install from recovery dvd

helow,

situation: my notebook f3tc came up with vista. i decided to install xp, and formated whole disk. now there is one disk: c.

how to perform recovery from recovery dvd, because i want to have my vista back ;/

thanks for help in advance

 

the main problem i can't figure out how to start recovery from my recovery dvd ;/

 

Boot into BIOS (press F2 at the ASUS splashscreen) select your first boot device to be the CD/DVD drive.

Insert DVD, restart.

OR:

Insert DVD, restart, press ESC once at the ASUS splashscreen. Wait for the popup menu of boot devices to appear, select CD/DVD drive.

 

after these steps i only see the blinking dash. no more actions...

 

or it have to be so and i need to wait?

 

Right. You have a problem where the XP changed the master boot record to something Vista no longer likes.

You need to do a FDISK /MBR from a DOS bootable disk.

Download FreeDOS from here: http://www.freedos.org/freedos/files/ burn the ISO to a CD, boot from it, and issue FDISK C: /MBR (I believe) or FDISK /MBR (I don't remember exactly which).

Then try to install Vista with recovery DVD.

If this doesn't work, post back.

Also, I recommend you use a two-or-more partitions setup. See here for what I recommend:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=81741#sec:preinst

 

witch one to download?

[ ] fdbasecd.7z 10-Sep-2006 02:03 5.7M
[ ] fdbasecd.iso 04-Sep-2006 04:22 7.9M
[ ] fdbasecd.md5 04-Sep-2006 04:19 47
[ ] fdbasews.7z 10-Sep-2006 02:20 28M
[ ] fdbasews.iso 04-Sep-2006 15:40 49M
[ ] fdbasews.md5 04-Sep-2006 15:21 47
[ ] fdfullcd.7z 10-Sep-2006 03:33 130M
[ ] fdfullcd.iso 04-Sep-2006 18:41 153M
[ ] fdfullcd.md5 04-Sep-2006 17:47 47
[ ] fdfullws.7z 10-Sep-2006 05:35 217M
[ ] fdfullws.iso 04-Sep-2006 20:21 241M
[ ] fdfullws.md5 04-Sep-2006 18:56 47

 

i downloaded fdbasecd.iso, and trying to execute fdisk/mbr i get no action

x:\fdisk/mbr

x:\fdisk\mbr
Bad command line or fielname

 

i forget to mention that hard disk is NTFS format.

 

Format it to FAT32 first such that FreeDOS sees it.

Also, be aware that the FDISK utility is in the FREEDOS subdirectory, so, you need to:

Boot from CD
A:> CD FREEDOS
A:FREEDOS> FDISK C:/MBR
or
A:FREEDOS> FDISK /MBR

You can format to FAT32 using FDISK (I hope). Just start it with no command line options, and follow the yellow brick road... uh, menus, that is.

Edit: Please ignore the Swap partition thing in my partition guide, you don't need to do that. Also increase the size of the system partition to 30-40GB for Vista. (if you wish to use it).

 

format c:/

and i [get error 2]

 

DOS doesn't see any C: if it's NTFS.

You need to format it with something else. Try FDISK, if that doesn't offer the option to format FAT32, then you will need to boot a Linux distro like Knoppix and use QTParted.

But first, try the FDISK /MBR without formatting. Access FDISK using the procedure (CD FREEDOS) that I outlined in my previous post.

 

i tried fdisk /mbr with formating and without, no good news.. no action is taken

 

you step by step metod, because i cant figure out how to solve this problem

i dowloaded FreeDOS, booted from it, tried all fdisk / mbr, and no action is taken. when i insert recovery disk and try to boot it, i still see blinking dash.

also i treid to FIXMBR using xp cd, but it also doesn.t gave any results.

 

You mean the fdisk /mbr is not working, or it's doing its thing but you have the same problem? If the latter:

As a last resort, you could rewrite the partition table altogether. I'm unsure unfortunately if that affects the MBR -- but I suspect it should.

You can make a new partition table using the cfdisk utility from Linux (text mode) or the qtParted utility from Linux (graphical).

You can download a live Linux distribution and burn it on a CD. Good live distros are Knoppix and Slax -- just google for them.

 

when i type fdisk /mbr from bootable FREEDOS it just add new line.:

a:>\fdisk /mbr
a:>\

If i install xp, then another vista (not from recovery), and then try to install recovery vista, will it work?

 

i don't know if that sequence will work, you could try...

Probably the FDISK is working, I don't exactly remember how its user interface behaves; however it is likely that it will ask you for confirmation before writing the MBR.

fixmbr from an XP install won't solve anything if the problem is related to the XP MBR, because probably fixmbr writes the MBR using the XP "format" which Vista doesn't like.

Let us check once more:

Did you do all these things:
1. Format the partition to FAT32 such that FreeDOS sees it properly as C:
2. Issue FDISK /MBR and FDISK C:/MBR from the FreeDOS live CD root directory.
3. Issue FDISK /MBR and FDISK C:/MBR from the FreeDOS live CD FREEDOS subdirectory.

As I explained, usually the FDISK utility is under the FREEDOS subdir and it's not always on the path.

 

the file is possibly corrupt. the file header checksum does not match the computed checksum

what does it mean?

 

Well it means that the file is corrupt. I don't know what file it's talking about...

FDISK is working properly by what I see in your screenshots. So your problem is not related to the master boot record, at least not in a way that FDISK can fix it.

Ok, let's go even more basic with this thing.

2.Let's try to rewrite the BIOS. If there is a newer version than what you have on support.asus.com ,download it and write it. Otherwise, download the same version and overwrite the current BIOS. Then, reset to defaults. Try to boot the Vista recovery DVD.

Here are instructions to rewrite BIOS using the EasyFlash utility (I'm not sure your laptop has one; if it doesn't then you'll need to use a DOS-based utility, I think it's called AFLASH, also downloadable.

1. Download BIOS.
2. Unzip into the root folder on a flash drive.
3. Insert flash drive.
4. Reboot, press F2 to go into BIOS, navigate to "Start Easy Flash Utility" or a similar name. Select this option.
5. At the ensuing explorer-like navigation screen, navigate to the flash drive and select the unzipped BIOS file.
6. Wait until BIOS is written. The computer will reboot itself.
7. Go into BIOS and select "Reset to Defaults"; either User or Manufacturer defaults.
8. Navigate around BIOS and select options the way you like them (boot device order etc.)

This should take care of the problem, if it's BIOS-related.

3.Otherwise, try to rewrite the partition table as well, using qtParted as described in an earlier post.

If neither of these things work... I am quite out of ideas. 4.The only other thing that comes to my mind is swapping the HDD and trying to install on another HDD. In that way, you can at least eliminate the HDD as the source of the problem (or just the opposite, establish with certainty that it actually is the culprit).

Perhaps your Vista recovery disk has just gone bad...

But the blinking cursor suggests that it doesn't boot from it at all... it doesn't even try.

1. Try this as well: go into BIOS disable ALL boot devices except the DVD. Is it still not booting from the DVD?

I've given a lot of suggestions... I've numbered the order in which I would try them.