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"Boot failed" please help!!


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STH STH is offline
Computer Specs
Junior Member with 1 posts.
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Experience: Advanced
16-Jan-2007, 02:02 AM #1
"Boot failed" please help!!
Okay, so this is the situation:
Forgive me if this is the incorrect forum, it seemed the best choice so here goes. I'm somewhat of a noob, but I recently decided to get into the Linux scene because I'm attracted to the whole free-software, open-source phenomenon so I downloaded a Live-CD copy of DNS-N (Damn Small Linux - Not). I configured the BIOS to boot from CD, and it worked like a charm, no problem. I was excited to be greeted for the first time by Tux. Anyway, as you probably know, DSL gives you the capability to install to a USB drive which is what I did. So I shut down the computer, went back into the BIOS and configured it to load from the USB drive. When I restarted, it said boot failed. I pressed enter and it said insert disc, so I put the DSL cd back in thinking I could figure out what went wrong. I couldn't. So I decided to go look around in the forums again to see if I could glean any info, so I restart the computer, enter the BIOS, restore all of the default settings, save, exit, reboot and ..... "Boot failed". Yep. Now I can't get back in Windows. So this is the bottom line: I need to get back into Windows (XP). My computer didn't come with a Windows boot disc, I can't access the recovery from the BIOS screen, I don't have a floppy drive....what do I do guys? I've done a recovery before. My computer has a special Windows XP partition that it accesses it from but I can't seem to get the BIOS to recognize it anymore even though it's listed in the device priority menu. FYI, the BIOS is Phoenix AwardBIOS running on a Compaq Presario, 2.4 Ghz with 1024 MB RAM. I'm tearin' my hear out people! Somebody, PLEASE!!!
CouchMaster's Avatar
Distinguished Member with 3,353 posts.
 
Join Date: May 2003
Location: West Texas
Experience: n00b
16-Jan-2007, 07:10 AM #2
You might be able to use the DSL live CD to fix the MBR
Read these posts - http://forums.techguy.org/unix-linux...hlight=fix+mbr
saikee's Avatar
Distinguished Member with 2,542 posts.
 
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Newcastle
Experience: A Linux user gone nuts on multi-boot
18-Jan-2007, 01:56 PM #3
Task B1 or B2 of the last link of my signature refers.
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