Re: [SOLVED] Re: [gentoo-user] selecting boot(active?) partition

[Mick]

On Tuesday 10 July 2007 10:09, pat wrote:
> On Wed, 4 Jul 2007 23:17:50 +0100, Mick wrote
>
> > On Wednesday 04 July 2007 08:51, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> > > Hello pat,
> > >
> > > > Problem is that when there're any non dos/windows partitions the boot
> > > > from recovery partition failed. So, I need to set recovery partition
> > > > bootable and remove all other partitions including /boot with GRUB
> > > > configuration - and when the /boot is removed then there's not
> > > > possible to use GRUB, because of the grub.conf, and that's why I need
> > > > to set recovery partition bootable without GRUB.
> > >
> > > Set the partition to be bootable in cfdisk, before removing the Linux
> > > partitions.
> >
> > fdisk, cfdisk, etc. will all set the bootable flag.  The question is
> > why do you need to remove a)grub, b)the /boot partition?  Is your
> > Windows recovery partition script expecting Windows to be the first
> > partition on the disk and you have moved it since installation?
> >
> > Perhaps next time you'll use partimage with Gentoo to create a back
> > up image of your Windows partition and so you will be able to
> > restore it within 40 minutes or so, depending on the speed of your
> > machine.
>
> Well, the recovery process requires whole disk space and "clear" MBR. Yes,
> right now I've 'dd'ed fresh windows installation and next reinstall should
> be really fast - expect 15 minutes instead of the whole day ;-)
>
> Some information what I've used to remove GRUB from MBR. In windows (don't
> beat me) there are tools 'fixmbr' and 'fixboot' and Ive used them.
>
> Probably last question: When I've tried to set the recovery partition
> 'active' in fdisk, the system still boots from the GRUB and not from the
> 'active' partition ... I think I've did it wrong, did I?

fixmbr will replace GRUB's boot code in the mbr with ntldr's (WinXP).  fixboot 
will replace the partition boot sector code with WinXP's.  You'll need to run 
the former on the drive and the latter on the partition in which the WinXP 
installation existed.  Not sure if you would need to run fixboot on your 
recovery partition, but I don't know how your 'recovery partition' works.  
Does it contain a complete image of your WinXP partition?  Usually, the 
conventional WinXP recovery partition only contains certain libs & 
configuration files, not a complete installation.  

> Thanks to all for help.

You're welcome.
-- 
Regards,
Mick