Unable to restore MBR using EasyBCD

C

concoran

Member
Hello All,
I need some assistance in replacing GRUB with Vista loader.

I have 4 partitions. Installed XP in first, and Vista in the second. Then installed Fedora in 3rd. Used GRUB to dualboot. The setup works just fine. I have also made a backup of MBR (GRUB, i.e), and have put it into boot.ini on XP partition with the intention of using XP boot loader to boot Linux.

So, in Vista, I insalled EasyBCD, and just went to 'manage bootloader' -> ReInstall MBR -> Write MBR. I didn't get any message saying that MBR was installed. However, upon moving the mouse out of and onto 'write mbr' button, I see a status bar message saying that MBR was successfully re-written.
But when I restart, GRUB is still in MBR, and not Vista Loader. Can someone help me with that?

Thanks in advance.
 
Hi Makaveli213, thanks for the welcome.

Also, thanks for the link. I did follow the second step (using EasyBCD) which was appropriate for me. But it didn't work.
Here's what I did,
1) Booted in XP recovery mode. Did FIXMBR. As expected, the boot loader showed only XP and Linux. But when running EasyBCD diagnostic asked me for 'Windows Vista' partition, but it was NOT visible in XP. So, in Disk Management, I made it active so it became visible and acquired a drive letter. After carrying out that step, MBR got really messed up and I couldn't boot at all.

2) I have misplaced Vista DVD (which is why I am trying to use EasyBCD), so booted the machine in restore mode of XP CD. But then, Vista partition became C and XP became e:. Inspite of trying to install MBR using both FIXBOOT and FIXMBR in two different attempts in both C and E, the machine wouldn't boot. There was no way I could swap the C and E drive letter.

3) Again, rebooted in XP recovery mode, hoping that DISKPART would do some trick. But it didn't help either.

4) Rebooted in Linux rescue mode. Removed the 'boot' flag on Vista partition, and now I can get back into XP's boot menu, and be actually able to boot.

Now the question is, how to reclaim vista (without installer DVD). I hope to find it in a day or two. With DVD, I suspect I may be able to use BOOTREC to restore, but not 100% sure.

Thanks.
 
Thanks again Makaveli213, I was able to recover my Vista partition, and also add XP to it.

One question, though; When I recovered Vista, I had two vista options - 1. Vista, 2. Vista (recovered). I couldn't boot into the first, but can boot into the second. What does the 'recovered' mean? Does it mean the OS is running in some kind of 'safe mode'?
 
No. That just means it "recovered" the correct boot info. Use EasyBCD to rename the titles of the entries and remove the one that doesnt work. This will be less confusing for you. That is done under the Change Settings tab.
 
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