Menu.lst

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BleepingComputer.com > Operating Systems > Linux & Unix

Menu.lst, Well, It's gone!

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EthanH View Member Profile	Mar 24 2008, 08:05 PM Post #1
New Member Group: Members Posts: 3 Joined: 24-March 08 Member No.: 198,582	About a month ago, I had to reinstall Windows XP due to slowness, BSODS and other reasons why people re-install windows. After I reinstalled Windows, Microsoft, asked me to activate windows. So, as I was running a Dell OEM genuine legit version clicked Activate over the internet now. It told me that I must have an incorrect product key. As I hadn't installed anything so had nothing to lose and was in a bit of an anger with Billy Goat, I installed Ubuntu to have a fiddle around. When Ubuntu was installed, I wanted to change the boot order of grub, by editing the menu.lst file. I don't know what the merry hell happened, but somehow my menu.lst file disappeared, leaving me not able to boot a thing. I grabbed my windows CD out booted into recovery and did FIXMBR, which very nicely got me my windows bootability back. I've read guides on the internet on how to reactivate grub, after the windows boot loader, but I need to re-make the menu.lst file and I have no idea whatsoever on how to do that as I'm only a Linux newb. Help would be appreciated! Thanks! BTW, I had the most pointless phone call with M$ to do with activation: "Is your copy of Microsoft Windows XP installed on one, or more computers" <Who'd say more than one? After tapping into the phone a 50 digit number, then getting a 47 digit number back, windows was finally activated.

EthanH View Member Profile	Mar 26 2008, 04:36 PM Post #2
New Member Group: Members Posts: 3 Joined: 24-March 08 Member No.: 198,582	Ok, I sorted it out, used super grub disk. Pretty handy tool!

raw View Member Profile	Mar 26 2008, 09:20 PM Post #3
Bleeping Hacker Group: BC Advisor Posts: 1,880 Joined: 14-April 04 From: Texas Member No.: 151	Perhaps you could share how you solved this issue so if others have a similar problem they will have an answer. -------------------- HOSTFix

EthanH View Member Profile	Mar 30 2008, 06:54 PM Post #4
New Member Group: Members Posts: 3 Joined: 24-March 08 Member No.: 198,582	Hi, here is how I fixed it: I booted to windows, and downloaded Linux Recovery from here. I recovered the menu.lst file on to my FAT formatted flash drive. I then booted to my LiveCD. sudo copied the file from the flash drive to the grub folder. Went back into windows, downloaded the .exe from here. Ran installer, booted to the grub disk, and then fixed the MBR back to grub. I doubt that that was the best way of doing things, but it worked. Also, you can boot ubuntu (or any other GRUB bootable OS) from the windows bootloader, by choosing the grub disk, and booting the OS.

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Time is now: 5th September 2008 - 04:22 AM

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