Ugh crap ....

[Things]

Well, I decided to delete my Ubuntu partition to make more room for windows, and now Grub has decided its gonna sit in the corner and cry. So I am left with a laptop without a CD drive, that wont boot. I am attempting to put Windows Xp onto a flash drive, so I can use the fixmbr command or w/e it is, but I have had about 5 attempts at getting it onto the USB drive, and none have worked as of yet.

Anyone here had to repair their mbr ? Or install Windows Xp onto a flash drive?

Cheers,
Dan

[allthatwhichis]

Anyone here had to repair their mbr ? Or install Windows Xp onto a flash drive?

Cheers,
Dan

I should, but all I can offer at the moment are prayers.

[Laser Ben]

Well, I decided to delete my Ubuntu partition to make more room for windows, and now Grub has decided its gonna sit in the corner and cry. So I am left with a laptop without a CD drive, that wont boot. I am attempting to put Windows Xp onto a flash drive, so I can use the fixmbr command or w/e it is, but I have had about 5 attempts at getting it onto the USB drive, and none have worked as of yet.

Anyone here had to repair their mbr ? Or install Windows Xp onto a flash drive?

Cheers,
Dan

Yes, and yes, many times!

[Things]

Yes, and yes, many times!

Any tips/programs for me to try, Ben ?

I have a windows XP CD (With SP1 included), and copied the files off that onto my computer, so I have a copy of WinXP to use, just not a Cd drive to use it in so I need to get it on a flash drive

[Laser Ben]

Did you set your computer to boot from a USB source? If you put the full install files for XP on it, it should come up and ask if you want to boot from it. The other option would be to get the HDD into another computer (desktop) install, then swap it back before going through any settings.

[LaserGuy216]

I take it that you dont have any access to a usb dvd?

if not I could setup a usb file system with xp home or pro restore files

[heroic]

What exactly is grub showing you? It has a console that you may be able to use to fix your problem well enough to boot Windows and do an fdisk /mbr command.

[Things]

I managed to get XP onto the flash drive, but after the "Setup is inspecting your current hardware setup", I get "FIle \$WIN_NT$.~BT\biosinfo.inf could not be loaded. Error code is 18. Setup cannot continue. Press any key to exit."



EDIT: Turns out I get that error because the WINXP CD I used was made for a OEM installation. Damn

[heroic]

I managed to get XP onto the flash drive, but after the "Setup is inspecting your current hardware setup", I get "FIle \$WIN_NT$.~BT\biosinfo.inf could not be loaded. Error code is 18. Setup cannot continue. Press any key to exit."

You could use your other PC to make a recovery disk, and then copy that recovery disk onto the USB device; when it boots up, go into the recovery console and do fdisk /mbr and it'll fix ya right up.

[JeroenVDV]

Just did the same thing last weekend. This worked very well for me:

http://myeeeguides.wordpress.com/200...b-flash-drive/

Should work with every windows XP CD (I have OEM's here, full XP, whatever).