MBR Lost?

[Tom56]

I have a hard drive that originally had Windows XP and Mandrake 9.2 installed. While I can't quite remember what I did the computer will not boot up. I get the letter 'L' and then a lot of '99's on the xcreen and then it just stops. I went in through Ulitimate Boot CD and was able to see Windows still on a partion, no swap file and it looks like Mandrake is gone. There are two partions at the very front of the drive but I cannot determine what is on them. Any thoughts here on how I can get this drive up and operational again? Thanks.

[not important]

Fix MBR: http://askbobrankin.com/fix_mbr.html

[glc]

If there's no critical info on it, I'd zero fill it.

[kilgoretrout]

I went in through Ulitimate Boot CD and was able to see Windows still on a partion, no swap file and it looks like Mandrake is gone.

The "L" on the screen is from the linux bootloader that came with mandrake, Lilo. If mandrake is wiped from it's partition, the lilo configuration file is also gone which is why it won't boot. The link from "not important" will show you how to restore your windows bootloader so you can boot to windows. In essence, this procedure will overwrite your non-functioning lilo bootloader with the windows bootloader. That will probably work fine but if it doesn't, grab your data off your windows drive that you want to save using a linux livecd and zero fill as glc suggested.

[mikeL]

Last time I had to run fixboot, and fixmbr on a drive I had to run three times, before I could boot into windows.

[cmillar6]

I had this same problem when I uninstalled Linux from my harddrive. The Ultimate Boot CD has several utilities that will repair the MBR for you, worked for me.