HELP! MBR defunct, cannot boot anymore D:

[HoBu]

You were dual booting xp and Suse using the Grub bootloader. Your father deletes the Suse partition thereby removing the vast majority of bootloader files from your system. Based on your posts, you have not been able to modify anything so you still have the Grub stage1 file in the mbr pointing to an empty partition.

Yes, that's right.

No. MBR is not on any partition, it's before your partitions start. How did you defragment this partition (what tool) which had already been deleted?

I used the Defragment Tool which already comes along with Win XP, so nothing fancy here. What I can remember was I had one partition with Linux on it, my father deleted it and gave it a new HDD letter (e.g. H. Now, when I defragmented it, all new files were copied in the latter part of the partition; after the defragmentation they were moved to the front.

Don't understand the connection here?

Windows boot disks or install disks often have trouble booting when non-windows code is in the mbr but the Knoppix and UBD should have worked.

Have you tried these disks on another computer to see if they are good. and to see if your CD drive may be bad? I think you will have better luck with the SuperGrubDisk than with windows boot/isntall disks.

Do you get the Operating System not Found with the windows disk or ???

I did get the Operating System not found message with all of the disks, even Knoppix (newest version) which should have worked. CD drive is new and working but somehow doesn't connect or else. I think I've read in another forum about Amilo Pro and CD drive typical problems regarding to this.

[yancek]

Is your hard drive recognized in BIOS?
Check cables to hard drive.

[HoBu]

Is your hard drive recognized in BIOS?
Check cables to hard drive.

I just checked again in BIOS, hard drive is recognized (IDE Primary Master Drive, 60012MB). HDD is embedded in laptop, seems to be fine.

[yancek]

When you put the Knoppix CD in the drive does it load? Do you see the Knoppix welcome screen? Do you get the operating system not found while trying to load Knoppix?

[HoBu]

When you put the Knoppix CD in the drive does it load? Do you see the Knoppix welcome screen? Do you get the operating system not found while trying to load Knoppix?

I can hear the CD drive loading the CD, but aside from the usual blank screen with "Operating system not found" on it which comes a short while after, nothing. Not even the Knoppix welcome screen

Maybe I should take the HDD out and plug it in to another HDD as a slave? Maybe that could be the solution?

[devils casper]

We have to check partition structure of your hard disk.

Do you have LiveCD of any Linux distro? Boot up from LiveCD and execute fdisk -l command in Terminal. Post output here. fdisk -l command will list partition structure only.

Maybe I should take the HDD out and plug it in to another HDD as a slave? Maybe that could be the solution?

That a good idea. Check if all partitions are intact and accessible. Post partition structure here.

[HoBu]

We have to check partition structure of your hard disk.

Do you have LiveCD of any Linux distro? Boot up from LiveCD and execute fdisk -l command in Terminal. Post output here. fdisk -l command will list partition structure only.


That a good idea. Check if all partitions are intact and accessible. Post partition structure here.

I tried burning bootable disks again, this time with MagicISO, as maybe it didn't do it correctly before. Now, when I'm booting from CD (even with Knoppix) all I can see are colourful blocks and stripes with strange symbols, blinking in unison
And of course, no keys reacting.

Will do the HDD part this afternoon, if I have anything new, I will post it here!

Thanks again for your help.

[devils casper]

Which Graphics Card do you have? Post your machine's specs here.