I'm in trouble
 

Ok this is what i did....

I formatted my linux partition so i had no o/s except windows, the format went ok, but i went to merge an empty partition with my Linux when, and while doing this an error occured (typical windows) i was using partion magic pro.....and now when i boot my computer it says this:

Well along the lines of that, my guess it means NT Loader....

well since having no o/s i whipped out my Madnrake 8.2 cd's and installed it, thats what i'm on now, still not able to get onto my windows partition, Mandrake not even recongnizing it, and when i booted my windows recovery disk it also said something along these lines 'Windows Recovery disk does not recognise a valid Fat Or Fat32 disk bla bla bla'

If anyone can help, it would be much apprectiated, i know its a windows mainly problem...

BUT MY PARENTS WILL KILL ME!!!!

ok i got an update here people, i finally mounted windows, BUT all the directories and files are GIBBERISH (weird lagnuage) its all like ??p23ked and ?38kdfj.qpx etc etc. And also when i open a directory no files show up, i am sure my files have not been deleted, i just can't access them....all i need to do is back up a couple of files...then i can re-format, i don't want to result in formatting now......

huh huh, murder sucks. Sorry, I am sure you are very stressed.

Ok, so, I am sort of lost. What's your hard drive setup? How did you get to mount your winbloze drive? How was it setup? How are you opening "directories" command line or gui?

I guess first things first, the drive setup and partition scheme. Post the output of:
fdisk -l (FDISK -L lowercase)

And what version of winbloze do you run? Filesystem?

Cool

ummm i have one hardrive, 20gb, 1 linux partition, 1 fat32 partition, 1 boot partition (for linux) and one unallocated space partiiton.

i'm opening from gui and command line, well i tried command, im usin gui now, running XP fat32

i shall try fdisk option and post the output.....

Cool, remember you must be root.

That is the output of fdisk -l

note the partition magic recovery as the 'system' for my main windows partition, hmmm i am not sure what this is, i did use partition magic but all i know is an error occured and thats it, restarted, then it said 'NTLDR is missing....

Garry

Ok i have edited ONE thing using fdisk (linux) i changed the windows partiion i.d from the Partition Magic one to a fat32 one, but it has not changed anything.....still cannot access my files....

Hey Garry, I thought you got beaten already :)

Well, whatever the part magic is, it's the bootable partition. You might wanna see if you can try reinstalling lilo into the first sector of your linux partition. Then change that to be the bootable partition. So...

Open up lilo.conf
Locate the line that says 'boot = /dev/hdx' ...

Wait, do you have a raid setup? Sorry buddy, I don't know jack about RAID's. If not, what is '/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1'? My fdisk -l would return something like:

/dev/hda1 blah blah blah

Not:
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1

Anyway, I will continue, and you can just try to replace the values with yours.

So you have located the "boot" line, it should be near the top. Change that to show your linux hard disk/partition.

Now close lilo, and run /sbin/lilo -v

Ok, now you need to change the bootable partition. man fdisk should guide you through that relatively well. If not, try fdisk --help or fdisk -h or a variant.

Sorry if this is completely no help because I don't understand RAID at all. :(

I'll see what I can find for ya though ;)

hmmmm i don't have a raid setup but, cause i have no idea about raid either, well i thought i didn't have a raid, no, i'm positive i don't, i thought '/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1' looked weird too....hmmmm all i need to do is get into my windows partion and back up my work, or even better BOOT into windows, i don't mind formatting, i just need to back up some valuable stuff...

I shouldn't trust a windows program like Partition again, especially that it can be threatening to my data, i backed SOME stuff up not everything......

I had a search on 'NTLDR Missing' on google-linux and i came across some forums, most not helping me, but i found this program that i am suppose put on my windows boot disk and run it and it tells me to change some number for windows to boot, they say NTLDR errors occur when the drives or partions get mixed up...sorry for the long post :D...i'll try fix this darn thing.....

I really don't think it'll be very easy restoring winbloze right now. I'd try more towards mounting the drive and accessing the files via linux for backup. But the strange character problem baffles me. How did you mount the drive?

Cool

Here's a method of last resort:
First,make a Linux bootdisk if you dont have one.
Go to www.bootdisk.com and download a Win98 2nd.Ed bootdisk(unless you have one already) and run the fdisk/MBR utility.As you say XP is formatted as fat32 you should be able to get XP back this way.You are going to bork Lilo-hence the need for the Linux bootdisk.But getting lilo back afterwards should'nt be a huge prob.
I know this doesnt sound like it would work,but I've been told by more than one person that it will, IF XP is fat32.
Like I said,a method of last resort.
lynch

Another thought...

Didn't part magic pro come with a rescue utility? Or when you installed it, didn't it have you make rescue disks? Those might come in handy about now. If you didn't make the disks, or don't have the ones that come with it, you could get them from someone you know either by:
putting your copy of part magic on there, and then creating the recovery disks; or
if they already have it, going that route.

It's an idea anyway...

Cool

hmm i didn't make those disks, and i don't have the partion magic cd either, and thanks lynch, but that was the first thing i tried, thanks anyway, yeh your right MasterC i'm not concerned about getting winbloze to boot, i juss need to make my backups, but yeh the werid charcters, and the files not showing up in the directories, i mounted it with if i remmber.....

Australian right? Australians just use regular english characters right? Just checking to make sure you don't have some font package or character package installed that might lead to "wierd" characters.

After you mount it, and go in there in the command line:
cd /mnt/windows

And type:
ls
Does it still produce "wierd" characters? Or what?