Win XP and Win 7 install issue - please help

[Diffs13]

I was running the Release candidate copy of Win 7. When the license ran up, I switched to Xubuntu, trying to be cheap. I couldn't get used to it and was having some issues with my iPod and Rhythm box, so I bit the bullet and bought the Win 7 upgrade. I used an old Dell XP CD to try to install Windows XP. I deleted all the partitions that were used by linux (just kept my NTFS data drive), and tried to install XP. It formatted the runallocated space (~20 gb) and copied over some files, but when it rebooted, all I got was a blinking cursor after the BIOS startup screen. I repeated the process again, but still got the same result. So I put the Win7 upgrade disc in and tried that. I went through the custom install, and it found the drive with XP "installed" on it. It copied some files from the CD and went to reboot. Again I just got a blinking cursor.

So I booted from the CD again and went to the repair install and command prompt and ran:

bootrec /rebuildbcd

It found 0 installations, but said operation completed successfully.

I'm kinda at a loss of what to do at this point. Please advise. I really don't want to lose all the files on my data partition either.

I'm running an s10 w/ 2 gb RAM and a 500gb hd.

[pseudo]

See if this helps?
http://s10lenovo.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4090

I think it may be worth disabling the "splashtop" option in the BIOS first to see if that is your issue - let us know on that thread if it works!

Otherwise just try zeroing out the last sector of the HDD...

Good luck

[Diffs13]

So how do I zero out the last sector?

[pseudo]

dunno... check to see how the guy in the other thread did it... I guess it would be done with a Live USB of a Linux distro and "dd", but I wouldn't know enough to advise, sorry

[Diffs13]

And how can I get rid of the lenovo startup screen to see what the bios is loading?

[Diffs13]

OK I seem to have made a little progress at least.

I d/l gparted and booted off a usb drive. for some reason, my data drive had the flag boot attached to it so i switched it to me windows drive. when I rebooted, I got the following on the screen after the lenovo splash page:

"Broadcom UNDI PXE-2.1 v11.0.14
Copyright (C) 2000-2008 Broadcom Corporation
Copyright (C) 1997-2000 Intel Corporation
All rights reserved.
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting Broadcom PXE ROM.
Operating System Not Found"

I tried reloading windows 7 using the custom install as well as repairing it and all it seemed to do was switch the boot flag back to my data drive.

Any help still??

I'm not sure I want to try using dd in a ubuntu livecd, I don't trust myself to code it correctly.

[pseudo]

Well from that error message I would advise checking your current boot order in the BIOS:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preboot_Execution_Environment

As you can see, PXE is an environment that is used to boot a PC from a server over the network... generally used for thin clients I would have thought. My ethernet chip is a Broadcom one (as yours also seems to be), hence that being mentioned.

While the BIOS splash screen is showing press "F2" until you get into the BIOS options screen, scroll right to the "boot" tab and edit the boot order list to ensure that your HDD is first (or at least below PXE/network/etc...)

Also, did you install Win7 to your "data" partition? Is that why repairing it switches the flag to that partition?