Partition Disaster

I know, I know....he says after almost loosing huge amounts of data.

Heres the problem.

I downloaded a partition programme from download.com. Looked good. My pc was set up with xp pro and linux to dual boot. Its been great formonths.

I dedcided to remove the linux and thought the easiest way was to remove the partition with my new prog.

It all seemd to go well until I tried to boot the machine again.

It says grub loading error 22.

Tried a repair install..accept the licence and then it copies the files needed.

Back to the errorr message.

Got one stage furhter and it then says diskette search failure.

f1 continue...f2 setup.

I have loaded bios defaults.

Back to grub loading error 22.

I have used winternals to try and restore but it doesnt work although I can see the restore points.

All my info is there just wont boot.

PLEASE HELP I am going crazy.

OK...I have now tried fixmbr and fixboot using the recovery console.

This seems to have got rid of the error message but she still wont boot.

Now its only diskette search failure.

f1 continue...f2 setup.

She will only let me boot from my cd

the goal being to have a single partition with just windows?

Boot from the CD. Run FDISK /MBR that should restore the windows master boot record.

Hindsight is always 20/20 but the easiest way to eliminate a Linux partition using windows would be to format it. I have a dual boot, windows sees the linux partition as unformatted space.

I have moved this thread from General Chit Chat.

It is way better suited in this area, as it not only suit's the category, but now it should get seen on the front page thus getting a lil more attention. :)

Good move t34b4g5

shifty, please try dddc's solution as I have generally found it to work.

Lilo and Grub don't play nice with the Winders bootstrapper.

;)

Thanks peeps...I have now managed a repair install.

However, when she boots always comes up with bott diskette failure.

f1 continue...f2 setup.

When I select f1 it now boots normally. I have never seen this level of boot failure before...a little confusing really.

Needless to say I will not be reccomending the partition programme that I used.

Thanks again all.

What was the name of the app?

maybe hook the drive up as a slave onto another computer and manually backup everything, and then do a sytem restore?

Then manually copy everything back over.?

shifty,

Please go into your BIOS setup and set the boot sequence to have the hard drive as first boot media?

;)

For future reference:

When you install Linux, and use GRUB or Lilo as a boot loader, and then remove the OS that installed it, and then reboot, it is not going to find the OS that was there, and refuse to do something.

For the new partitioning user, you're only good bet other than finding someone to fix this for you manually, is to remember NOT to ever remove an OS that supplied you with the boot loader you're using.

Back in Windows 98, a Windows98 Boot disk was required to do the fdisk /mbr that was already talked about.

If you want to "just remove a partition that houses an OS" you are going to be better off using something Windows based if you're not removing Windows.

For example:

If you had Linux and Windows installed, and you were keeping Windows and dumping Linux, well, you're going to be stuck if you used grub like you were.

You COULD buy something like Partition Magic which generally includes PowerQuest's "Boot Magic".

Boot Magic, being a Windows application, won't refuse to do something if you happen to remove Linux. And not only that you have a GUI to remove OSs and partitions safely.

When you reboot, it would see you removed Linux, and not try finding it like Grub did. Then you'd have been fine and not had any issues since Partition Magic, is a Windows Application, and doesn't need Linux to operate.

If you do happen to buy this software, just remember:

When you go to install an OS, if you have Boot Magic as the OS loader, tell the OS you're installing not to touch the MBR.

For example in Linux:

When you're installing, you'd tell Linux NOT to touch the MBR, but instead boot from the root partition. This option is asked in a Slackware installation, and you can just choose "Root" instead of "MBR" and then it doesn't overwrite the MBR which would of course destroy the boot loader you already have.

So next time you may have better luck with a Windows based app that doesn't care what else you have.