Master Boot Record Fiasco

The Error

I restarted my computer for the first time in a couple weeks and it would not boot.  I was faced with a screen which said:

Grub Loading Stage 1.5

Error 22

 

A nice helpful error. 

Now I was faced with a problem and I needed to figure out how to solve this. My first step was to restart again, since that ALWAYS fixes problems.  Sadly, after several more restarts I still was stuck at that screen.  Then it hits me as to what is going on.

 

One Week Earlier

I had Ubuntu 7.04 dual-booting with Windows XP on my computer.  I was running low on hard drive space so I decided

to get rid of the Ubuntu partition.  That worked fine and then I go on using my computer not realizing that by removing that partition, the Grub application that was in the master boot record would now fail to run.

 

The Solution

I looked the error up online and found out that Error 22 means that Grub failed to find a partition.  Which makes sense since I deleted the partition it was looking for.  The simplest solution to this problem would be to put a Windows XP disc in and go to the recovery console. From there you can easily overwrite the master boot record with the default windows one.  One problem though, I couldn't find my XP disc.  Now I know, I work for Microsoft I could just get one the next day.  I thought about that but I didn't want to wait, I was determined to fix the problem.  The only solutionI could think of to re-install Ubuntu from a Live CD which would let me repartition, and fix the Grub boot record.

 

In The End

After all of that I am able to boot into my computer once more.  I also learned my lesson, Ubuntu does not like when I delete it :) 

For now I will stick with having my computer dual-boot Windows and Ubuntu.