HI there,

This is what just happened today , after I successfully installed Debian etch and SuSe 10.1 in a harmonical multiboot configuration I decided to let windoze run on my box as well so I made a new FAT32 partition for it etc...

and here is how windoze returned the "favor" of me allowing it to run on my system , That worthless frigging piece of &%*?+(*# ruined my whole HDD at the very moment it booted from it's DVD (it was a backup DVD with a startup version of windoze + norton ghost and a winXP home drive image)

this arrogant insignificant bug-riddled insecure junk OS took a decision based on Bill gates in/famous philosophy "Shall the user be a dumm degenerate and let the OS Do the Thinking process instead" that my partition table/ Master boot record / whatever is corrupted and immediately went into formatting/vandalizing my artistically shaped partitions into post recognizable wreckage.... this whole "decision" was so quick that I missed to read what it printed on the screen before it massacared my HDD , something like "corrupted whatever , starting re-formatting" *sigh*

and what happend next was the discharge of frustration that has been gathered after more than 10 years of microsoft repression and dictarship!
I pulled the DVD out (while it still was chocking my disc) and crushed it into oblivion and till nothing more was left of it other than a hand full of shrimpels , dust and other plastic fragments...

Yes to hell with bloody windoze! I went to install it and in return it killed my HDD !
that's so far all about the gratefulness of Microsoft and it's BS

LOL, you gotta hand it to good old bill eh

Hold on I'm afraid I haven't quite understood your post, plus I assume you were multibooting via lilo or grub setup, and not using the ntldr to boot windows or linux(which can be done). Assuming if you really mean't to say that your MBR was hosed and nothing else, that can be easily remedied by reruning your lilo or grub. I highly doubt that because you had norton ghost boot up on the dvd, that it would do anything, because it would need interaction from the user BEFORE touching your HD.

LOL. Yeah, I know how you feel. I wasn't really attracted to Linux -- I was repulsed by Microsoft.

did this statement came from me?
because that's the exact same case with me! To be honest there alot of things that I hate about linux but that's a different story...

Well , apparently you did indeed misunderstood my post , this post is NOT about booting using lili grub or I dunno what but about the fact that windoze has f***ed up HDD!

you aren't believing? OK , try then to boot from a windoze DVD /cd /startup disk or anything else that has to do with win etc
but be warned ! don't blame me for the outcome

I've booted and installed from various Windows Windows CDs and floppies without them touching any partitions other than the one I wanted to put Windows on.

Everything I've read about dual-booting says put Windows on first, then Linux.

Yeah, it's certainly easier that way. Though it's no more complicated (aside from reinstalling grub or lilo) to do Linux first if you leave an empty partition for windows at the beginning of the first drive.

Windows just has issues with not being on the first partition of the first primary drive. I know i've persuaded it to work in the past before, but I can't remember how...

I get the distinct impression that OP has some issues with Windows.....

In fairness to MS, Windows was not designed or marketed to help you set up dual-boot with Linux. They never advertised that you could do anything but simply install it. The "No options easy for Joe six-pack" approach has worked well for them and their customers.

From another perspective, Linux has the same potential for screwing up your hard drive as does Windows--perhaps even more.

Original poster, welcome to 'that' club. You aren't alone: Windows totally mangled an ENTIRE 80Gb harddrive for me to the point that I had to purchase a brand new one. I gave the old one away, with fair warning as to what happened, and from what I understand the recipient got it to work again using Western Digital's Hard-core disk-drive wiper/zeroer/resetter/un-windozer toolkit.

I was CERTAIN that I last clicked the "System Restore" button before all this happened, but I guess I mistakenly clicked the "Destroy Whole System" button instead

Hang on, sounds like the op used a restore disk used to restore the computer to its manufacturer settings, so I believe its the problem of whoever built your machine HP, Dell, etc not MS

Which version of windows did you use?

You shouldn't install loader in MBR. if MBR is non-standart, half of Disc partitioning utilities won't work. Also, wiping loader away from MBR isn't always easy.

You should instead install loader (GRUB/LILO) into beginning of linux partition, and make Linux partition active (the Windows partition should be primary and visible). Of course, you must be sure that it within the boundary where system can boot that partition. If you have a WinXP, you can add dual-booting in its menu too. To do this you should copy first 512 bytes of linux partition into file "linux.bin", and then add following line to a C:\boot.ini:
and that's it. After that, no matter which system partition is currently active (Linux or Windows) you'll have an ability to switch between both systems at startup as many times as you want. Of course, You'll have to update linux.bin file every time when you change grub/lilo configuration.

The DVD you used probably has a "rescue mode" activated by default.

P.S. smashing something when a problem arise can turn into a bad habit.