EmptyCrate Software. Travel. Stuff.

We previously covered options for backup and recovery on systems with no CDROM drive. I've since moved my netbook to Windows 7 and have come across a few more options.

We recently covered some options for recovery of Windows XP on a netbook. This past week, I uninstalled Linux from my dual boot Ubuntu/Vista HTPC and needed to reformat my master boot record to get Vista booting again.

Fortunately, I did have my Vista install CD available and I was able to use it to boot into the Vista "recovery center," which allowed me to format the master boot record and install the Windows boot loader.

This process only worked with Windows XP at the time this article was written. Use these instructions at your own risk.

Last night I messed up my GRUB boot loader and spent the better part of 4 hours trying to get the Windows Recovery Console booting off of a USB drive on my Acer Aspire One. The goal was the use the Recovery Console to run the tools fixmbr and fixboot to get Windows booting again.

I couldn't find a single simple resource on how to do it, but it is really very simple: