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I was dual booting windows XP and Debian and decided I wanted to try another distro. Without really thinking, I deleted my linux partitions and created new ones for the ...
  1. 05-23-2006 #1
    jonantice
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    How do I boot if I deleted GRUB?

    I was dual booting windows XP and Debian and decided I wanted to try another distro. Without really thinking, I deleted my linux partitions and created new ones for the next distro. I can't get around to installing the next distro for a while so now GRUB is gone so I can't boot into windows. My family will kill me. How do I fix the MBR so that it goes straight to the Windows bootloader? I don't have the WinXP CD, all I have are Linux LiveCDs.
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  2. 05-23-2006 #2
    oz
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    If you don't have the WinXP CD, you can use a Windows emergency boot disk. Just boot with it and type:

    fdisk /mbr
    oz

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  3. 05-23-2006 #3
    jledhead
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    try something similar to this http://www.sorgonet.com/linux/grubrestore/
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  4. 05-23-2006 #4
    oz
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    Oh, and if you don't have a Windows boot disk, you can use a Knoppix Live-CD to do the same thing. Just boot the live-cd, go to a terminal and type:

    Code:
    sudo install-mbr /dev/hda
    Be sure to replace /dev/hda with your own drive device.
    oz

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  5. 05-23-2006 #5
    jonantice
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    Thanks for the quick reply guys. I was awoken last night by my pissed off mother who needed to read an email in outlook express. So I used my bro's laptop to see if anyone had replied, found a Win98 boot disk of my dad's that was laying around his laptop booted into MS-DOS ran FDISK /MBR, and listo, my mom was able to find out the flight number of the people she needed to pick up at the airport (that's why she was so pissed)
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