First of all my system specs :
Old IBM Thinkpad 390E
- CPU : PII 333MHz
- HD : IBM Dara 12GB
- RAM : 256MB
-- Current Partitions : hda1 which is labelled as / (root partition in Linux), swap partition and then hda5 (or E drive) with FAT32 which holds My Documents folder.

Before you tell me this is the wrong forum to post, hear me out. The reason I have Linux installed is because it was my knight in shining armour.

Here's the story. I am on an old laptop, I have ran Dual boots on this thing before (I know it's not the smartest thing to do, but I want both OS's and I am not that patient to wait for a new pc). I redid my partitions in Win2k Pro (which I had installed already), firstly I made a partition to hold the My Documents folder in FAT32, since this would make the My Docs folder accessible in Linux as well. That was no issue, I cleared space, shifted files around etc. I ended up with a pretty dual boot, win 2k pro and Ubuntu Hoary Hedgehog (don't ask why I went for Ubuntu - I don't have a cd burner).

Because I couldn't get my sound to work in Linux, I decided to remove it. This is where I went very very wrong. I just deleted the partitions blink.gif and thus thereby also deleting the bootloader config file (obviously that was bad - and I saw it AFTER the harm was done)

At some point I was forced to reboot my system, I prayed for it to go well, however it didn't. I got an error 22 from the grub. (Sadly I also had the " great " idea of installing grub in the MBR). Thus my windows and linux were lost. I only had my FAT32 data partition left. So I tried to reinstall Windows. I let it go on, to install on the previous win partition (thus saving the e drive with my docs). It all goes perfect, the files get copied to the HD. But then there comes a point where you need to reboot, into some miniOS where the windows install gets concluded. And that's what doesn't happen of course. I still get the grub error 22.

I installed Ubuntu again because it overwrites the MBR if I let it, but of course now my system is a single linux boot. And I do need windows (more specific Photoshop, Dreamweaver etc Yes, I can use GIMP, but I miss PhotoShop too much)

In all honesty, I don't know how I could possibly fix it. My only comfort is the prospect of a new computer in july or august .

Anyone ANY idea on how to fix it? Mind you, I do not have a cd-burner on this machine.

hey u might need to upgrade the Laptop with sum new generation stuff and install the WInXP Pro

First of all... don't make extremely long quotes. That's a warning coming you way (sorry).. and upgrading this laptop would cost me about gee 600 for a 40GB HD? I am at the max that this MB can take. And as I said before, in july or august I am buying a new machine LOL. Upgrading laptops is more expensive than buying a brand new laptop (I am talking about larger scale upgrades)

Think I can help you...

Seems you need to clean mbr, install win2k and then revert mbr of your linux...

to clean mbr - boot from win2000 cd, choose repair (recovery console or something...) and give command:


and you would get clean mbr, then you can install windows and all you have to do now is revert linux loader... boot from floppy and give command:


to overwrite it into mbr. Now only some config and you are running dual-boot... If you are using grub - I can't help you reverting mbr, since I never used it - I'm stick with LiLo...

Hope this will help you and you would have your full system soon
SeeYa.

Giniu
------------
PS.: Bonkers - moving toward XP isn't good idea - it is still almost same system but works a lot slower than 2k - only thing you get installing XP are some eye-candys and lower performance... so just ask yourself - why?

Thanks Giniu.. I decided to stick with Linux, I finally have my entire system set up as I wanted. So I ain't gonna ruin it now Besides, the plan was to put Linux on this comp when I had the new one. Plans changed slightly. It will be ok. Photoshop was my main reason for wanting Win back... and GIMP is not that bad. Next thing I am working on in Linux is FONTS! Since I do use fonts (M$) for graphics. The linux ones are ok too, but I tend to use some specials

Well, I had XP pro, on a 950MHz machine, 40GB HD, 256MB RAM, and it ran slower than this (PII 333MHz) in Win 2k Pro. Even when I get my new machine I will probably install Win 2k Pro again. Unless I get a XP Pro with the system (I refuse to use the Home edition, I've seen it and I hate it). Win 2K Pro is pretty good, the only difference is the eye-candy as Giniu said

This is best decision that can be taken...

As far as I know... Photoshop works great in wine (In standard Wine and CrossOver also...) - you don't need to have windows to work in it... also Linux can use windows ttf fonts almost just like any others. And if you don't want to force systm to use MS ttf - you can convert them (also modyfi if license lets you) with FontForge (Why use fonts created by others? Make your own ) and have all you need at one time at one machine

Ah FontForge Good idea.. creating fonts myself. Yeah I heard PS works good in Wine. Sadly my disc is corrupted (I get an error saying the disc is not there when the install is loading) so I had to give up on PS as well. Thank Goddess for the GIMP LOL.. Only thing that I do hate about the GIMP is that it doesn't support Photoshop brushes, which I loved using. But in time I will learn and make my own brushes LOL.

<goes to get fonts now and fontforge>