Let me explain.

The hard disk on my notebook was failing so I took it back to HP for replacement under guarantee.

The technician cloned all my data onto the new disk,

but when I loaded Partition Magic I was told the partitions were not correct and I needed to delete them all and start again.

The problem was that I had Linux loaded with a Grub bootstrap, which Windows does not recognise,

meaning that I could not reload Windows.

Now I know what you are thinking, I needed a bootable DOS floppy and FDISK /mbr.

The problem is that modern note books do not have floppy drives any more.

The Ulitimate Boot CD was the solution I found.

It is an image file, easily burnt to a cd, and contains all the low level tools you are ever likely to need recover from low level disk problems.

I consider it a must to have in my recovery tool box.

astral,

here is another nice one based on Windows ... http://www.ubcd4win.com/