I have recently installed Mandrake 8.1 onto my Win 2K machine. I initally attempted to get the windows boot loader to recognize both OS's and give me a choice. That didn't work, so I attempted to install LILO. I had some troubles from that point on.
I can get into Mandrake now, but I can't get into windows anymore. I have tried booting with a Windows Boot disk. I get to the C: drive, but can't get a file listing.
When I do a dir (at the dos prompt that the boot disk gets me to), it says that the file is not found... it then says the volume name is w2k_linux, which is actually the name of my last partition, not the first one where the W2k OS is located. I have tried using the W2K installation disk to repair the installation, but it can't seem to find any windows files on the HD. It asked for an emergency disk, but I forgot to create one before I installed LILO. - Mistake

When I load up Linux, I can mount all the HD partitions but the first one where the Windows OS resides. Fdisk has the first partition (hda1) listed as an NTFS filesystem, the second one is an extended partition (LBA), since I have one 40 gig HD with six partitions. The rest of the filesystems match what I expect. When I try to mount the first partition (mount -t ntfs /dev/hda1), it returns that it is the wrong fs type, a bad option, or bad superblock on /dev/hda1.

If I had to guess, I have messed up the MBR somehow, and now it can only get to Linux. Is there a way to repair that so I can get back to windows? I have thought of a couple things to try, but I am not sure enough to forge off on my own, given my track record.

I could:
1) Start over, formatting that first partition and re-installing windows. This is not terrible, since I was using a separate partition for my documents and files, and that is still mountable, and fine. the one issue is that I do have my tax files for this year on there, and I would like to at least get those off. Except for that and the hassle of starting over from scratch, this isn't a bad option in my view.
2) I could use a rescue disk from a different w2k machine. Anyone know if that disk is unique to a machine or just general files?
3) Regenerate the MBR somehow... I am not sure about how to do this.
4) Make LILO recognize W2K. The lilo.conf file entry for W2K is:

other=/dev/hda1
label=win2k
table=/dev/hda

I am not sure what could be missing. The lilo install was somewhat cryptic. I couldn't even choose between loading it on the MBR or the first linux partition. I am afraid that I have narfed up the HD, but I know the windows stuff is still there.

I have another computer, and may resort to moving the HD to that one, and using some software to try and recover the HD.

Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Glenn

If you have an old windows/dos boot disk, boot with that and type
Failing that, I think you can boot from the WinXP CD and run
I can't remember which exactly it is. That'll restore the MBR so you can boot Windows.

HTH
Baldrick

I'm not sure if Mandrake 8.1 will read Win 2k files but it should at least see them and using Konqueror be able to move them from your Win C drive to your Win D drive, you might have to log in as the root user.

It looks like a case of format C, reload Windows etc etc and then reload Lilo by using the Mandrake installation disk as a rescue disk.

hope this helps
floppy

I have tried mounting the partition where the windows OS is located, and it seems that something is wrong there, and it can't access it. I haven't tried to get to the same partition in X, but I don't expect that will work much better.
It is interesting that I can mount all the other partitions on the drive (NTFS or FAT).. just not that first one. Are there any LINUX packages that can read a damaged partition and extract files from it? There are such programs for Windows. This is an NTFS partition, but Linux should be able to read those. I think the MBR is messed up... The really funny thing is that LINUX can recognize all the partitions that I have on there. It can't read the first one, but it knows it is NTFS formatted. When I boot from the Win2K disk, it can't recognize the first partition at all. It declares it unpartitioned space. Strange...

Download the Penguin Sleuth kit

http://luge.cc.emory.edu/psl.html

and run the CD
its a knoppix with special recovery tools
must get it myself

If this helps
drop the mod unSpawn a note to say thanks
cos thats where I got it from
at
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...threadid=45261
post 5
unspawn moderates the security section

hope this helps
floppy

What happened when you did the fdisk /mbr?

Baldrick

Well, I just want to say thanks to all the contributions to my question.

Baldrick, I tried fdisk /mbr, and even used my Win2K disk to boot from and then tried the FIXMBR routine there. Neither had any effect, but there was also a FIXBOOT option on that disk. After some trepidation and worry, I tried that one. It checked the disk, gave a message that said that something was screwed up, checked the first partition, realized it was NTFS, then re-wrote the boot sector. I rebooted, and EUREKA! It booted to Windows. Now, obviously, I can't get to linux through LILO, but that is an issue to tackle at another time.

Floppy, thanks for the tip on the KNOPPIX version with the extra disk features. I still think I will try to get ahold of that one, since it could come in VERY handy.

Thanks again, problem solved, and fortunately I didn't have to reformat or reinstall... everything is back to the way I left it. Now I just have to get LINUX and W2K to coexist on the HD happily.

Thanks!