Every day you learn something new. Well today is another one of the days I learned something I wished I had known a long time ago. While I am an avid linux user, I still use Windows for video editing, gaming, and photo editing (which is slowly changing). So, as a result I have multiple dual-boot systems around the house. Once in a while I do goof things up, and end up with my windows system unbootable due to any number of reasons (especially now that I have a motherboard that likes to change the drive order, at least to the way grub see’s it). Either way what I learned today was utilities available with Windows 2000/XP that will correct a master boot record without the use of fdisk /mbr (Which is, from what I understand, not recommended for 2000/XP machines). In my case, fdisk /mbr wasn’t even an option because the drive in question is attached to the onboard sata controller, which is powered by the nForce 2 chipset (which doesn’t have dos drivers available and isn’t automatically detected in dos) AND the tools to remove grub from a master boot record don’t exist. Anyways, this is what you do:
fixboot c: fixmbr
If you need to rebuild your boot.ini run the following command:
buildcfg /rebuildYou can find more details on other recovery mode commands “Microsoft Windows XP Support Site“.