Thinkpads Forum

I installed winXP and Linux dual system on my T60, but I deleted the linux system yesterday. Now the grub is destroyed and the XP system can not boot. I've done this before on my desktop and I fixed it by using 'fdisk/MBR'.

However, this time it doesn't work. It shows 'no fixed disk present' on the screen. I thought this is because it has a SATA hard drive, so I changed the model of SATA to 'compatible' in BIOS, but still it couldn't recognize the hard drive.

I also tried disabling the 'Predesktop Aera' , but it didn't work, too. Anyone knows how to fix this? I have something important in the laptop and I really want to restore the system. Any suggestion will be appreciated.
Thanks

GX

I hope you made a recovery set before installing linux. You may need it now.

Yes, I did that, but I hope I can fix this by some other way. That is the last thing I want to use.

You dont have to reinstall. There is a way to rectify this:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314058

Read the section for 'fixmbr' command. I have used it and it has saved me more than once. (any windows XP CD will do)

I recently went through the hassle of removing Ubuntu 7.04 from my primary hard drive. I read up a lot on fixmbr and fdisk, but unfortunately my T60p shipped only with a Vista upgrade CD which contained neither command. I was dual-booting Vista and Ubuntu so my solution may differ slightly, but I believe it can work for you too.

Because I knew that GRUB had overwritten the master boot record (MBR), I wanted to remove GRUB completely before deleting my Ubuntu partition(s). Also, I did not have access to FDISK or FIXMBR.

What I did was:

1) download MBRFix from here.
2) Unzip the file to C:\mbrfix
3) rebooted to my Vista CD (You can use your XP CD instead).
4) Select 'R' for repair, then get to a command prompt. (don't reinstall windows, just get to a command prompt)
5) cd to C:\mbrfix
6) I typed C:\> MbrFix /drive 0 fixmbr /vista /yes but for you, you might have to type C:\> MbrFix /drive 0 fixmbr /yes without the /vista tag.
7) After that, GRUB was removed and I was back to booting into Vista.

Good luck.

sounds like your partition table could be damaged

use dd to zero out the 1st 512bytes of your harddrive (this includes mbr and partition table) and re-build the partition table with gparted or something

Thanks, everyone. I finally made it.

I don’t know why I can’t use ‘MbrFix’ under the Repair system. (Probably I made a mistake somewhere.) Fortunately the ‘fixmbr’ command worked well and I fixed the MBR. Then I found the partition table was destroyed. I used another software to repair the partition table and now I’m using my T60 type this reply. It feels so good! Thanks again!

Wow. I recently went through a lot of the same drama, and went into a realm I knew nothing about.

I, too, tried the new flavor of Ubuntu (for the first time) and while it was interesting, I didn't really like it. Removing it also killed the MBR (had no idea what it was prior to this experience) and ended up deleting the entire hard drive (0's for everything) and then creating the correct MBR, and then restoring with an Acronis Image I had.

Most of the tough stuff was done using UltimateBootCD which turned out to be quite helpful (google for more info).

While I respect Linux and all that, that experience was...well, ugly.

It's quite harrowing isn't it? I experienced that a few times with my brief flirts with Fedora Core. It really is a pain having to go into recovery mode. Can you do it with the recovery discs, in the end I used another copy of windows to do it.

sounds like the utility you use to erase the mbr zeros out further than just 446bytes from the beginning of the drive, resulting partition table damage.

If you want to erase your mbr in Linux, you just zero out the first 446bytes with dd, then the partition table will be left untouched.

If you are just trying Linux out it might be advisable to just run it as a live cd and setup a persistent home directory. That way it saves all your settings and customizations. If you decide you don't like that distro of Linux just delete the home directory file and you are finished.
Either that or run it in a virtual machine such as VMWare.