Thinkpads Forum

I have a dual-boot system (XP Pro & Karmic Koala) on an R61i. I had a fan error which I think has been resolved, but I wanted to run some of the diagnostics in Rescue & Recovery just in case, so I installed that from XP. (I haven't really gotten to using Linux at all - I installed it and then forgot about it for the most part.)

When I restarted as part of the R&R installation, I got the words "GRUB" and a flashing cursor. That's it. When I restart, I get the same thing - so I can't boot into either OS. I can get into the BIOS by pressing the blue ThinkVantage button, though.

What should I do? I also don't have the XP install disc I used when setting up the dual - boot (yeah, bad planning...)

I also asked about this on Ubuntu forums (https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/113497) but I thought someone here might have gone through this already and have a more exact answer. Sadly, I'm still pretty unfamiliar with Linux, so if anyone can explain what to do with good detail that would be really great.

I saw a similar issue somewhere where people suggested following the instructions at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Recov ... ingWindows, but it sounds like he still had to mess with it a bit.

Thanks...

I've been at this GRUB error spot before although I got there by different means. The only easy way out for me was to boot ActiveKillDisk from a CD and write all zeros to the drive, then start from scratch installing the R&R environment using the recovery CD set.

did you try booting with an MS-DOS bootdisk, and
issuing command "fdisk /mbr"?

tom lightbody wrote:did you try booting with an MS-DOS bootdisk, and
issuing command "fdisk /mbr"?

That'll work but I believe that'll get rid of grub and you can't boot into linux anymore.
You can grab a live disk, boot into it, and reinstall grub, so you can get your dual-boot back.
What this will do for R&R, I don't know, getting them to work together might be hard to figure out.

There are numerous boot CDs you can get for free that will allow you to "fix" the MBR. At least then you will have XP back. You can also get a Linux Live CD and reinstall GRUB, as indicated.

I've used this one on several machines:
http://www.ubcd4win.com/index.htm

This recovery disk is well rated, I plan to try it next:
http://www.tux.org/pub/people/kent-robo ... linux/rip/

R&R probably wrote over some parts of the bootsector where GRUB stores some data needed to boot into GRUB.

What you need to do now is restore that. No need to reinstall everythink.
One way to do that: http://www.sorgonet.com/linux/grubrestore/

Tim from OSGUI usually always has good Tutorials.

http://www.osgui.com/video/viewvideo/18 ... orial.html

I believe this video is what control was talking about.