Gateway recovery disk not repairing mbr

First, sorry for punctuation and grammar. I am writing this on my phone holding my daughter rocking in a chair.

I have a gateway P79 series gaming laptop. It came with no recovery disks, so I had to burn my own when it asked me in Windows. I have Windows 7 premium 64. I for a while chose to use linux instead, and erased my windows partition, and the mbr got converted to grub for Ubuntu.

I am now choosing to go back to Windows 7 with the repair disks. Even though I burned them myself through Windows, they are branded Gateway in the interface. I did the complete recovery option in the disk, but it did not remove the grub from linux in the mbr and replace it with windows bootloader. I am now doing a repair, but it is not like the ones I have seen on the web. I don't get to choose partitions, or select anything. I don't have the option to repair really, just do a restore and backup my personal folders while it does that. I suspect this wont repair the mbr either. I have no other computer to plug this internal laptop hd into. Any ideas on how I can fix the mbr without a command prompt? Like a boot program I can put on my thumb drive to fix it? Thanks.

All Linux code must be deleted.As you have had linux on the HD you need do a Clean all & full format.
Disk - Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command
Partition or Volume - Delete
Partition or Volume - Create New
Partition - Mark as Active

Do a full clean & full format in command prompt.
1) Boot DVD & Press Shift+F10 (for command prompt)
DISKPART : At PC Startup

2) Boot DVD, & Command Prompt at Startup
(for command prompt)

Type in command line
DISKPART
LIST DISK
SELECT DISK # (win HD)
CLEAN ALL
CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
SELECT PARTITION 1
ACTIVE
FORMAT fs=NTFS
ASSIGN
EXIT
EXIT

SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation
You will need a Startup Repair Disk:
System Repair Disc - Create

When you have cleaned & formated the HD, use your Gateway Recovery Disks.

First, I want to say thank you to all the timely replies, unfortunately I can get none of those to work. I have attached a screenshot of what my recovery disk screen looks like when I first boot up. I don't know when I am supposed to try Shift+f11 but I did it at all stages of loading and no luck. This is why I hate proprietary software with each computer company. All other replies are also obsolete, although helpful no doubt to all others except me with these retarded recovery disks. Is there any other way? Thanks again.

P.S. I apologize for the photo quality. Had to take a pic. But you get the point, it is a weird Gateway Recovery disk, not just vanilla Windows disks.

According to this there is a recovery partition and you can do a factory restore this way.
How to Factory Restore a Laptop | eHow.com
I'd be tempted to backup all data and deactivate any paid software. Then do a factory restore.
If you do have a factory restore/recovery partition a "Clean all" will likely wipe it.

Shadowjk said:

That is the point that Shift+f11 is meant to take you to but you found another way okay this is where you Reinstall your OS to when you first brought it

You can do 2 options

Restore Everything - Erase and Install

Restore OS - Partly Reinstall

^^ Retains user Data - Documents, Pictures etc...

If you have backed up all your data then I would seriously suggest to do the First option

   Warning

Whatever option you choose all your programs will be wiped off and will require you to reinstall them

Josh

As stated in first post, I have tried both of these, and while the restore successfully completed, I was still unable to reboot computer, hence why I am here asking how to fix. The MBR was still trying to boot linux after the Windows recovery.

theog said:

All Linux code must be deleted.As you have had linux on the HD you need do a Clean all & full format.
Disk - Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command
Partition or Volume - Delete
Partition or Volume - Create New
Partition - Mark as Active

Do a full clean & full format in command prompt.
1) Boot DVD & Press Shift+F10 (for command prompt)
DISKPART : At PC Startup

2) Boot DVD, & Command Prompt at Startup
(for command prompt)

Type in command line
DISKPART
LIST DISK
SELECT DISK # (win HD)
CLEAN ALL
CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
SELECT PARTITION 1
ACTIVE
FORMAT fs=NTFS
ASSIGN
EXIT
EXIT

SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation
You will need a Startup Repair Disk:
System Repair Disc - Create

When you have cleaned & formated the HD, use your Gateway Recovery Disks.

This worked, but not how you wanted me to do it. I still had no way of going into the command prompt with these disks. I had to boot into my linux liveCD, and use the "shred" command in terminal to physically wipe the disk. That worked, and after another recovery, I am talking to you on my fresh Windows install now. Thank you.

theog said:

You will need a Startup Repair Disk:
System Repair Disc - Create

When you have cleaned & formated the HD, use your Gateway Recovery Disks.

Bare Foot Kid said:

Hello blankenshipma, welcome to Seven Forums!


Use Option Two of this tutorial at the link below to create a bootable Windows repair disk.

How to Create a Windows 7 System Repair Disc

Then when the wipe completes exit twice and remove the repair disk and reboot to the Gateway restore disks and reinstall the factory setup and be sure to post back with any further questions you may have and to keep us informed.

Did you?

theog said:

theog said:

You will need a Startup Repair Disk:
System Repair Disc - Create

When you have cleaned & formated the HD, use your Gateway Recovery Disks.

Bare Foot Kid said:

Hello blankenshipma, welcome to Seven Forums!


Use Option Two of this tutorial at the link below to create a bootable Windows repair disk.

How to Create a Windows 7 System Repair Disc

Then when the wipe completes exit twice and remove the repair disk and reboot to the Gateway restore disks and reinstall the factory setup and be sure to post back with any further questions you may have and to keep us informed.

Did you?

I only did what you said, but had to do it a different way. You gave me the idea though, and it worked. I had to wipe HD first, then reinstall. I just couldn't get a command prompt from the disks i made and found out why. When I first got my computer, Gateway software prompted me to make recovery disks through THEIR software, not the normal Windows way. Their software gave me no option to get to a command prompt, not with Shift f10 or anything. So I used my linux live cd, ran their command prompt and wiped the drive from there, then reinstalled Windows and it worked. Same thing, different method. Thanks for your help.