Boot issues

so, recently I used Wubi to try and get Ubuntu on my XP machine (HP Pavilion 533w)

didn't work so I uninstalled it, upon next boot I got this error message and cant get past it


SYSLINUX 4.04 EDD 2011-04-18 Copyright 1994-2011 H. Peter Anuin et at
No DEFAULT or UI configuration directive can be found!
boot:_


any ideas? booting from external devices do not work as something is wrong with the BIOS. the "boot:_" part is where I can put in a file path to a location to boot from

 

Seems like you have overwritten XP's boot instructions with that for booting a Linux live disk.

When you remove Linux from a dual boot, depending upon which method you chose to dual boot, it is usual to have to re install XP's boot configuration.


1 select boot from CD/DVD in BIOS

2 insert your XP installation disk and boot from it.

3 When asked if you want to install, do not elect to, but instead run rescue option.

4 You may be asked for Admin password be sure to have it if you have one, else leave the field blank.

5 select,as appropriate, when offered the keyboard you use, and the instance of XP upon which you want to work.

6 Command line prompt should appear;
type;
bootcfg /rebuild

and press return

7 Then enter two these commands in sequence; (They will overwrite the Linux with code for Windows boot sector)

fixboot
fixmbr

After running these commands, boot into XP as normal, and use disk management tools to remove any linux partition.

 

sadly I inherited this tower from my grandmother and do not have the XP Install disk an are in the process of getting her files off it

Could I in theory, use a bootable disk to boot from Linux? If so, what ype of disk works? CD or DVD?

 

I think you can use other XP install/rescue disks to recover your boot config, though it is something I have not personally done.

(Any of our members, speak up if you know if 'Hiren', etc. good for this.)

Do a Google search on recovering windows boot +removing Linux, there is a whole lot of stuff posted.

If you give up, and just settle for getting your files off the machine, then if you are thinking of using Linux, use one of the live disks which do not install on the HDD, but operate from the CD/DVD, or USB Stick. Knoppix is usually favoured for such, as it has very good hardware recognition, and lots of so called 'cheat codes' available to get past any impasse which may occur.

 

Thanks, will check ot out

 

And what I meant by "I don't have the Install Disk" is that I.don't have one, period

 

You can source an XP repair/recovery disk from Ebay for a couple f £ / $ / euro.

But I have no experience in using such.

Hoping that another member will chip in and tell us if they are kosher.

 

Courtesy of Jose Ibarra


MAKE HIREN’S ON A FLASH STICK


This is good for you because it has many more tools on it that on the XP Recovery Console CD, does not care about your Administrator passwords and you will not have to futz around in your BIOS if any afflicted system has SATA drives - Hiren's can deal with that.

You will have a whole bunch of cool tools that you don't have in the XP Recovery Console... a registry editor, password resetter, and a desktop that looks like Windows XP so you will feel comfortable maneuvering.

You can also easily copy your personal data (documents, images, music) to an external drive.

From a working system, first download the latest version on Hiren's Boot CD from here (it is a substantial download but worth it):

http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/ (look near the bottom of the page).

Unzip the Hiren's to some folder where you can find it. There is a Hiren's.BootCD.15.x.iso in there that you are going to need next.

Hiren's has instructions to make a bootable USB that you can use, but it requires you to first burn the .iso to a CD and some other steps, so I suggest another way and here's how:

Download RUFUS 1.4.x or whatever the latest version is from here (read some stuff on the page so you can know more about it):

http://rufus.akeo.ie/

I will caution you to be careful that you don't accidentally format any of your hard drives - be sure your USB stick is in and know what the drive letter is! This part always makes me a little nervous, so be careful.

Launch RUFUS and all the defaults should be okay, for the Device, choose your USB drive letter, Quick format, FAT32, label it if you want to and in the Format options box, click the little icon that looks like a CD and a window will open. Navigate that dialogue to point to the folder that contains the Hiren's.BootCD.15.x.iso that you unzipped earlier and the box should change to say ISO image (RUFUS understands the Hiren's ISO file).

Double check you have the right Device selected in the top (NOT your HDD) Click Start, acknowledge the warning and let it finish (it will take a little while) as it copies the files. The Hiren's ISO is also good size.

When RUFUS is done, it will say 'DONE' in the bottom.

Put the USB stick in the afflicted machine and reset/reboot and press whatever key you need to press to get to a boot menu where you can select the USB as the first boot device (that is F11 for me). If you don't see a boot menu choice, you will have to adjust your BIOS to boot from the USB first instead of the HDD.

---------------

You can also burn the iso to a cd with ImgBurn

http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download

run the commands from either in a command prompt, I do not have linux but I believe that you can do this from linux also.

 

I have already tried a BOOTABLEUSB. the Bios doesn't read that a usb is plugged in when I starts booting the PC, I havent tried a CD yet, I have some blanks and will try the methods I have been given in this thread and see if those work

 

does your pc support usb install, ? I have a dell 3000 dimension and it does support for all usb installs EXCEPT xp, this has something to do with it not being an pe (barts) or something like that, but linux and hiren's will boot from my usb when I press F12 and choose USB Flash Device to boot first.

 

The bios is preset to boot from usb FIRST, but I will not read my flashdrive as a boot device.or even detect it in the Boot Order, I haven't tried a CD yet and I am planning on it as soon as possible

 

okay, let me know if you need any more help on how to fixboot and fixmbr

 

@Zach:-

Two questions.

1) What's your current top priority? Getting XP to boot again.....or removing the files from grandma's old machine?

2) Do you wish to continue running XP.....or would you be happy to get the old girl running again by a different means (like a lightweight Linux distro?)

The reason I ask is because I run a super lightweight Linux distro that would do both. It's called Puppy Linux, and was specifically designed to rejuvenate XP-era hardware, and make it run fast again.

If your machine has a CD drive, you can run Puppy from a 'LiveCD'. Puppy loads into, and runs entirely from RAM memory; this is what makes it so fast, since your RAM is, by definition, the fastest component of your hardware.....at least an order of magnitude faster than the hard drive, for instance.

Puppy also has excellent hardware recognition. It's a year or so younger than Knoppix; that was released in 2002, where Puppy was first released around a year later.....and was developed along similar lines to the former.

If you're interested in trying this out, I would recommend this current version of Puppy for the 'experiment'.....Tahrpup 6.05. Absolutely everything on this works, OOTB; the developer, Phil Broughton, has recognised that for many people, their impressions of anything new tend to be coloured by their first encounter with it.

You can download the ISO file for Tahrpup from here:-

http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/puppy-tahr/iso/tahrpup -6.0-CE/

10th entry up from the bottom; 'tahr-6.0.5_PAE.iso' The ISO file is only around 200 MB in size.....which gives you some idea of just how tiny Pup is. Yet for all that, it's remarkably full-featured, despite its diminutive 'paw-print'!

We recommend, on the Puppy Forums, that beginners use the following small piece of software to 'burn' the ISO file to a CD: BurnCDCC, from Terabyte Unlimited.

https://www.terabyteunlimited.com/downloads-free-software.htm

It's a remarkably single-minded piece of software, as it does precisely one thing, and one thing only.....it 'burns' an ISO file to an optical disc. Less chance of making mistakes, that way.

Please do make sure that you perform the 'burn' at the lowest setting you can; no more than 2x or 4x at most. The faster you 'burn' an ISO file, the greater the chance of something going wrong.

Then, all you have to do is to boot from that CD.

If you decide to try this, please let me know how you get on. Any questions you might have, I'll do my best to answer them. I'll also explain how to use Puppy to copy the files you wish to 'rescue' from grandma's old machine.


Mike.

 

Mike, I need to get my grandmothers files off it INTACT at her request. I have succeeds in this using the Knoppix method and I don't want to use XP but I still want to run EXE.

I tried Puppy Linux but format inwhich it burns, is not comparable as a boot by the Tower. Currently my only issue is that I don't have a USB with more than 6gb storage right now.

I will look into ways to use Puppy as I have used it in a VM and I seem to like it, the current way my BIOS boots is from a "X:/boot/(files here)"

I have the latest Tahr Pup for 32bit and I cant get it to work

Thanks for the advice and will look into figuring out how to use TahrPup