Need some help here

[Ernie S.]

Mods: Feel free to move this to where ever you feel is appropriate. I have 2 identical toshiba laptops (C 655D) one has been a dual boot system that I wanted to use for Karaoke at a bar I own. Kubuntu was no longer needed, so I figured I'd free up some space and deleted the Linux partitions. I messed up and, I think, destroyed the MBR. Win7 disks wouldn't boot it, a Kubuntu live DVD wouldn't boot it Ultimate Boot Disk wouldn't boot it, BUT the hard drive from the other laptop (lets' call it LT2) boots it. I reformatted (NTFS) the whole disk (LT1) with KDE partition manager on a 3rd laptop, installed it in LT2 and installed Win7. It boots LT2, but not LT1.
I'm thinking I should be able to recover from this. LT2 drive has 3 visible partitions. I have written an identical table to LT1 drive, but partimage won't allow me to save a MBR as an image to restore. I seem to only be able to restore a MBR from the machine I'm using. Any ideas would be appreciated. Should I just bite the bullet and buy a new drive? Will a new drive have a preliminary MBR?

[Ernie S.]

I think.... Yeah I know, I shouldn't, I can use dd to copy LT2's drive to LT1 using a live cd. Am I right? Destination drive is 250 gig and LT2 drive is 320 but only about 100 gigs used

[notabug]

If you still have Windows installed and have your Windows install disk, the instructions on this page should get you going.

From my experience, once at the command prompt, I just use the commands "bootrec /fixboot" then "bootrec /fixmbr", then quit the command prompt window and exit from the installer to reboot. You should be able to boot into Windows now.

[Ernie S.]

Thanks, I'll give that a shot after work. I own a bar, so my hours are kind of odd.

[vinnywright]

Mods: Feel free to move this to where ever you feel is appropriate. I have 2 identical toshiba laptops (C 655D) one has been a dual boot system that I wanted to use for Karaoke at a bar I own. Kubuntu was no longer needed, so I figured I'd free up some space and deleted the Linux partitions. I messed up and, I think, destroyed the MBR.

you did not destroy it but removed Grubs config files contaned in the Kubuntu install ,,,,,,,so no options to boot anything .
this could be fixed.

Win7 disks wouldn't boot it, a Kubuntu live DVD wouldn't boot it Ultimate Boot Disk wouldn't boot it, BUT the hard drive from the other laptop (lets' call it LT2) boots it.

are you saying that LT2's windows install will see and boot LT1's windows install if you put LT1's drive in LT2?

I reformatted (NTFS) the whole disk (LT1) with KDE partition manager on a 3rd laptop, installed it in LT2 and installed Win7. It boots LT2, but not LT1.

formating LT1 destroyed all data on it ,,,,,if you then installed win7 to LT1 it should be good ,,,,but I do not know if windows will give you the option to boot more than 1 install ,,,,did you use you BIOS options to select to boot the LT1 disk instead of LT2 ?

I'm thinking I should be able to recover from this. LT2 drive has 3 visible partitions. I have written an identical table to LT1 drive, but partimage won't allow me to save a MBR as an image to restore. I seem to only be able to restore a MBR from the machine I'm using. Any ideas would be appreciated. Should I just bite the bullet and buy a new drive? Will a new drive have a preliminary MBR?

all drives have a MBR once a partition and file system have been put on them.

I think.... Yeah I know, I shouldn't, I can use dd to copy LT2's drive to LT1 using a live cd. Am I right? Destination drive is 250 gig and LT2 drive is 320 but only about 100 gigs used

dd is a disk duplicator ,,,,,,, it will make an exact copy of source to destination.

SO you can not dd a 320GB disk to a 250GB disk ,,,,,,,,,,,they must be the same size or the source must be smaller than the destination and then the destination will think it is the size of the source .

VINNY