[Noisebridge-discuss] Can Someone Help Me with My MBR?

Wed Jan 18 00:46:18 UTC 2012

 When I met a friend today, she had her laptop, and I was able to burn a
Windows install disk, and it worked.
--Chrysanthemum

Nations are never conscious of all the riches they possess in the matter of
knaves.
--Victor Hugo, *Napoleon the Little*

On Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 12:58 PM, Christina Olson <daravinne at gmail.com>wrote:

> Won't boot from external media?  weird....
>
> What model is your laptop?  I'll bring the usb key and a DVD, and if
> you let me know what your laptop model is I can check how difficult it
> is to get the hard drive out. I have a usb to sata/ide converter
> cable, and my mac dual boots windows, so if all else fails we can pull
> the drive and clone the partition you want, wipe the drive, reinstall
> windows and clone your system and settings back. hopefully.
>
> what time do you want to meet? anytime from 6 onward is fine for me.
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 8:51 PM, Chrysanthemum Hyphus <c at hyph.us> wrote:
> > Hi Christina,
> >
> > My system is 64-bit. Yeah, I got that about the recovery system--and why
> it
> > was a foregone conclusion that a full recovery would not work. I think
> that
> > installer would be helpful. The message I get says to insert a Windows
> > install disk and press <enter>, or if I don't have one, to "contact my
> > administrator for one" so giving it what it wants has a good chance of
> > working.
> >
> > The thing is, is that amazingly I can't brute-force a clean install,
> because
> > this notebook won't boot from any external media while this MBR is
> corrupted
> > (it has booted from a CD/DVD just fine in the past), no matter how I set
> the
> > BIOS, That's something I don't understand (and am I pissed!).
> >
> > Wednesday might be better because there'll be so much going on Thursday
> > evening. I could show up at whatever time would be convenient for you,
> and I
> > greatly appreciate your offer.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > --Chrysanthemum
> >
> > Nations are never conscious of all the riches they possess in the matter
> of
> > knaves.
> > --Victor Hugo, Napoleon the Little
> >
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 8:33 PM, Christina Olson <daravinne at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> I dunno if this will help but i have a win7 professional x64 installer
> >> usb key, and could probably scare up an actual DVD of the same (if
> >> your system is 32 bit this will probably not help, however).  It
> >> sounds to me like the factory reset is being pulled off the disk
> >> recovery partition (stop me if you've heard this one before) and since
> >> that's not affecting the actual partition tables it's not going to do
> >> a damn thing to the mbr.  if you want to fix the mbr the blunt-force
> >> way, you wipe the disk and reinstall from scratch, which will also
> >> hose the recovery partition and your settings etc etc firey death.
> >> that's kind of your only option if fixing the mbr from the install
> >> media doesn't work.
> >>
> >> i will be at the space thursday evening, for 5mof, but if you'd like
> >> me to take a look at it i can spare a couple minutes; alternatively i
> >> could probably swing by wednesday evening or something and meet with
> >> you.
> >>
> >>
> >> On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 8:16 PM, Chrysanthemum Hyphus <c at hyph.us>
> wrote:
> >> > Hi All,
> >> >
> >> > Thank you both for responding to me!
> >> >
> >> > Unfortunately, booting from any other device just doesn't work, no
> >> > matter
> >> > how I set the BIOS. I made a repair disk myself from this
> installation,
> >> > from
> >> > which I tried booting. I tried downloading, and booting from a generic
> >> > Windows 7 repair disk image which I burned to CD on my Mac. I tried
> >> > booting
> >> > from a CD and then a USB flash drive containing Fedora.
> >> >
> >> > Both the DVD drive and the flash drive are recognized by the BIOS,
> and I
> >> > set
> >> > both of them to boot before the hard drive (and these settings are
> >> > preserved
> >> > across power-downs), and it just keeps coming back to me with wanting
> a
> >> > Windows 7 installation disk, which I don't have, of course, because
> >> > Windows
> >> > 7 came pre-installed.
> >> >
> >> > The built-in system restore (provided in lieu of an installation disk)
> >> > system's OS repair option restored WIndows itself but not the MBR. A
> >> > full
> >> > restore, which would restore it to factory condition, can't fix this
> >> > either,
> >> > according to Samsung. The pisser is that it says it's loading Windows
> >> > when
> >> > it starts up, but there's no way to get to a recovery
> console. The only
> >> > solution they could offer me is for me to send it off for two weeks
> for
> >> > service, which really sucks in three different ways.
> >> >
> >> > I have virtually all of my data backed up, but I'm looking at many
> hours
> >> > of
> >> > downloading, installing, and configuring all the programs I've
> >> > installed,
> >> > not to mention configuring WIndows itself. I would wipe the drive
> right
> >> > now,
> >> > though, if it would help, but since I'm told it won't, I'd rather not
> >> > lose
> >> > everything for nothing.
> >> >
> >> > So it appears that either I need a full installation disk to do a
> >> > repair, or
> >> > I need to plug the hard drive into another computer (that can accept a
> >> > second notebook hard drive) as a secondary drive and fix it from a
> >> > working
> >> > system. At least these options would preserve my programs and
> >> > configuration.
> >> > If I send it back to Samsung, it will surely be wiped, for which I
> would
> >> > have paid and waited for, so I really hope someone can help me out
> with
> >> > this, because I've tried everything I can think of.
> >> >
> >> > Thanks,
> >> > --Chrysanthemum
> >> >
> >> > Nations are never conscious of all the riches they possess in the
> matter
> >> > of
> >> > knaves.
> >> > --Victor Hugo, Napoleon the Little
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 1:14 PM, maestro <maestro415 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> # i have a 7ultimate repair disc i made in 7ultimate....
> >> >> # it is NOT the full OS but may do the trick....
> >> >> # i will be @ the space tues probably sometime before 3....
> >> >> # you may make a backup off my 7 partition if u like as well....
> >> >> # also there is info in the arctic wind(linux penguins) that veteran
> >> >> unix/linux users/developers have been able to use LinuxPuppy to even
> >> >> fix
> >> >> partition shit in windows though I HAVE NOT done this....
> >> >> # you may be able to find this knowledge online or in linuxdev
> mags....
> >> >> # i have puppy disc with me but it runs in your ram so....
> >> >>
> >> >> end comments
> >> >>
> >> >> On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 11:11 AM, Chrysanthemum Hyphus <c at hyph.us>
> >> >> wrote:
> >> >>>
> >> >>> Hello Noisebridge,
> >> >>>
> >> >>> I corrupted my master boot record on my Windows 7 laptop while
> trying
> >> >>> to
> >> >>> uninstall Wubi before doing a proper install of Linux, so it will
> not
> >> >>> boot
> >> >>> at all. I would like to non-destructively repartition my hard drive
> to
> >> >>> create a new partition for Linux, which has not been done yet. I
> have
> >> >>> all of
> >> >>> my data on a separate partition from Windows, but I'm hoping to keep
> >> >>> the
> >> >>> programs and any configuration data on the Windows OS partition
> >> >>> intact.
> >> >>>
> >> >>> Does anyone have a bootable flash drive or bootable DVD with a
> utility
> >> >>> to
> >> >>> at least fix the MBR without disturbing any of the data that
> currently
> >> >>> exists on it? A program that will do a nondestructive partition
> would
> >> >>> be
> >> >>> awesome. If so, let me know when I could meet you at Noisebridge,
> >> >>> perhaps
> >> >>> this Thursday afternoon if not sooner.
> >> >>>
> >> >>> Thanks,
> >> >>> --Chrysanthemum
> >> >>>
> >> >>> Nations are never conscious of all the riches they possess in the
> >> >>> matter
> >> >>> of knaves.
> >> >>> --Victor Hugo, Napoleon the Little
> >> >>>
> >> >>>
> >> >>>
> >> >>> _______________________________________________
> >> >>> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
> >> >>> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> >> >>> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
> >> >>>
> >> >>
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > _______________________________________________
> >> > Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
> >> > Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> >> > https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
> >> >
> >
> >
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.noisebridge.net/pipermail/noisebridge-discuss/attachments/20120117/91603aa6/attachment-0003.html>