Fixing mbr for windows xp

So, after having a dual boot scenario with windows xp and windows vista (vista controlling the mbr) I have decided I did not like vista and deleted the parition.

as I have in the past, for removing linux distros using grub/lilo, went into the the repair console on my xp cd. I have tried in the following order:

cd c:
fixboot c:
fixmbr
bootcfg /rebuild

now where the problem is when im rebuilding the boot.ini file with bootcfg /rebuild, the command can not detect a windows installation on my hard drive and tells me to run check disk. I have run:
chkdsk /r
and it has repaired some things (it never told me, it just told me one or more things were repaired)

after running all the commands again above, I still am getting the same problem when rebuilding the boot.ini.

I have tried to install ubuntu and have grub run the mbr (aka dual booting xp and ubuntu), it never detected windows installed (im guessing because there was not a working mbr on the hard drive to suggest windows was there) and I edited the menu.lst file to add an entry that there was a partition with windows installed, and pointed to the partition.

this seemed successful, however when I select the entry for windows, and grub begins to load windows, it hangs telling me it is loading (i left it for about 30 minutes churning at trying to boot windows). so now I am again running the same commands above with no luck....

the only thing i have read that i have not done yet was make sure the xp partition was set to active, Ive never had to do this when uninstalling linux before, so maybe its a vista thing?


any suggestions on what to do before reinstalling xp? (*groan*)

Give me the output from ubuntu of

sudo fdisk -l

and copy and past your /boot/grub/menu.lst in this post.