Where is my drive?

Ok, so I got mbldr going, rebooted, and everything worked great.

I went into Disk Management, from Computer Management on XP, formatted the Linux Partition to NTFS (a shame, but I was happy it worked), gave it a drive letter and migrated a bunch of files over there. Everything was working great.

Until I rebooted and the drive went away. Ok, Don't Panic, but WHERE IS MY DRIVE?

I went into Disk Management again, went to give the partition a drive letter -- and couldn't.

Don't Panic. Don't Panic.......

After some research and a couple of really uneasy days wondering if my backups REALLY had all of my files.....

I realized that when I ran mbldr, I had checked (or it had defaulted -- not really sure) a checkbox that said "Hide all other Primary Partitions." Well, that should be easy enough to fix, right?

Wrong.

.....Disk Management won't "Unhide" a Partition. Seriously, Windows is pathetic.

Anyways, after some research, I got ahold of EASEUS (I tried the free version), and "unhid" the Partition.

Amazingly enough, it mapped to the drive I wanted again, and we're back in business.

Sweet. Problem solved......for today.

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Grub Scrub -- Replacing a GRUB Boot Loader

I had installed Linux (Ubuntu, Christian Edition) as a dual boot on my laptop at work. I wasn't really "supposed to" but hey, I'm a Developer, right?

However, I've been running short on hard drive space lately. I'd say that it's because of my huge folder full of MP3's, but I'm not supposed to have that on my work machine, either (at least I do legally own them all).

When I initially wiped the partition that Linux was on, I lost the GRUB boot loader that had been installed. I had to re-install Linux to be able to boot Windows. For quite a while, I left it that way because I just didn't care enough to fix it. I researched, and it looked like the only way to fix this was to use the Windows Repair/Rescue disc to fix the boot loader. Having had to do a Windows rescue before, I was not looking forward to the process. Also, I was going to have to actually find the disc.....whew, way too much work.

And then a couple of days ago, it hit me "Duh. Load a different Boot Loader," So, I went in search of one and found one. Master Boot Loader (mbldr) was just the ticket. It let me back up my old boot settings to a file, then create a new boot loader. It let me specify the order that the partitions would boot, so that I can now actually boot straight to Windows. It even let me name the OS that was loading. I couldn't resist and renamed "Windows XP" to "This Machine will Self-Destruct in 5 Seconds." Heehee.

Now I can format the old Linux partition as just another NTFS drive (pathetic, I know) and boot only to Windows XP. It's an absolute shame to take Linux off, but this is my work machine, and Linux isn't really supposed to be on it. Besides, I needed space for all of the personal files that aren't supposed to be on my machine. :)

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