<font> When I met a friend today, she had her laptop, and I was able to burn a Windows install disk, and it worked.<br clear="all"></font><font><span>--Chrysanthemum<br></span></font><div><font><span><br></span></font></div>
<div>Nations are never conscious of all the riches they possess in the matter of knaves.<br>
--Victor Hugo, <i>Napoleon the Little</i></div><br><div></div>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 12:58 PM, Christina Olson <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:daravinne@gmail.com" target="_blank">daravinne@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Won't boot from external media? weird....<br>
<br>
What model is your laptop? I'll bring the usb key and a DVD, and if<br>
you let me know what your laptop model is I can check how difficult it<br>
is to get the hard drive out. I have a usb to sata/ide converter<br>
cable, and my mac dual boots windows, so if all else fails we can pull<br>
the drive and clone the partition you want, wipe the drive, reinstall<br>
windows and clone your system and settings back. hopefully.<br>
<br>
what time do you want to meet? anytime from 6 onward is fine for me.<br>
<div><div></div><div><br>
<br>
On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 8:51 PM, Chrysanthemum Hyphus <<a href="mailto:c@hyph.us" target="_blank">c@hyph.us</a>> wrote:<br>
> Hi Christina,<br>
><br>
> My system is 64-bit. Yeah, I got that about the recovery system--and why it<br>
> was a foregone conclusion that a full recovery would not work. I think that<br>
> installer would be helpful. The message I get says to insert a Windows<br>
> install disk and press <enter>, or if I don't have one, to "contact my<br>
> administrator for one" so giving it what it wants has a good chance of<br>
> working.<br>
><br>
> The thing is, is that amazingly I can't brute-force a clean install, because<br>
> this notebook won't boot from any external media while this MBR is corrupted<br>
> (it has booted from a CD/DVD just fine in the past), no matter how I set the<br>
> BIOS, That's something I don't understand (and am I pissed!).<br>
><br>
> Wednesday might be better because there'll be so much going on Thursday<br>
> evening. I could show up at whatever time would be convenient for you, and I<br>
> greatly appreciate your offer.<br>
><br>
> Thanks,<br>
> --Chrysanthemum<br>
><br>
> Nations are never conscious of all the riches they possess in the matter of<br>
> knaves.<br>
> --Victor Hugo, Napoleon the Little<br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
> On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 8:33 PM, Christina Olson <<a href="mailto:daravinne@gmail.com" target="_blank">daravinne@gmail.com</a>><br>
> wrote:<br>
>><br>
>> I dunno if this will help but i have a win7 professional x64 installer<br>
>> usb key, and could probably scare up an actual DVD of the same (if<br>
>> your system is 32 bit this will probably not help, however). It<br>
>> sounds to me like the factory reset is being pulled off the disk<br>
>> recovery partition (stop me if you've heard this one before) and since<br>
>> that's not affecting the actual partition tables it's not going to do<br>
>> a damn thing to the mbr. if you want to fix the mbr the blunt-force<br>
>> way, you wipe the disk and reinstall from scratch, which will also<br>
>> hose the recovery partition and your settings etc etc firey death.<br>
>> that's kind of your only option if fixing the mbr from the install<br>
>> media doesn't work.<br>
>><br>
>> i will be at the space thursday evening, for 5mof, but if you'd like<br>
>> me to take a look at it i can spare a couple minutes; alternatively i<br>
>> could probably swing by wednesday evening or something and meet with<br>
>> you.<br>
>><br>
>><br>
>> On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 8:16 PM, Chrysanthemum Hyphus <<a href="mailto:c@hyph.us" target="_blank">c@hyph.us</a>> wrote:<br>
>> > Hi All,<br>
>> ><br>
>> > Thank you both for responding to me!<br>
>> ><br>
>> > Unfortunately, booting from any other device just doesn't work, no<br>
>> > matter<br>
>> > how I set the BIOS. I made a repair disk myself from this installation,<br>
>> > from<br>
>> > which I tried booting. I tried downloading, and booting from a generic<br>
>> > Windows 7 repair disk image which I burned to CD on my Mac. I tried<br>
>> > booting<br>
>> > from a CD and then a USB flash drive containing Fedora.<br>
>> ><br>
>> > Both the DVD drive and the flash drive are recognized by the BIOS, and I<br>
>> > set<br>
>> > both of them to boot before the hard drive (and these settings are<br>
>> > preserved<br>
>> > across power-downs), and it just keeps coming back to me with wanting a<br>
>> > Windows 7 installation disk, which I don't have, of course, because<br>
>> > Windows<br>
>> > 7 came pre-installed.<br>
>> ><br>
>> > The built-in system restore (provided in lieu of an installation disk)<br>
>> > system's OS repair option restored WIndows itself but not the MBR. A<br>
>> > full<br>
>> > restore, which would restore it to factory condition, can't fix this<br>
>> > either,<br>
>> > according to Samsung. The pisser is that it says it's loading Windows<br>
>> > when<br>
>> > it starts up, but there's no way to get to a recovery console. The only<br>
>> > solution they could offer me is for me to send it off for two weeks for<br>
>> > service, which really sucks in three different ways.<br>
>> ><br>
>> > I have virtually all of my data backed up, but I'm looking at many hours<br>
>> > of<br>
>> > downloading, installing, and configuring all the programs I've<br>
>> > installed,<br>
>> > not to mention configuring WIndows itself. I would wipe the drive right<br>
>> > now,<br>
>> > though, if it would help, but since I'm told it won't, I'd rather not<br>
>> > lose<br>
>> > everything for nothing.<br>
>> ><br>
>> > So it appears that either I need a full installation disk to do a<br>
>> > repair, or<br>
>> > I need to plug the hard drive into another computer (that can accept a<br>
>> > second notebook hard drive) as a secondary drive and fix it from a<br>
>> > working<br>
>> > system. At least these options would preserve my programs and<br>
>> > configuration.<br>
>> > If I send it back to Samsung, it will surely be wiped, for which I would<br>
>> > have paid and waited for, so I really hope someone can help me out with<br>
>> > this, because I've tried everything I can think of.<br>
>> ><br>
>> > Thanks,<br>
>> > --Chrysanthemum<br>
>> ><br>
>> > Nations are never conscious of all the riches they possess in the matter<br>
>> > of<br>
>> > knaves.<br>
>> > --Victor Hugo, Napoleon the Little<br>
>> ><br>
>> ><br>
>> > On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 1:14 PM, maestro <<a href="mailto:maestro415@gmail.com" target="_blank">maestro415@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
>> >><br>
>> >> # i have a 7ultimate repair disc i made in 7ultimate....<br>
>> >> # it is NOT the full OS but may do the trick....<br>
>> >> # i will be @ the space tues probably sometime before 3....<br>
>> >> # you may make a backup off my 7 partition if u like as well....<br>
>> >> # also there is info in the arctic wind(linux penguins) that veteran<br>
>> >> unix/linux users/developers have been able to use LinuxPuppy to even<br>
>> >> fix<br>
>> >> partition shit in windows though I HAVE NOT done this....<br>
>> >> # you may be able to find this knowledge online or in linuxdev mags....<br>
>> >> # i have puppy disc with me but it runs in your ram so....<br>
>> >><br>
>> >> end comments<br>
>> >><br>
>> >> On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 11:11 AM, Chrysanthemum Hyphus <<a href="mailto:c@hyph.us" target="_blank">c@hyph.us</a>><br>
>> >> wrote:<br>
>> >>><br>
>> >>> Hello Noisebridge,<br>
>> >>><br>
>> >>> I corrupted my master boot record on my Windows 7 laptop while trying<br>
>> >>> to<br>
>> >>> uninstall Wubi before doing a proper install of Linux, so it will not<br>
>> >>> boot<br>
>> >>> at all. I would like to non-destructively repartition my hard drive to<br>
>> >>> create a new partition for Linux, which has not been done yet. I have<br>
>> >>> all of<br>
>> >>> my data on a separate partition from Windows, but I'm hoping to keep<br>
>> >>> the<br>
>> >>> programs and any configuration data on the Windows OS partition<br>
>> >>> intact.<br>
>> >>><br>
>> >>> Does anyone have a bootable flash drive or bootable DVD with a utility<br>
>> >>> to<br>
>> >>> at least fix the MBR without disturbing any of the data that currently<br>
>> >>> exists on it? A program that will do a nondestructive partition would<br>
>> >>> be<br>
>> >>> awesome. If so, let me know when I could meet you at Noisebridge,<br>
>> >>> perhaps<br>
>> >>> this Thursday afternoon if not sooner.<br>
>> >>><br>
>> >>> Thanks,<br>
>> >>> --Chrysanthemum<br>
>> >>><br>
>> >>> Nations are never conscious of all the riches they possess in the<br>
>> >>> matter<br>
>> >>> of knaves.<br>
>> >>> --Victor Hugo, Napoleon the Little<br>
>> >>><br>
>> >>><br>
>> >>><br>
>> >>> _______________________________________________<br>
>> >>> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list<br>
>> >>> <a href="mailto:Noisebridge-discuss@lists.noisebridge.net" target="_blank">Noisebridge-discuss@lists.noisebridge.net</a><br>
>> >>> <a href="https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss" target="_blank">https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss</a><br>
>> >>><br>
>> >><br>
>> ><br>
>> ><br>
>> > _______________________________________________<br>
>> > Noisebridge-discuss mailing list<br>
>> > <a href="mailto:Noisebridge-discuss@lists.noisebridge.net" target="_blank">Noisebridge-discuss@lists.noisebridge.net</a><br>
>> > <a href="https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss" target="_blank">https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss</a><br>
>> ><br>
><br>
><br>
</div></div></blockquote></div><br>