xp: restoring ntfs to mbr

[pcandpc]

Hello?

I have a dual boot system between XP Home

and Linux.

I want to restore NTFS to the MBR of the drive

where XP resides.

I tried fixboot and fixmbr in the recovery console

during the Repair stage from the install CD but

none was successful.

By the way, I can't no longer access the XP drive

at all even in the recovery console.

Is this a bad sign, or do I still have some hope?

Can someone help me out on this?

Thanks.

Edited November 14, 2005 by pcandpc

[Shark007]

MBR and NTFS are not related to each other in any way shape or form.

That being said, the MBR of a harddrive can be restored

(no matter what file system is on the drive, eg. NTFS, FAT32, FAT16, etc)

with a microsoft DOS program from days past called FDISK.EXE

This command ONLY functions on the 1st drive recognized by the BIOS on the system.

Usually, this is the C drive.

You will need a DOS boot diskette with fdisk.exe on it.

you will NOT 'see' an NTFS file system with DOS.

This doesnt matter, because the MBR has a backup hardcoded on the harddrive

accessed by the fdisk command utility.

This will NOT affect any files on the harddrive, and once again, what file system resides

on the drive has nothing to do with the MBR.

The command to rewrite the MBR to default is fdisk.exe /MBR

shark

[pcandpc]

Hi Shark007,

Thanks for your comments.

I've made a foolish mistake and my

entire system was blown off.

I need to rebuild all over again.