need an mbr fix

i'm trying to reinstall my windows vista os. thankfully i backed up all my files using linux cd to an external drive, when all my files were back up i decided to format the partition. unfortunately only later did i realize that i formatted the mbr. i tried using fixmbr and fix boot using my old win xp cd but that didn't work. i have no experience fixing an mbr problem, but since my files are fine i figured i don't have much to lose. any advice?

(also wondering if there's any way to use lilo or grub or some other boot manager to boot windows instead of i guess the "standard" mbr?)

 

Sure you could use Grub, Grub4DOS or other boot managers to boot Windows but your easiest option, assuming you have a Vista installation disk rather than a recovery disk is to run the Vista installation again but this time allowing the setup to format the disk. That will fix it.

 

thx, formatting w/ the install disk fix the problem