Need to Restore MBR

Question

I was trying to install a modified version of XP using Boot Camp. After partitioning the drive, I couldn't get it to install. In an act of desperation, I followed some ill-advised "support" on another forum, and ended up manually deleting the Boot Camp partition as well as the smaller partition and trying to install it that way. It didn't work and Boot Camp couldn't erase the partition because I messed with it.
I booted up from my install disk and ran Disk Utility to bring my hard drive back to 1 partition and restored my data from my Time Machine backup. However, trying to use Boot Camp again, I still got "The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition" error.
Also, I found there was no option to boot from my hard drive from the "Startup Disk" menu. Only Network Startup and the install disk (when it's inserted) are available as startup options. I can only boot from Macintosh HD after holding the option key at startup. I tried booting from my install disk and used Disk Utility to repair permissions and repair the disk. That didn't solve the problem.
After doing some research I figured out I might have a problem with my master boot record (mbr). Sure enough, after running rEFIt, a partition inspector, I received the following report (I have no idea what to do from here):
* Report for internal hard disk *
Current GPT partition table:
No GPT partition table present!
Current MBR partition table:
# A Start LBA End LBA Type
1 63 625142447 af Mac OS X HFS+
MBR contents:
Boot Code: None
Partition at LBA 63:
Boot Code: None
File System: HFS Extended (HFS+)
Listed in MBR as partition 1, type af Mac OS X HFS+
Message was edited by: .Ant

Answer 1

##
Report for internal hard disk *
Current GPT partition table:
No GPT partition table present!
Current MBR partition table:
# A Start LBA End LBA Type
1 63 625142447 af Mac OS X HFS+
MBR contents:
Boot Code: None
Partition at LBA 63:
Boot Code: None
File System: HFS Extended (HFS+)
Listed in MBR as partition 1, type af Mac OS X HFS+
If I'm reading this correctly it says you have only one partition and it is a hfs+ partition.
That of course will be your Leo partition starting at sector 63.
Sector 1-63 is reserved for the 200MB EFI partition on intel macs.
if you restored your drive to one partition, then you will of course, have no multiple startup
option, simply because it is not needed, there is only one bootable partition.
You can verify this by typing this command at the terminal.app prompt:
diskutil list
Here is a sample output from my machine:
/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUIDpartitionscheme *465.8 Gi disk1
1: EFI 200.0 Mi disk1s1
2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 151.1 Gi disk1s2
3: Apple_HFS Mac Data2 314.3 Gi disk1s3
/dev/disk2
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUIDpartitionscheme *232.9 Gi disk2
1: EFI 200.0 Mi disk2s1
2: Apple_HFS OSX 150.0 Gi disk2s4
3: Apple_HFS Leopard 50.4 Gi disk2s3
4: Microsoft Basic Data XP 32.0 Gi disk2s2
Please note that the EFI partition is always first. It holds data about the any MBR partitions that
exist and passes it on to apple's firmware. If no MBR partition exists it is in fact empty.
With the current GUID setup on Apple machines, there can only be one MBR partition. Of course
hfs+ file systems do not qualify and can never become the MBR partition. The MBR partition can
be fat12 or 16, fat32 or NTFS file systems.
You can in fact have multiple hfs+ partitions (data or bootable) on the same drive, but only one
partition may contain a bootable master boot record.
The MBR partition must be located as the last partition on the drive.
It can be multi boot with a boot manager such as refit or Microsoft's NTLDR.
When boot camp creates the Microsoft Basic File System it places a generic Master Boot Record
in the MBR partition as a placeholder. Windows creates its own boot record during installation.
The information linking the master boot record to the Apple firmware is written to the EFI partition
The Firmware retrieves the information used to boot MBR based operating systems from there.
You can manually create a bootable MBR partition with disk utility as long as you know the above
rules. It must be the last partition on the drive and must be formatted with the correct file system
by Disk Utility or a third party software such as ipartition (which allows an advanced user many
more options than Disk Utility). Whatever software is used to do the job, it must be capable of
creating the MBR partition, writing a placeholder MBR and correctly recording the information in
the EFI partition.
I hope this gives you the insight you need to properly prepare your windows installation.
Kj