Screwed something up :(

  • Thread starter Thread starter Larry Roberts
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Larry Roberts

I have my system setup with a single 80GB SATA drive. I had it
paratitioned as 1 x 2GB FAT32 C: drive, and 1 x NTFS E: drive. WinXP
Pro booted on drive E:. I decided to format drive C: usng my DOS 7.1
floppy. Big misake. Now WinXP won't bootup. I'm guessing formating C:
destroyed the MBR . I didn't have Windows Restore active... Not sure
if it would have helped anyway.
Using an NTFS DOS bootdisk, I can read , and copy files I need
to drive C:, then format drive E:, and fresh install WinXP. Is there a
way to repair the MBR so WinXP wil reboot again?
 
Larry Roberts said:
I have my system setup with a single 80GB SATA drive. I had it
paratitioned as 1 x 2GB FAT32 C: drive, and 1 x NTFS E: drive. WinXP
Pro booted on drive E:. I decided to format drive C: usng my DOS 7.1
floppy. Big misake. Now WinXP won't bootup. I'm guessing formating C:
destroyed the MBR .
Click to expand...

More likely it had installed the basic boot stuff on
the C drive and that actually booted the E drive.
I didn't have Windows Restore active...
Not sure if it would have helped anyway.
Click to expand...

No it wouldnt.
Using an NTFS DOS bootdisk, I can read , and copy files I
need to drive C:, then format drive E:, and fresh install WinXP.
Click to expand...

No, you dont need to go that route.
Is there a way to repair the MBR so WinXP wil reboot again?
Click to expand...

You should be able to boot the XP CD and do a repair install.
Operate as if you are going to install XP on the E drive, dont
format that partition. The install will claim to have found an existing
XP install and offer to repair it. Accept that offer and that should fix it.

The FIXBOOT operation from the repair console after booting
the XP CD should fix it too, thats a completely different repair
approach, confusingly named too similarly.
 
More likely it had installed the basic boot stuff on
the C drive and that actually booted the E drive.


No it wouldnt.


No, you dont need to go that route.


You should be able to boot the XP CD and do a repair install.
Operate as if you are going to install XP on the E drive, dont
format that partition. The install will claim to have found an existing
XP install and offer to repair it. Accept that offer and that should fix it.

The FIXBOOT operation from the repair console after booting
the XP CD should fix it too, thats a completely different repair
approach, confusingly named too similarly.
Click to expand...

OK. I tried booting from the CD, and doing what you said. It
detects the WinXP installation, but only give s me the option to
either install to different directory, or install over it. I also
tried the FIXBOOT option, but it says the NTLDR is missing when I try
to reboot. Not sure what to do now.
 
OK. I tried booting from the CD, and doing what you said.
It detects the WinXP installation, but only give s me the
option to either install to different directory, or install over it.
Click to expand...

OK, likely its decided its unsafe to try a repair install.

You can certainly start over as you proposed to do.
I also tried the FIXBOOT option, but it says
the NTLDR is missing when I try to reboot.
Click to expand...

Yeah, its too stupid to replace that.
Not sure what to do now.
Click to expand...

You could just copy ntldr there manually.
 
Larry Roberts said:
OK. I tried booting from the CD, and doing what you said. It
detects the WinXP installation, but only give s me the option to
either install to different directory, or install over it. I also
tried the FIXBOOT option, but it says the NTLDR is missing when I try
to reboot. Not sure what to do now.
Click to expand...

Do the same as you did to do the fixboot and do a fixmbr and see if that
works.

Ed
 
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