Index of /log/2006/Dec

A new OV Chipkaart system has been introduced in Amsterdam this year, and it will be available in all of the Netherlands in a few years. The concept is generally OK: no more counting of strips on a strippenkaart or buying train tickets; just transfer some money to the card and go (there is the thing where the card issuer can track who went where, and when, but I trust that will be resolved in time).

But there's a usability problem with the gates: it's not immediately obvious where you should wave your card (especially if you're left-handed). The gates seem to have sensors on both sides, but the one on the left is actually the one on the right for the next gate. I've only used the system for the first time today, but I've already opened the wrong gate twice, requiring me to run around to the right gate. Luckily it wasn't too busy..

A few days ago, I tried restoring my laptop to its original factory state by running the recovery CDs that it came shipped with. This mostly worked fine, but after the recovery Windows wouldn't boot properly, and the laptop would freeze with only the word GRUB on its screen.

A few people are going to say "Well, install Ubuntu then", but that's not the point here. The point is restoring the system properly, so it can boot Windows again. I agree that this is actually a bug in the recovery software, but the same thing happens when you delete your Linux partitions and re-grow your Windows partition (which is what some people want, after trying a distribution for a while).

First, you have to get the system to boot Windows. To do this, you need a bootable CD image with GRUB on it. It can be a tiny CD image, with only GRUB on it (probably the smallest CD you'll ever burn :))
You can create one like this:

$ mkdir -p iso/boot/grub
$ cp /usr/lib/grub/i386-pc/stage2_eltorito iso/boot/grub
$ mkisofs -R -b boot/grub/stage2_eltorito -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -o grub.iso iso

When you boot that CD, GRUB will start up and give you its shell. From this shell you can start Windows like this (change '(hd0,0)' to something else if your Windows installation isn't on /dev/hda1, see the GRUB manual for more on that):

> root (hd0,0)
> chainloader +1
> boot

Windows should now start. It might ask you to complete some steps of the OEM installation (entering your time zone and username, for example), and then reboot. Just re-enter the GRUB stuff to re-start Windows.

Once Windows is done starting, you have to find the I386 installation directory, either on the installation CD, or on C:\I386 as it was on my laptop, and install the Recovery Console by running C:\I386\WINNT32.EXE /cmdcons.

After doing this, you should reboot the system again (using the GRUB trick) and choose the Recovery Console option from the menu that appears. You will get a very limited shell, where you can type 'fixmbr' to fix the MBR on your boot drive, clearing the GRUB bit and allowing you to start the sytem. To do so, remove the GRUB CD from your drive, and type EXIT at the console.

You should now have a properly booting Windows system, without a hanging piece of GRUB.