Windows Won't Boot

[kvarnerexpress 0]

Ever since I reinstalled Windows a few days ago, I've kept the installation disk in my CD drive. Last night, I removed it thinking that I finally had a stable installation. When I booted this morning, I got a "non-system disk" error. I rebooted several times just to see if it was a fluke, but I got the error every time. Then, on a hunch, I put my installation CD back in and Windows booted without complaint. May I ask why the f*ck Windows will only boot with the installation disk in the CD drive? I have never heard of that type of situation in my entire life. Also, when it did finally, boot, basically everying in Windows had been cleared. The color scheme, folder options, desktop background, etc, had reverted back to thier default settings for a fresh installation. Everything on my desktop or in my username/application data directorys had been wiped, and most of the programs I installed had revered back to their default installation settings. It was like I had just installed Windows or something. (I've been facing problems ever since I installed Linux a few days ago, and I've simply done a couple "repairs" of Windows whenever I have a problem, but now I figure I should just wipe the slate clean and reinstall everything. )Anyway, anyone ever even heard of this? And is it possible all my documents were simply moved to a backup folder somewhere? It's not a lot of critical data, but it does have several dozen bookmarks from the past few days.__________________

[Klass 0]

Quick suggestion, check your bios and make sure that it is set to boot from the Hard Drive. Sounds like you only have boot from CD rom enabled, and have Hard Drive disabled.

[xboxrulz 0]

I have Linux and Windows together, never had the prob. Must be Windows being weird and corrupted its own partition.xboxrulz

[RGPHNX 0]

Hi kvarnerexpress, sorry to hear about ur problem..unfortunately.. u didn't give enough info re: your system partitioning & program install locations to be more specific..but..some of the possibilities are..> CD bios boot config. problem ( like Klass said)> Linux / windoze incompatability/ conflict problem re: bad dual boot setup config. > boot sector virus ( remote posibility)> hardware problempost back with more info.. & maybe we can help to sort it out.Hope This Helps RGPHNX

[Klass 0]

If the MBR is infected, you will need to repair it before you can even reinstall.

The simplest way to repair or re-create MBR is to run Microsoft's standard utility called FDISK with a parameter /MBR, like

A:\> FDISK.EXE /MBR

FDISK is a standard utility included in MS-DOS, Windows 95, 98, ME.

If you have Windows NT / 2000 / XP, you can boot from startup floppy disks or CD-ROM, choose repair option during setup, and run Recovery Console. When you are logged on, you can run FIXMBR command to fix MBR.

Also you can use third party MBR recovery software or if you've created MBR backup, restore it from there (Active@ Partition Recovery has such capabilities).

Taken from: http://www.ntfs.com/mbr-damaged.htm