Help: Computer Gurus requested

[mxyzptlk]

About two weeks ago, my computer just up and died. We couldn't tell the reason at that point, fiddling with connections, replacing the cmos battery, but nothing worked. The computer just wouldn't boot. It was stuck at the processor loading screen, where it showed the P4 logo and the "Hit del to enter bios prompt" (That didn't work, of course, because it would have made it too easy.)

I decided to test out the hard drives to see if one of those was the problem. Sure enough, one of my hard drives was burnt out somehow, in a way that caused the computer not to boot properly. I dual boot Win XP and Ubuntu (Hardy, not Intrepid). After unplugging the hard drive, I got a response, although it wasn't the one I wanted.

The hard drive that had died was my Ubuntu drive. After looking to see if I had anything bootable, grub shouted at me "Hey, something's wrong, I can't contact my other half!" Windows is my main drive, so I needed to change the MBR to add grub capability, The only problem is, now, I cant get past grub into my windows. I have yet to find  a solution to my problem elsewhere online, and I was hoping the gurus here could help.
I am currently running from a flash drive Live Session.

[jrgp]

I suggest you download an Ubuntu CD, boot to it, and install it wiping your entire hard drive. Doing that should update your hard drive's boot sector as well as the operating system's partitions. Since you're running off a flash drive fine, it shouldn't really be your motherboard's fault. If your hard drive(s) really are dead, just get a new one from newegg. They're dirt cheap these days.

[mxyzptlk]

I was really hoping to avoid wiping the drive because 1) 90% of the games I own don't work on wine (yet), 2) I really prefer  XP to linux at the moment, and 3) I have a lot of irreplaceable files, games, and music on that drive.

Edit: If I didn't make it clear, the windows drive appears to be completely intact. The only problem is grub blocking my passage.

[iDante]

Try using the partition manager to delete your ubuntu partition entirely. Also, on those CD's, isn't there a "boot from" program that you can use? Or something along those lines...

[mxyzptlk]

My ubuntu WAS deleted entirely, but not by my choice. It was on a separate drive, not a partition. Now I don't know of any way to cure the after-effects left behind.

[jettlarue]

I would run ubuntu and transfer all your irreplacable files to dvd, cd, or an online safehouse and do a full reinstall of ubuntu.

[iDante]

Can you physically remove that other drive from the computer? Or does it not work that way...? (I really have no idea)
Have you tried making a windows boot CD and re-installing windows over the current thing (without formatting, dunno if that's possible)?

[jrgp]

I was really hoping to avoid wiping the drive because 1) 90% of the games I own don't work on wine (yet), 2) I really prefer  XP to linux at the moment, and 3) I have a lot of irreplaceable files, games, and music on that drive.

Edit: If I didn't make it clear, the windows drive appears to be completely intact. The only problem is grub blocking my passage.

Ohh, I gotcha. All you need to do is change grub's settings so it correctly points to your Windows XP partition. gimme a sec to find a tutorial.....

edit: since your ubuntu part is completely gone, just reinstall the windows xp bootloader like this says: http://www.techsupersite.com/repair_xp_boot_loader.html You'll need your XP cd, though.

[mxyzptlk]

One small problem with that, I saw something else that required the CD, so I checked it out, and it looks like the XP cd and my hardware don't like each other any more. After the CD loads all the driver files, it says that there was a hardware error. Perhaps It wants there to be two drives when there isn't.

[mxyzptlk]

Sorry to double post, but I really need help with this.

[a-4-year-old]

I was really hoping to avoid wiping the drive because 1) 90% of the games I own don't work on wine (yet), 2) I really prefer  XP to linux at the moment, and 3) I have a lot of irreplaceable files, games, and music on that drive.

Edit: If I didn't make it clear, the windows drive appears to be completely intact. The only problem is grub blocking my passage.

use fdisk to get rid of grub

it won't do anything to your files, it just replaces grub with good old windows boot order. When you want to get ubuntu again just install it like you did the first time.

[mxyzptlk]

I was really hoping to avoid wiping the drive because 1) 90% of the games I own don't work on wine (yet), 2) I really prefer  XP to linux at the moment, and 3) I have a lot of irreplaceable files, games, and music on that drive.

Edit: If I didn't make it clear, the windows drive appears to be completely intact. The only problem is grub blocking my passage.

use fdisk to get rid of grub

it won't do anything to your files, it just replaces grub with good old windows boot order. When you want to get ubuntu again just install it like you did the first time.

That sounds helpful, but I'm somewhat lost. I'm assuming fdisk is some kind of dos prompt program. I ca't get on my windows right now. How could I use it?

[Blue-ninja]

Just venting out something I learned today.

The master boot record carries information on how to boot the entire system, and if it has a OS on it, it will boot from there. Additionally, two copies have been made of the MBR on a floppy disk, and is the first two files on the floppy disk. Contains information the BIOS needs to read the disk as well.

I understand that some computers go without a floppy drive or even a floppy disk controller (like eMachines, which I happen to be on), so a CD DOS boot might have been the way to go if you could access the CMOS settings to boot from CD.

Btw, DOS boot and MBR are the same thing.

[a-4-year-old]

its easier if your CD actually worked.

http://freepctech.com/pc/002/files010.shtml

use one of the CDs that has fdisk.exe, run it.

[FliesLikeABrick]

Almost all of you guys are completely wrong.

Some background on how GRUB works:
GRUB has multiple stages
1) the BIOS boots the binary blob at the beginning of the drive, known as the MBR
2) GRUB is now loaded and is not yet at the point where it shows the menu.  The menu is read from /boot/grub/menu.lst on Ubuntu systems, and something similar on other distros for which this is not the case.  The menu is read from this file every time the computer boots.  GRUB can only read this information from certain file systems, including ext2, ext3 and ReiserFS (and others, but not NTFS or FAT32)
3) The user selects a boot option from the menu, or the default is used
4) GRUB loads the kernel image specified in the menu config into RAM and begins execution of it

The problem here is that your ubuntu drive is gone, so GRUB complains after step 1, when it tries to read the menu config file for step 2


You need to reinstall the Windows MBR into the boot sector of the drive.  To do this, boot an XP install CD, go into the recovery console (this is an option by hitting R at some point early in the installer)

Type:
fixmbr (this rewrites the MBR)
fixboot (this rebuilds boot.ini, the NT boot loader's equivalent to menu.lst.  This may not be necessary, but it can't hurt)

and confirm anything it asks you.  Then type 'exit' and let the computer restart.  You will now be able to boot into XP as the fixmbr utility has rewritten the MBR with the Windows NT boot loader, overwriting GRUB's binary that was there.

Btw, DOS boot and MBR are the same thing.

Among other things in this thread, that is very incorrect.

a-4-year-old was the closest to correct, except he needed more information about how to use fdisk to fix this.  you need to use "fdisk /fixmbr" I believe.  If you google about "using fdisk to fix the MBR" you will find information on the proper use of fdisk.exe to restore the Windows boot loader.  This does essentially the same thing as my procedure, but the version of fdisk on the disk you find may or may not be able to rewrite the proper boot loader.  The XP install CD definitely can.

--
mxyzptlk, can you please be more specific about the error the XP CD gives about your hardware?  Does it say that it cannot find a hard drive in your computer, or something else?  Please be very specific, citing the entire error message verbatim if possible.


edit: the edit to jrgp's post above was also mostly correct, though the XP CD should be used

[Blue-ninja]

Btw, DOS boot and MBR are the same thing.

Among other things in this thread, that is very incorrect.

It's the same on a floppy, but different on a hard drive.

[mxyzptlk]

Alright, my dad remembered that he got a Super Grub disk a while back and tried to fix it with that.
It worked surprisingly well.

This seems to be a good alternative if you are in a sticky situation with grub like I was.

Although all the questions weren't answered, I'm able to be on windows, my MBR was fixed, and I'm pretty sure this can be filed as FIXED.

Thanks to everyone who helped, FLAB especially.