VAIO desktop has WinXP on internal hard drive. External USB hard drive bay held a second blank hard drive. Installed ubuntu to the USB hard drive. The result is that booting from the internal drive no longer runs windows. Instead I get something like (GRUB loading.. error, [hangs forever]) I assume this is an Ubuntu message. I cannot boot from the USB drive, period, it seems. I have a VAIO restore cd (format & reinstall is the only option) and the ubuntu cd. After booting from the ubuntu cd, I see my internal drive looks the same to me. Windows looks intact. I want to repair the windows boot instructions on my internal drive. There must be a way to do this by replacing a few files like autoexec or something. Alternatively, I want write access to my usb drive so I can backup the internal drive and use the VAIO recovery disk. Booting from ubuntu cd gives me read only access to the usb drive. Summary: Help me repair WinXP so that when the computer boots from the internal drive, it runs windows. To make these changes, I will boot from the ubuntu cd. or Recommend a boot disk I can download online that will allow me write access to both drives. I will backup my internal drive, and then use the VAIO recovery software.

You normally would use the XP cd to boot to the repair feature. Then use fdisk /MBR to fix it. Any newer fdisk for MS would do it. Some repair type of disks have it. Might be able to use ranish or other. I read it wrong and answer it wrong too. So get off my case you peanut.

I always find threads where people fix their own problems and then don't say how they did. Here's a run through, in order, of information I came across that helped me fix the computer. It was so fast and simple. I'm relieved. I made a boot cd with winxp recovery console, ran fixmbr, and ignored the "nonstandard mbr" error. 1 http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions... 2 http://answers.google.com/answers/t... 3 http://www.tweakxp.com/article36941... [link to working mirror is at bottom of the web page] 4 http://www.jsifaq.com/SF/Tips/Tip.a...