L
Lensman
As the old saying goes, 'Too soon old, too late smart'.
I decided to load Linux Mint 5 onto one of my spare drives. The install went fine until I realized that the OS had no provision for installing GRUB (boot loader) onto the drive that Mint was on and it instead decided to overwrite the MBR on my Windows boot drive. Of course, upon re-boot, GRUB came up with an error and refused to boot the OS. OK, I thought, I'll just fix the MBR through my Vista install disk. Wrong. It refused to fix the MBR both from the GUI and the command line. Alright, said I, I'll use an XP repair. No cigar.
At this point I am getting a bit tense (OK, freaked out, works) and I go rummaging through my CD pile looking for a DOS boot disk. On the second disk I find, the title reads, 'Vista 64 Recovery Image C:'. Suddenly I remember that Brink had recommended Macrium backup software, that I had duly downloaded and then imaged my C: drive only two days before. Much to my delight, when I ran the restore disk, it offered to restore my C: drive and the MBR. It worked like a charm!
So, from this adventure I learned that Linux has nothing that I want; Brink has my eternal thanks for his excellent recommendations; these forums are a valuable commodity; you are never too old to do stupid things; and sometimes curiosity kills the cat, but Macrium can bring it back.
I decided to load Linux Mint 5 onto one of my spare drives. The install went fine until I realized that the OS had no provision for installing GRUB (boot loader) onto the drive that Mint was on and it instead decided to overwrite the MBR on my Windows boot drive. Of course, upon re-boot, GRUB came up with an error and refused to boot the OS. OK, I thought, I'll just fix the MBR through my Vista install disk. Wrong. It refused to fix the MBR both from the GUI and the command line. Alright, said I, I'll use an XP repair. No cigar.
At this point I am getting a bit tense (OK, freaked out, works) and I go rummaging through my CD pile looking for a DOS boot disk. On the second disk I find, the title reads, 'Vista 64 Recovery Image C:'. Suddenly I remember that Brink had recommended Macrium backup software, that I had duly downloaded and then imaged my C: drive only two days before. Much to my delight, when I ran the restore disk, it offered to restore my C: drive and the MBR. It worked like a charm!
So, from this adventure I learned that Linux has nothing that I want; Brink has my eternal thanks for his excellent recommendations; these forums are a valuable commodity; you are never too old to do stupid things; and sometimes curiosity kills the cat, but Macrium can bring it back.
