[gentoo-user] Very OT - Need help removing NTLDR

[gentoo-user] Very OT - Need help removing NTLDR

[Michael Sullivan]

Awhile back my wife asked me to add Windows 98 SE to the operating
systems on her computer (Gentoo and WinXP) so that she could play old
games that we couldn't get to work in Linux with wine.  She attempted to
boot into Windows XP today, but got an error message:

NTLDR is missing
Press any key to continue

I've been doing research on NTLDR, and I've found lots of help in
restoring NTLDR, but none whatsoever in simply removing it.  Her
computer uses grub as the boot loader.  I know this isn't specifically a
Gentoo question, and not even a Linux question, but she needs WinXP for
school (she's starting in the Medical Lab Technician program tomorrow.
All her homework is on the computer, and our school isn't enlightened
enough to use Linux yet.)  Can anyone help me?

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Re: [gentoo-user] Very OT - Need help removing NTLDR

[Mark Kirkwood]

Michael Sullivan wrote:
> Awhile back my wife asked me to add Windows 98 SE to the operating
> systems on her computer (Gentoo and WinXP) so that she could play old
> games that we couldn't get to work in Linux with wine.  She attempted to
> boot into Windows XP today, but got an error message:
> 
> NTLDR is missing
> Press any key to continue
> 
> I've been doing research on NTLDR, and I've found lots of help in
> restoring NTLDR, but none whatsoever in simply removing it.  Her
> computer uses grub as the boot loader.  I know this isn't specifically a
> Gentoo question, and not even a Linux question, but she needs WinXP for
> school (she's starting in the Medical Lab Technician program tomorrow.
> All her homework is on the computer, and our school isn't enlightened
> enough to use Linux yet.)  Can anyone help me?
> 

Looking at:

http://www2.geek.com/cgi-bin/discus/discus.cgi?pg=prev&topic=24&page=33

It seems that installing 98 after XP causes problems due to 98's 
bootloader being too stupid to dual boot. While *this* particular issue 
should not apply to you - as you have grub, installing 98 may mean that 
the drive numbers for XP in your grub configuration are now wrong. Some 
experimentation with your grub setup will be needed I suspect. Hopefully 
others can help with these (I use lilo).

Good luck

Mark
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Re: [gentoo-user] Very OT - Need help removing NTLDR

[Jesús Guerrero]

El Lunes, 21 de Agosto de 2006 00:30, Michael Sullivan escribió:
> Awhile back my wife asked me to add Windows 98 SE to the operating
> systems on her computer (Gentoo and WinXP) so that she could play old
> games that we couldn't get to work in Linux with wine.  She attempted to
> boot into Windows XP today, but got an error message:
>
> NTLDR is missing
> Press any key to continue
>
> I've been doing research on NTLDR, and I've found lots of help in
> restoring NTLDR, but none whatsoever in simply removing it.  Her
> computer uses grub as the boot loader.  I know this isn't specifically a
> Gentoo question, and not even a Linux question, but she needs WinXP for
> school (she's starting in the Medical Lab Technician program tomorrow.
> All her homework is on the computer, and our school isn't enlightened
> enough to use Linux yet.)  Can anyone help me?

I advise you to mount the winxp partition, or the partition where your 
document files reside, if it is a different one. Dont have a windows box 
right now at hand, but they usually are at c:\documents and 
settings\<username> or something similar. Mount the partition from linux, 
even a livecd can be used for that purpose. Then make a backup of the docs, 
at least, the ones that you need for tomorrow.

Then, once you have recued all the relevant stuff, you can mess up with ntldr 
or reinstall or whatever. BTW, why do you want to delete it? You need to 
restore it or whatever, ntldr is the Windows loader, you need it to boot 
Windows ;)

As you said, there is a lot of info on various ntldr, I left the windows world 
time ago, so I could not help on that even anyway. But I give you the advise, 
first, overall if you are not familiar with anything that you need to do to 
restore it, make a backup, that is never a bad thing to have. 

Jesús.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Very OT - Need help removing NTLDR [SOLVED]

[Michael Sullivan]

On Mon, 2006-08-21 at 01:22 +0200, Jesús Guerrero wrote:
> El Lunes, 21 de Agosto de 2006 00:30, Michael Sullivan escribió:
> > Awhile back my wife asked me to add Windows 98 SE to the operating
> > systems on her computer (Gentoo and WinXP) so that she could play old
> > games that we couldn't get to work in Linux with wine.  She attempted to
> > boot into Windows XP today, but got an error message:
> >
> > NTLDR is missing
> > Press any key to continue
> >
> > I've been doing research on NTLDR, and I've found lots of help in
> > restoring NTLDR, but none whatsoever in simply removing it.  Her
> > computer uses grub as the boot loader.  I know this isn't specifically a
> > Gentoo question, and not even a Linux question, but she needs WinXP for
> > school (she's starting in the Medical Lab Technician program tomorrow.
> > All her homework is on the computer, and our school isn't enlightened
> > enough to use Linux yet.)  Can anyone help me?
> 
> I advise you to mount the winxp partition, or the partition where your 
> document files reside, if it is a different one. Dont have a windows box 
> right now at hand, but they usually are at c:\documents and 
> settings\<username> or something similar. Mount the partition from linux, 
> even a livecd can be used for that purpose. Then make a backup of the docs, 
> at least, the ones that you need for tomorrow.
> 
> Then, once you have recued all the relevant stuff, you can mess up with ntldr 
> or reinstall or whatever. BTW, why do you want to delete it? You need to 
> restore it or whatever, ntldr is the Windows loader, you need it to boot 
> Windows ;)
> 
> As you said, there is a lot of info on various ntldr, I left the windows world 
> time ago, so I could not help on that even anyway. But I give you the advise, 
> first, overall if you are not familiar with anything that you need to do to 
> restore it, make a backup, that is never a bad thing to have. 
> 
> Jesús.
> 

I found this site:

http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Dual_Boot_from_Windows_Bootloader_(NTLDR)_and_why#Single_disk_installation

It's got my wife's computer doing what she wanted it to now, for the
most part.  I should have thought to look at the Gentoo wiki before I
sent off my original mail.  We're still having a problem with ALSA in
Linux, but I want to work on that a bit more on my own before I go
asking for help.


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[gentoo-user] Re: Very OT - Need help removing NTLDR [SOLVED]

[hawat.thufir]

On Sun, 20 Aug 2006, Michael Sullivan wrote:
[...]
> I found this site:
>
> http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Dual_Boot_from_Windows_Bootloader_(NTLDR)_and_why#Single_disk_installation
>
> It's got my wife's computer doing what she wanted it to now, for the
> most part.  I should have thought to look at the Gentoo wiki before I
> sent off my original mail.  We're still having a problem with ALSA in
> Linux, but I want to work on that a bit more on my own before I go
> asking for help.


On the one hand, yeh, RTFM.  On the other, I, at least, was intrigued by 
your post, having come across the same issue.  You've at least spread 
knowledge :)


-Thufir
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Re: [gentoo-user] Very OT - Need help removing NTLDR

[Alan Mckinnon]

On Sun, 2006-08-20 at 17:30 -0500, Michael Sullivan wrote:
> Awhile back my wife asked me to add Windows 98 SE to the operating
> systems on her computer (Gentoo and WinXP) so that she could play old
> games that we couldn't get to work in Linux with wine.  She attempted to
> boot into Windows XP today, but got an error message:
> 
> NTLDR is missing
> Press any key to continue
> 

'98 believes it's the only OS in the entire world, and sets up the MBR
on the boot disk to suit itself, so you need to put it back.

Boot off the XP install disk, start the recovery option (not sure of the
name right now, but it's obvious what it is from the menu), and run
FIXBOOT from the prompt. That should put XP right.

Then boot normally, and make sure grub.conf/menu.1st have the correct
entries for the MS OSes. Something like:

	title WindowsXP
	root  (hd0,1)
	chainloader +1

Adjust the root entry to suit the partitions used by each Windows OS as
per normal grub rules. Everything should be back to normal. If you are
unlucky enough to have run FIXMBR from XP, then you need to reinstall
grub onto the MBR to get your usual boot loader back. Boot off any old
LiveCD and run grub-install. After booting back into Linux you can then
run the gentoo version of grub-install to restore things exactly as they
were.

alan


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