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On Wed, Jul 06, 2011 at 07:48:50AM -0400, Felix Miata wrote:
On 2011/07/06 03:22 (GMT-0400) Oliver Kullmann composed:
As I suggested upthread, http://ultimatebootcd.com/ has an iso you can burn that enables such repairs as well as many others, and hardware tests, and more. It includes Ranish Partition Manager, which can write a new standard MBR (partman /mbr) as well as set the boot flag (interactive operation).
Do you mean "Boot Partition"?
In what regard? There's no mention of it in what you quoted.
That means the tool from the list at http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/. "Boot management" seems a reasonable headline.
At http://www.winimage.com/bootpart.htm it doesn't mention Windows 7, and thus I guess it won't help?
That tool is for manipulating data on a Windows partition, which is not your current problem.
It says, "repair the Windows NT loader boot sector". Anyway, it was just a question.
Anyway, I burned it to DVD, but the laptop can not boot it:
"No bootable device --- insert boot disk and press any key"
OK, so you've proven you can burn an irrelevant iso that won't boot.
Why is ubcd503.iso irrelevant?
Now burn one capable of booting and MBR manipulation. Everything that needs doing now goes into the first disk sector, not into any partitions, something doable by any of my upthread suggestions as well as the Ultimate Boot CD.
As I said, that "Ultimate Boot CD" does not boot. In the FAQ one finds some suggestions about perhaps not using RW-DVD. But I'm far outside of the city here, and have only DVDs.
It may even be possible with the openSUSE boot media, but I never found out what tool if any it provides to write standard MBR code.
where (of course) I enabled booting from CD/DVD (same as with the Suse DVD which still works).
AFAICT, /usr/lib/boot/master-boot-code should have been installed by the openSUSE installer, and available via rescue boot. However writing the whole 512 bytes would overwrite the partition table as well, and it comes with no instructions. I'm guessing it might work from rescue boot thus:
# cd /mnt/usr/lib/boot (or wherever the openSUSE / is mounted) # dd if=master-boot-code of=/dev/sda bs=446 count=1
But so far I've not located confirmation that this would be the correct dd syntax using Google. The actual MBR content in that file isn't even 446 bytes, but more like 403.
Regardless how that would be done, fdisk or cfdisk or parted needs to be opened to set the boot flag on the Win7 boot partition.
I don't have an "install CD" (I don't remember that I ever got such a thing; definitely not with the last two laptops I bought).
WinV & Win7 have tools to create one built into the OS that the (cheap @#$#$@#) system vendors expect you do do yourself instead of spending the $0.50USD to provide one with the machine. Of course, it doesn't do you any good after you've messed up the system or the HD has died.
If you can get your hands on a WinXP installation CD, boot its recovery console and do fixmbr to install generice MBR code: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314058
Or any Vista or Win7 installation DVD: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392
I have Windows 7 on my other laptop, but the opinions in the Internet on whether that can be used or not diverge. But I could create an installation DVD with that, and try what happens.
FWIW, if that laptop was here, here's how I would fix it:
1-boot from DFSee CD or USB stick (which will autorun DFSDOS.EXE)
The BIOS boot menu does only mention hard disk and CD/DVD.
2-F10 (exits DFSee menu system) 3-observe on screen the existing partitioning, to determine where the boot flag needs to go (probably the first partition) 4-startable 1 (set boot flag on partition 1, unset any other boot flags) 5-newmbr 1 (install generic MBR code on first HD) 6-F3 (quit program) 7-reboot into Win7
DFSee is a non-free, cross-platform (executables native to Mac, Linux, DOS, Windows & OS/2) partitioner and more that can be test driven for up to 30 days without purchasing a license. You could boot a Knoppix or other live CD or DVD, download and extract and run the Linux version.
I have now basically given up on dual-boot, and the task would now be just to completely erase the harddisk, and just to install Suse on it. But since the Suse installation doesn't allow changing partitions, it seems not so easy to achieve. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org