Yeah, I've searched, btw, and the current threads about this don't answer my question (I think).

Here's the situation:


* Dell Dimension 4600
* I've got a 120GB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM Serial-ATA drive running Windows XP.
* I just installed an old 30.7 GB Western Digital WD307AA IDE drive. It's the Primary Master drive. I've just (Successfully?) installed Mandrake 10.0 on this drive. I selected that the bootmanager install on /dev/hda (the 30GB drive, rather than hde, which is the 120GB SATA).

Now, I rebooted, and it went into Windows like it normally does. So I rebooted, and went into Dell's Boot Menu at the beginning. I selected "IDE Hard Drive", and I got the ill-famed half screen of "L 99 99 99 99 99...99".

Now I've gathered that I should boot from the CD1 of Mandrake10, F1, and then type Rescue. However:

* I'm not real willing to overwrite the MBR with LILO.
* I can't afford for XP to be trashed...yet.

How should I proceed?

i can't solve it, but i can suggest installing lilo. it'll most likely add the windows partition to it's list.

also if it doesn't you could always get by with a windows boot floppy for now. try this article: http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;305595

also, i suppose you could try starting to install windows, then instead selecting repair console. then you could type fixmbr or maybe fixboot. dunno which one might actually fix it.

The above solution does work. I had the same thing happen to me!!!!!