[SueMock]

Son in law borrowed my Dell D600 laptop, I know it is old but I use it for machine embroidery downloads, anyway he installed Ubunto w/o my permission. From what I understand it wiped by Professional Windows XP. I have lost the original CDs but do have a GOOD owned copy of Office XP Small Business with only 1 prior use. I tried to "fix" as was suggested by another forum when booted from CD i was told to type in fixmbr, unfortunately I ignored the warning, went ahead and typed in exit and now I get the message Error loading operating system. No matter what I do even if I go in to the F12 and boot from cd with the cd in the drive I still get Error loading operating system. Can I do anything else, or have I completely messed it up and it needs to go to a repair station? I am not worried about stuff on the computer, I have all my designs on jump drive, but I can't get any new ones or modify the ones I have. Any suggestions. I am only moderately computer savy. Thanks,.

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First of all, hello SueMock and welcome to Geeks to Go.

Unfortinatly it seems as if your son in law has completely wiped Windows XP from the system. The only way to get back to windows would be to re-install Windows, however, as you do not have a copy of Windows you won't be able to do that.

You may read some places that you should be able to recover Windows XP from the "grub". Those places are just dead wrong, because if Windows was still on your laptop the "grub" would recognize it and give you an option to boot from either Ubuntu or Windows XP.

However, there is some light in this little issue. You could get your son in law to reinstall Ubuntu onto your system for you. It's not Windows, but you will be able to browse the web and download the machine embroidery's that you use it for until you can afford to buy a copy of Windows XP.

-JJ Styles.

[ItsJJStyles]

First of all, hello SueMock and welcome to Geeks to Go.

Unfortinatly it seems as if your son in law has completely wiped Windows XP from the system. The only way to get back to windows would be to re-install Windows, however, as you do not have a copy of Windows you won't be able to do that.

You may read some places that you should be able to recover Windows XP from the "grub". Those places are just dead wrong, because if Windows was still on your laptop the "grub" would recognize it and give you an option to boot from either Ubuntu or Windows XP.

However, there is some light in this little issue. You could get your son in law to reinstall Ubuntu onto your system for you. It's not Windows, but you will be able to browse the web and download the machine embroidery's that you use it for until you can afford to buy a copy of Windows XP.

-JJ Styles.

[Dan's The Man]

First of all, hello SueMock and welcome to Geeks to Go.

Unfortinatly it seems as if your son in law has completely wiped Windows XP from the system. The only way to get back to windows would be to re-install Windows, however, as you do not have a copy of Windows you won't be able to do that.

You may read some places that you should be able to recover Windows XP from the "grub". Those places are just dead wrong, because if Windows was still on your laptop the "grub" would recognize it and give you an option to boot from either Ubuntu or Windows XP.

However, there is some light in this little issue. You could get your son in law to reinstall Ubuntu onto your system for you. It's not Windows, but you will be able to browse the web and download the machine embroidery's that you use it for until you can afford to buy a copy of Windows XP.

-JJ Styles.

Or, if he still has the Windows XP license (as is seen standard on the bottom of the laptop), he can reinstall Windows XP (if he doesn't have a disc, then he can pay someone at a computer store to do it for him) and use the same license. That should work and is legal

[SueMock]

Thank you.

[Jayman01]

If he just tried (and failed) to fix the MBR, shouldn't he still have Ubuntu on his machine? Re-install Grub2, copy old MBR onto existing one, and he should then be able to boot into Ubuntu? Just a suggestion, reprimand me if I'm wrong.

[SueMock]

Thanks, daughter came and got the laptop and son in law will reinstall ubuntu and we will work it from there.

[123Runner]

If you still want XP on the unit and you have the key (usually on the bottom), you can borrow a CD of the same type and use that.