Restoring the MBR on a CD-ROM less Notebook

Fri May 21 14:41:18 UTC 2010

Well, thank you all for answering!

Here is my current situation:

I "got rid" of the "grub rescue>" prompt with the following steps:

1. Booting the Notebook from a USB Live Ubuntu Lucid.
2. Installing the mbr package.
3. running the following in a console: "install-mbr -i n -p D -t 0 /dev/sda"

now I, when i boot the Notebook, it gets to the regular Win 7 boot loader
thats gives me a error saying that due to a hardware change there is a
problem starting Windows and I should start a repair from a Windows 7
Installation CD.

I got that CD, but no CD drive. I tried to use dd to dump the ISO I've made
from that CD to a USB stick, but it wouldn't boot from it.

I know the CD is bootable. Can someone tell me what's the syntax for dd to
make a USB Stick "look like" a CD to the system? Maybe the bs= parameter?

Is there away to create a bootable USB stick with those tools mentioned at
the end of Tom's last post?

As for the fact I am a Linux guy trying to fix a Windows problem - believe
me I am doing this under protest - it's my sister's Netbook and she insists
I put Windows back after trying Ubuntu Lucid for a week. Not because she
wasn't happy with it - she actually liked it very much, but she says she
wants to give Windows 7 a try too and she is afraid she won't be able to get
help if she has a problem with her computer (I don't live near enough to pop
in if she gets stuck)...

Thanks!

.:====================================================:.

Amichai Rotman

Registered Linux User#: 201192 [http://counter.li.org/]
Registered Ubuntu User #12851 [http://ubuntucounter.geekosophical.net]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
.:====================================================:.

On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 16:21, Tom H <tomh0665 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 3:07 AM, Amichai Rotman <amichai at iglu.org.il>
> wrote:
> > On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 07:22, Tom H <tomh0665 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 3:37 PM, Amichai Rotman <amichai at iglu.org.il>
> >> wrote:
> >> > My sister bought a new Asus UL20A. I managed to convince her to give
> >> > Ubuntu
> >> > a try (it came with Windows 7 pre-installed), So i installed 10.04 on
> >> > it.
> >> > It has a single 320 Gb HDD, I was very careful not to wipe the
> recovery
> >> > partition, but I had to cut the original system partition (disk C:)
> into
> >> > 2
> >> > partitions for Swap. so:
> >> > It had a Disk C: (I think about 80 Gb in size) and the rest as disk D:
> >> > for
> >> > data.
> >> > I chose to manually partition the drive during the installation and
> >> > deleted
> >> > the 80 Gb partition and created a 1024 MB for swap and the rest for /
> >> > (root), the rest - i didn't touch.
> >> > After installation, the last option in the GRUB menu was Windows Vista
> >> > (although it was actually Windows 7). I didn't give it much thought...
> >> > The deal was she tries Ubuntu for a week, then she decides if she
> wants
> >> > to
> >> > keep it or go back to Windows 7. Regrettably - she chose the
> latter.She
> >> > has
> >> > to go abroad for 3 months and she's affraid she will be stuck and no
> one
> >> > will know how to help her. She said she had nothing against Linux
> but...
> >> > I tried to launch the recovery process by pressing F9 during boot -
> but
> >> > nothing happened. I then tried to boot from that mysterious option on
> >> > the
> >> > menu - an what da ya know ! it's the recovery process! So it went
> about
> >> > recovering - just as if I pressed F9 - and then told me the recovery
> was
> >> > done and I should click OK to shut down.
> >> > And here is the part I need help with: The next time I pressed the
> power
> >> > button - it says there is an error and gives me the "grub rescue>"
> >> > prompt...
> >> > Please help me! There is no CD ROM drive, no recovery DVD media
> supplied
> >> > (a
> >> > note that came with the computer says one is not supplied with this
> >> > model).
> >> > How do I boot from USB stick and recover the Windows 7 MBR / Boot
> >> > loader?!
> >> > All I have is my on Ubuntu Lucid on both my Desktop and my Netbook...
> >>
> >> At the grub rescue prompt:
> >>
> >> Run "ls" to display your disks and partitions
> >>
> >> Run "set" and check the values of "root" and "prefix"
> >>
> >> If "root" and "prefix" are incorrect (if you do not know what they
> >> should be, run "ls (hdX,Y)/boot" for the different values of X and Y
> >> since search isn't available in rescue mode), run
> >> set root=(hdX,Y)
> >> set prefix=(hdX,Y)/boot/grub
> >> to set them to the correct values
> >>
> >> Run
> >> insmod normal.mod
> >> or, if necessary,
> >> insmod /boot/grub/normal.mod
> >>
> >> Run
> >> linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.x.x root=/dev/sdXY ro
> >> initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.x.x
> >> boot
> >> (use tab completion)
> >
> > Thank for the great info, except there isn't any Linux on it now. I need
> to
> > re-create Windows 7 boot loader or whatever.
> > I started a live Ubuntu 10.04 stick and I found out the partitin I need
> to
> > boot is /dev/sda2...
>
> You're welcome.
>
> What I forgot to say in my earlier email is that once booted up in
> Ubuntu, you would have had to run "grub-install" and "update-grub" to
> set up grub properly and then check whether you could boot into
> Windows by paging through /boot/grub/grub.cfg to see whether there is
> a Windows entry and then trying to boot from it.
>
> If you just want to fix Win7, you have to boot from a recovery CD and
> run "bootrec /rebuildbcd", "bootrec /fixmbr", "bootrec /fixboot" (in
> ascending order of change to the Win setup).
>
> --
> ubuntu-users mailing list
> ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com
> Modify settings or unsubscribe at:
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-users/attachments/20100521/897e2c60/attachment.html>