.
Try the fixmbr story again after that.

If it still fails. you can mount the partitions and check (and fix) what's wrong.

If everything else fails, mount the partitions and backup important data. Next re-install windows.

before typing the command "fixmbr", did see some msg saying running such command may make the partition non bootable....so to say the culprit is the fixmbr??
Why is it that others are able to fix the problem while some unable to do so??
random error???

Not necessary; you already could not access windows before running fixmbr.
Depends on what is wrong. If you accidently removed the windows partition instead of the linux partition, fixmbr will not help.

hi Wim
thx for the prompt reply,
with regards to what u said, i was still using windows before rebooting the pc...i cant possibly deleted windows beforehand..

Now you've lost me. OK, how did you delete the Linux partition? From within Windows? Probably and I should have realised.
In that case it's indeed not very likely that you've deleted the Windows partition as windows does not allow you to delete the partition which contains it.

Still think that a live-CD will be able to help you out.

so what do i do when i boot up using a live CD???

You can start by posting the output of the following commands in a terminal:
fdisk -l (fdisk -EL, not fdisk -one)
cat /etc/mtab

The first one will show you the partitioning of all harddisks, the second one will show what is mounted
Yours will definitely look different. The last column shows the file system. For windows partitions, you will see HPFS/NTFS and/or something like W95 FAT32.
If there are no windows partitions, I think you have to re-install windows, else continue.
If your windows partitions are shown here, they are already mounted and you can check their content. Suppose that /server was a windows partition, use the command cd /server and check the contents.
If it's not here, you have to manually mount the windows partitions. In that case, please post the output of cat /etc/fstab and we will take it from there.