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Please help, screwed up mbr and cannot boot


CompCrasher86
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So I had vista home premium on my new dell laptop. I installed Acronis disk director suit w/ boot selector and shrunk my main partition to allow for OSX space, and proceeded to install OSX dualboot. After OSX install, I got a b0 error. Put in Acronis boot cd and re-activated disk selector. In disk selector, I can click on OSX but it will only give HFS+ error. If I click on vista, it will only bring me to some dell diagnostics thing.

 

My idea is that dell put some diagnostics programs in a separate partition and now I cannot get into Windows or Apple, only some stupid dell diagnostics. I have tried flagging the windows partition as active, but it looks like the drive letters were re-arranged so now the Dell diagnositics is C, Windows is D, and OSX is E.

 

There is also a recovery partition with a full backup of the factory condition, as setup by dell. At this point I just need my vista back, I will try OSX again next weekend. Please help I need to get back on my laptop!

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I worked on it a bit an I am farther than before. Turns out I was installing OSX with a GUID partition table and not mbr so I fixed that up. Now OSX is hanging during boot on "NTFS volume name RECOVERY, version 3.1." RECOVERY is a self-explanatory name, it is the recovery partition that dell placed Vista's re-install information on as they do not provide a disk. Why is it hanging and how can I get past. I should mention I am using Kalyway 10.5.1 and my specs are in my sig

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it starts up now, but only in safe boot mode. Also, I am installing kexts for my video and wireless, but it is not loading the kexts nor do I see them where they should be (I used kext helper). Maybe safe boot mode doesnt work well with Kext helper. Anyways, I need to be able to boot without -x, please help

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yes well unfortunately the laptop came with an re-installation partition on the hard drive and no DVD, stupid Dell trying to save money. You can re-install vista by pressing F8 on windows start up but oh wait, I can't get that far. I tried to backup the partition to a DVD but it is too big and apparently not bootable. I need to find a way to repair Windows Vista's boot sequence by hand...

 

I have tried booting from the recovery partition, says theres no boot manager. If I boot from the main Vista partition, it just cycles back to the bios in a neverending loop. I can boot into OSX now, but only in safe mode. I installed kexts for my wireless and display, but LEopard will not load them, I have a feeling it has something to do with being in safe boot mode. I think that maybe Acronis Disk Director screwed up my windows boot manager.

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