Ms-sys failed to fix MBR
 

Ms-sys run from the terminal in usb-Puppy failed to fix my MBR. It reported that it worked but still cannot boot to hd.

This is on a computer on which win xp was previously booting without a problem. I seem to have possibly messed up the mbr

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Found this with Google:

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/d....mspx?mfr=true

Thanks, but thats a windows command. Im trying to fix the MBR from inside Linux.

My ultimate goal is just to get puppy wary or lucid installed on an eee pc hard disk, or on a bootable flash drive that can boot same. But I think that's a separate thread.


Cheers!

If you want better help, you should post the command you ran and it's output.

Just from your first post
there is no indication if you even ran the ms-sys command properly.

Plenty of examples here.

ms-sys -m /dev/sda is what i tried.

my computer just sits at a blinking cursor on boot.

this is since attempting to install grub. here's how i did that:

-with gparted, moved the window partition 20 MB over, to make room at the head of the disk
-created a partition at the head of the disk for grub. however, did not make it a boot partition as i did not know what i was doing (and pretty much still don't :(
-ran grub in automatic mode. did NOT install to mbr.

sorry if i'm leaving out important details, as i'm a noob and don't even know what the important details are :(

Is Puppy the only operating system?
Do you have the Live CD for Puppy or any Linux distribution?
What happens when you try to boot?
Post the output of fdisk -l (lower case Letter L) with your partition information.

In this entire thread, you have never stated what version of windows you are trying to restore the mbr for.
Also, It sounds like installing GRUB was what messed things up so that you could not boot to windows.
First,do you get any sort of menu when you boot from the hard drive that you can select Puppy from?
Can you boot from a CDROM drive to Puppy?
If you can, go to /boot/grub and look for a backup of your mbr there.
There may also be instructions on how to restore the MBR using a backup file of the MBR that should be located there.

Also, from what I have found, if you made restore CDs for your PC from a utility in Windows to do that, you can use them without fear of loosing data.
But also, if you can boot Puppy, you can mount the Windows partition and copy the files you want to save to a connected mounted USB device like a flash drive.

Without further information, that is about as much advise as I can give you.

In my first post, I say win xp.

Wow, that is a great tech tip!

Are you an 8-bit video game, or an 8-bit drunk robot:
http://toomuchhappiness.com/scream-a...ck-with-robots

You should respond to replies, even ones you deem not helpful, in a respectful way. Also note insults and attack are not tolerated. You're close to the edge so be careful OK?

1. I did find that post helpful. I marked it as helpful. I said "Wow, that is a great tech tip!". How do you get that i I did not find the post helpful?

2. Why am I "close to the edge"?

3. My reply was not intended as a personal attack in any way.

I think johnywhy assumed that the lines in the link he supplied might refer to me.
Not only do they not apply, but I have to agree that the link made an otherwise good reply look very bad.

And, to johnywhy, "What was taken objection to was the link you included in your post seemed to be poking fun at or degrading me.

By the way, was a backup of the MBR and short instructions found in /boot/grub?

I have never had any problems installing grub on a Windows XP machine.

Also, I am sorry about my unknown windows version statement.
That is what I get for reading a post when I am half asleep after being up all night with a programming example of "fileselect" that did not work the way I thought it should.
But I will not go into details here as that is a subject for another area of the forum.

i assure you, there was no intent to poke fun at or insult. the poster's username is "8 bit".

In my world, "8 bit" is an affectionate reference to the 8-bit game consoles of yesteryear. It's a whole subculture in nyc, sf, and la, all about lo-res games, art, music, and humor. 8 bit bands make music on old nintendos, 8-bit game consoles, 8-bit computer software, and modified old toys that contain 8-bit audio chips. http://www.8bit.com/8bit_trip.html i produced a fundraising concert with an electronic band called 8 Bit, who wear giant robot costumes and jump around to 8-bit hip-hop. They played for free to keep our pirate radio project on the air. They call themselves "the drunk robots", and they are absolutely hysterical. Imagine a 5-foot girl wearing a 7 foot robot costume, doing rap songs about the mario brothers :D. So anytime I mention 8-Bit, it's with love in my heart. No offense.

Thanks for asking. Somehow I got Puppy installed. Since I have access to my win partition through puppy, i no longer have an urgent need to restore Windows. So, not going to try the mbr recover for now.

No worries, i've fallen asleep with my face in code before.

cheers!

All good then.

Here's s thread with a possible solution: Grub Dual boot corruption

Thanks. But this is not an issue for me now. Hopefully your link will help someone else.