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[djhoeft Profile]

Built this computer last spring with this setup:
3 500 GB hard drives; 1 has Windows Media Center on it, 1 has the Windows 7 RC and 1 is unused so far.
1 160 GB hard drive with XP Home on it

I thought I would toy with the new Ubuntu release. Big mistake. Installed it in a partition on the Windows Media Center hard drive as it was going to be toasted anyway after I did the official Windows 7 upgrade. After 12+ hours of trying to get my wireless to work on the Ubuntu partition, I gave up. It was using the GRUB loader to bring up all my drives and the Ubuntu partition for booting. Fine. I double checked my boot.ini file on the Media Center partition to make sure it hadn't been altered to the GRUB loader and thought I would be good to delete the Ubuntu partition. HA! Big mistake again on my part. Called myself a bad name and had a beer.

It turns out that the GRUB loader from Ubuntu installed itself on my Windows 7 RC hard drive. What? Nope, can't boot that drive. Had another beer.

My question is, can I use my VistaBootPro to repair my MBR on the Windows 7 drive? I was a little leery of using the "Force" option.

Assistance needed before this 62 year old grandma turns into a lush....

[Grav!ty Profile]

Hi djhoeft. Boot to your Windows 7 DVD and at the "Install now" setup screen select "Repair your computer" at the bottom left and then select your Windows 7 installation. Once you get a menu select the command prompt (I think it's right at the bottom) and then at the command prompt type these commands in the order give and verify that each as been run (there'll be confirmation that "the operation completed successfully" or similar):

bootrec /fixboot and press Enter on your keyboard

bootrec /fixmbr and press Enter on keyboard

Type exit and press Enter on your keyboard

Restart your system and you should have GRUB gone. Let us know how you go.

[djhoeft Profile]

I definitely will let you know how it goes. Thank you!

[djhoeft Profile]

OK, this is puzzling. When I change the boot order in my BIOS to the CD/DVD, the Windows 7 disk says loading files, then goes to the first blue screen with the dove or whatever and then everything stops. Something is wrong with this picture. I've tried this with the boot order to the CD/DVD and the drive order set to both the one with the dreaded GRUB loader and the one with the perfectly legal clean install over a registered version of Windows XP Pro.

I know this is a forum for Vista BootPro, so I thank you for your assistance. I will continue to try to figure this out.

[Grav!ty Profile]

Try using the F8 key immediately your system starts up, by pressing it repeatedly to get an option what to boot from. Hopefully that function is supported by your BIOS.

[djhoeft Profile]

My BIOS key is the Delete key (Gigabyte MOBO). I've set the boot order to first boot from the CD/DVD drive and when the BIOS says to press any key to boot from the CD/DVD, the Windows 7 disk (32-bit in this case) loads some files and then goes to the blue splash screen and stops there. The same thing happens with both the ISO CD for the Release Candidate and the Windows 7 upgrade DVD I purchased. I'm still puzzled by this....

If I "force" the Vista BootPro bootloader file to the Windows 7 RC drive (the one with the dratted GRUB bootloader), is the warning one I should heed? The word "reformat" is particularly scary.

I'm beginning to think I need to reinstall Ubuntu to a partition on the RC drive just so I can do the fix within Windows 7.... Gads, at this point I don't want anything to do with something that makes these kinds of sea changes to my system, but you know...... whatever it takes.

Grav!ty, I really appreciate your time here as I know this isn't particularly a BootPro issue, but I was hoping the software could help me out...

[Grav!ty Profile]

Try the F8 key it's not the BIOS key on any motherboards that I know of, but it brings up a small BIOS boot device selection screen. I've battled a lot with the same problem of removing GRUB in the past djhoeft, and while a reformat and reinstall will fix it (because the reformat fixes the mbr) that's a final last resort.

The commands I gave you will work, provided off course you boot to the W7 DVD.

Are you able to boot into anything on that system now?

Are you able to boot to the XP CD?

[djhoeft Profile]

Grav!ty, I can boot to the XP Home drive and I can boot to the drive which originally had Media Center on one partition and Ubuntu 9.10 on the other partition. Assuming the boot.ini in the Media Center drive had been alter to contain the GRUB loader, I checked it and it was fine. Didn't occur to me that the GRUB loader had installed itself to the Windows 7 RC drive. Dummy me. So I used Partition Magic to delete the Ubuntu partition and regain the rest of the 500 GB Media Center drive. I did the official Windows 7 upgrade (clean install, of course) on the Media Center drive last night.

By going into the BIOS, I can boot into the old XP Home drive and the (now) Windows 7 Home Premium drive. However, when I change the drive boot to the Release Candidate drive, it looks for the GRUB loader and can't load.

I'll try F8 and see what happens... egads.

[djhoeft Profile]

Interesting. F8 worked just fine when I booted to the drive which I upgraded from Media Center to Windows 7 Home Premium. But when I have the drive boot order set to the "problem" drive, it wouldn't work. So I tried the command line from within the OK drive. Of course, there is no indication of which drive I'm working with, so I tried every letter that seemed logical. I was hopeful, but still no joy. I think I'm at the point where I will retrieve all the files and info I can from the Release Candidate drive and reformat.

Yup, got a headache and yup, gonna have another beer... You're the best, Grav!ty!

[Grav!ty Profile]

Did you get to the command line of the Windows 7 DVD?