How do I remove Grub and restore the XP bootloader without access to XP setup/recovery media?

Question

I have a Lenovo T430, with Windows XP (32-bit). I tried to remove Ubuntu from my HDD by deleting the partitions in Disk Management. Now, when I restart my computer, I get the following message:

grub rescue>

I understand that I must use a Windows recovery CD to use Windows again, but I do not have one. How do I regain access to XP?

Solution

Download Hiren's BootCD and boot it from a CD/USB. It contains many MBR tools (full list here), including MBR Fix that you can use as follows:

MbrFix /drive 0 fixmbr

(I assume you have only a single HDD/SSD in your laptop and so its drive number is 0 (zero).)

Comments

[Steven McC.]

First off, thanks for the advice. I know that I am not logged in, but I am Steve McC, I have three hard drives: 10 gb d:65 gb and C: 390 gb, which is where the partition was originally installed. So which one do you think that it would be.

[Karan]

Looks to me like you have 3 partitions on a single 500 GB physical drive (would be difficult if not impossible to fit 3 hard drives inside a laptop!) Use the command as shown above and be sure to accept the answer if it worked. If it didn't (though I don't see why it wouldn't), post any error messages displayed.