Unable To Boot

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Hello forums, it is I, the frequent learner and destructor of all technologies.

I recently decided that I don’t want Opensuse on my HP Mini laptop, so like an idiot, I just booted Windows XP & deleted every other partition I had aside from Windows.

I knew I had to do something else but obviously didn’t and that’s why I’m here.

I turn on my laptop and get that good old message saying “Reboot and select proper boot device or Insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key.”

So… Some say recovery console, some say F with the BIOS, and some say mess with your HDD chords. Well unfortunately, I know it’s not the last option. I do believe I’m going to have to boot some sort of something via USB because HP Mini doesn’t have a disc drive.

Any help would be great & Thank You!

2

I’m suspecting a Fix MBR, I just need a few steps & if possible, steps that revolve around using USB to do so as I cannot access any form of recovery with the laptop alone.

Thanks again.

3

assuming that you have the xp cd:

here is how to: boot with xp cd, you will be asked to install windows, take the rescue program option, after prompting for the adminstrator password (if you have one) if you don’t leave the field blank and press enter, windows will ask your keyboard and which partition to work on, then you will be at the DOS prompt, at that point you type the following:
bootcfg / rebuild
and after issue the following 2 commands in sequence : fixboot fixmbr.
these will rewrite the boot sector making linux no longer accessible.

now you can go back to xp, but… please give linux another try in a near future…

cheers!

4

You can use a supergrubdisk image on a USB stick to fix an XP bootloader… Probably the easiest way. I think it’s fairly self explanatory - and I think you can install it with unetbootin, though don’t quote me on that…

5

Alrighty, yea I just read up on another forum that seems fairly safe. Thanks for the input boys, I’ll report back with the results for the sake of knowledge.

Thanks again.

6

Ok, I haven’t got my computer to boot normally but here’s the update so far…

Creating a USB bootable XP recovery console | Tuts4Tech

I followed directions in that link, and I successfully created a Recovery Console boot via USB.

Now I’m just going to type everything I see.

Microsoft Windows XP™ Recovery Console.

The Recovery Console provides system repair and recovery functionality.

Type EXIT to quit the Recovery Console and restart the computer.

1: C:\WINDOWS

Which Windows installation would you like to long onto (To cancel, press ENTER)?

*Then I type 1 and log in.

C:\WINDOWS > *Type FIXBOOT & hit Enter.

The target partition is D:.
Are you sure you want to write a new bootsector to the partition D: ? *Answer Y (Yes)

FIXBOOT is writing a new boot sector.

The new bootsector was successfully written.

C:\WINDOWS > *Type FIXMBR & hit Enter.

** CAUTION **

This computer appears to have non-standard or invalid master boot record.

FIXMBR may damage your partition tables if you proceed.

This could cause all the partitions on the current hard disk to become inaccessible.

If you are not having problems accessing your drive, do not continue.

Are you sure you want to write a new MBR? Y (YES)

Writing new master boot record on physical drive \Device\Harddisk1\Partition0.

The new master boot record has been successfully written.

C:\WINDOWS >

Alrighty, then I reboot and I get the same message. I’m thinking I shouldn’t have said Yes but I thought that caution was normal so that could have been a huge mistake?

Is there anything else I can do to help you help me? Any commands I can enter to display info necessary?

Please help, hope I didn’t F it up haha!

Thanks again!

7

Also, I typed diskpart and checked which partitions I had.

I had been FIXBOOT on drive D which was my recovery console, so I typed FIXBOOT C and it did it’s thing for my NTFS drive. Then I did FIXMBR again, and uh… I still get the same message when I restart…

I’m have some doubts boys…some big doubts haha!

EDIT: I just tried the BOOTCFG /REBUILD and everything went find except I didn’t have a clue what to type when it asked:

Enter Load Identifier: *I type the Number 1 for C Drive if that’s what I was supposed to do.

Enter OS Load Options: I just hit enter but I’m going back and typing 1.

P.S. Not very experienced & tend to click before I think… OH WELL!

8

Just a guess; try setting the boot flag to the right partition - you can probably do this with your recovery stick. If not a linux Live CD (which you can put on your stick with unetbootin) will do it using ‘fdisk’…

9

Yea I’m trying to figure out how to do that with Recovery Console… Surfing GOOGLE.:open_mouth:

10

Argh this sucks the big one… Basically I’m most likely going to end up creating a LiveDisk of Ubuntu and using Fdisk or whatever because apparently Microsoft can’t include simple necessities to their Recovery Console. Come on people! Multi-billion dollar company!!! vs Free Open Source Bliss!

I’ve about had it with their money-makn schemes! lol

Well, I’m going to have to put this on pause for the moment. Please post any necessary information, I’ll be back on in a few hours for I got some BIZNAZ!

Thanks again folks!

11

My guess is that D is the hp recovery partition. When you boot your machine as soon as the hp logo comes out does it show you any option? I have not done it myself so maybe best bet is to see the hp site to find out an easy hp way of recovering your xp boot problem.

12

Genkakuzai wrote:
> I recently decided that I don’t want Opensuse on my HP Mini laptop, so

so, go to a forum of folks that are using whatever it is that you
wanna use instead of openSUSE, and ask them what to do…

isn’t that obviously the best course of action for you?

i mean, don’t ask me how to get MS to run, i’ve used Redmond software
since '94…and, hear that even experts have great difficulty making
it run more than a few hours…

or, would you go to a Mac forum and ask them how to run Ubuntu?

–
palladium

13

Well I find these forums a lot more reliable. People are obviously more active on here and have experience with multiple problems, which most users experience when attempting to use separate operating systems.

Plus, I figure others might have done the same thing as a result of removing their Opensuse distros and the more knowledge/help available right here on the forums the better right?

Anyways, I’m going to create a live USB disk & use the application on there and I will post back with results.

I’m doing this to set the active partition or boot flag I believe, will be back in a few.

Thanks again for the input!

14

I would suggest install again opensuse. Make a small installation (4 GB). Get both OSs booting and working.

Then make Windows the default to boot.

You will benefit from having a functional opensuse on the computer. Here are three easy examples.

You can surf web with less worry to get infected. You can examine virus-damaged files of Windows if it does not work. You can easily start Apache web server and make you files available to remote computers.

15

Don’t worry I haven’t given up on Opensuse at all, as a matter of fact this is only the beginning. I’ve messed around with Ubuntu at first, but then I explored other alternatives and I like Suse the best & plan to get to know it inside and out.

Anyways, back on topic, I created a live Ubuntu disk and used Gparted. Then I right clicked my NTFS partition (Windows XP) and selected Manage Flags or something like that. Then it brought up checkable boxes, one was labled BOOT, thus I clicked it. Applied changes, closed and viola!

Except, due to my previous inputs of the two number 1’s after running FIXBOOT/FIXMBR, I have a choice between two number ones and Windows XP at startup lol, will fix this on my own.

Hope this helps someone in the future, thanks for the guidance boys!

16

It still beggars belief that the XP installation medium cannot set the bootable flag.

I’ve seen posts on other forums basically saying that if you’ve installed Linux on a hard drive, you may as well throw it away, because you can’t reinstall Windows and make it work - you’ve ‘ruined’ the drive.

Is this a coincidence? I know the fits of paranoia and tin-hat wearing indulged in by some in the open source community are irrational and unseemly; but seriously, why would you not make your installation / recovery system capable of setting a simple flag that your system requires to boot, unless to make using other systems seem more difficult or ‘dangerous’?

:expressionless: