He has a problem

[RodneyMargis]

my friend was dual booting lycoris linux and xp home on a hp pavilion. on the newer pavilions they have there own recovery partiton instead of a cd. well he tried using that partion to get rid of linux and jsut reinstall windows. well know when he boots up is says
grub:\
and it alows you to type commmands but he cant get into windows.

i think he might have to zero fill the harddrive and instrall 98 do yall have any suggestions

[andyms18a]

try typeing cd c:\win and hit enter or if windows was on the d drive type cd d:\win and tell us the results

[RodneyMargis]

okay i will go to his house otday and try that out

[mairving]

Still trying to figure out what cd c:\win is going to do. More than likely it will say that the directory doesn't exist.

To fix, I would stick a Windows boot disk in the floppy drive, boot to it. Then type at the A:\ prompt fdisk /mbr , reboot and see if it finds Windows.

[GaryRouth]

If mairving's idea for removing grub (the Linux bootloader program) with fdisk doesn't get Windows loading again, you can boot from the XP cd & choose setup & choose repair to run a repair installation. This should get your XP bootloader going again. [bootloaders are in that 1st section of your hard drive, the mbr "Master Boot Record"]
____
I don't have an XP system around here to look at right now (though I do have a bunch of Win2000's). . . and I'm thinking that andy was thinking about Win9x & cd\windows then the command win to start Windows 9x. (Wouldn't work with NT/2000/XP)
____
Best of luck
. . . Gary

[RodneyMargis]

he doesnt have an xp cd thats what i was saying his windows is onj a seperate partitiotn.
thnaks for teh replies i will tlel yall what happenes

[Sam Havard]

hi everybody im the one with the problem and the c: and d: dont work it just says unreconized command.

[GaryRouth]

Hi Sam

If you are seeing the error message "unrecognized command" - is it from a prompt that looks like

grub:\

If so, the Linux bootloader ("grub") is still loading in when you start your computer. You'll need to clear that from the mbr, like mairving mentioned. If you haven't got a Windows bootdisk handy, you can use one from http://www.bootdisk.com

Before you boot with a bootdisk, whether floppy or cd, you'll need to enter your bios setup & select that drive as the 1st Boot Device. When your computer is starting, look for a message "Press the DEL (or F1, F2, F10, etc) key to enter Setup", and press the key mentioned in your banner. Look for a menu item called "1st Boot Device" or "Boot Order" or something similiar. Then chose "exit saving changes" - with your bootdisk in the drive. At that point, you should be able to "start computer with cd-rom support", and type the fdisk/mbr command from the A: prompt.

Does that hp really have no Recovery Disk set at all? Just a partition? What do they figure if a hard disk fails? I also hope they don't need a specialized mbr for their system partition, which might be proprietary and hidden.

If the Pavilion is recent, it should be under warranty, & you might want to give them a call just to hear it from the fellas who made it.
. . . Gary

[RodneyMargis]

hsi computer is recent but it has done htings to it to void the warranty so he cant call htem

[GaryRouth]

Possibly. But I imagine that a call might be OK - just a "looking for advice" call. True, they probably wouldn't change out parts if there are warranty exceptions, but I'd hope they'd help out with a software question.

How did he access the Hp partition the first time? from with Windows? or from a pressing a key-combination at startup? If from a key-combination at startup - try it again & see if you can clear the Linux bootloader from there.
. . . Gary

[Sam Havard]

thanks and ill try those things and give u a yell, sam