OK, here's a doozy:

Kernel corruption, partition destruction, reinstallation failure, total data loss, possible cancer and the loss of nuclear keys - just because I wanted the history buttons on my mouse to work.

I WAS running Win 98 SE and Mandrake 8.2. I tried to install IMWheel 1.0.0pre1 to get my mouse history buttons working. It ran './configure' fine, but when I ran 'make' it said it could not find certain KDE libraries and a lot of other gobbledy-gook that I couldn't understand. Tired of trying to get my mouse fully functional, I rebooted into Win to play a little Black & White.

When I tried to reboot back into Linux (BIOS worked fine) I got the following frightening message:

hda5: bad access: block=2, count=2
end_request: I/O error, dev 03>05 (hda), sector 2
EXT3-fs: unable to read superblock
mount:error 22 mounting ext3 flags Freeing unused kernel memory: 260k freed
Kernel panic: No init found. Try passing init = option to kernel

I tried loading up in failsafe but failsafe failed to be safe.

No problem, I thought, I'll just reinstall the whole thing. I ran DrakX via Mandrake's installation CDs and received the following messages (the bad grammer is MandrakeSoft's fault, not mine):

I can't read your partition table, it's too corrupt for me
I can try to go on blanking bad partitions (ALL DATA will be lost). The other solution is to disallow DrakX to modify the partition table. (the error is ask_before_blanking:extended partitions: bad magic number.
)

Do you agree to loose all the partitions?

( I clicked on [YES] )

An error occurred:

ask_before_blanking:extended partition: bad magic number

( I clicked on [OK] which brought me back to the original partition error message. This time a clicked on [NO] )

Choose the sizes:
Root partition size in MB [ slider ]
Swap partition size in MB [ slider ]

( I clicked [OK] )

Creating and formatting file /lnx4win/linuxsys.img

---

At this point the computer freezes. I waited a good twenty minutes to see if it was just a slow process but absolutely nothing happens.

Disgusted, I ran the HP System Recovery program from CD. I reformatted everything hoping to wipe out the partition altogether. Win98 SE now runs fine but the 'D' mount was not removed. I again tried formatting the Linux partition, this time from Win, and Win thinks that the formatting is successful. Nonetheless, when I reboot the system, I get the same BIOS options to run Win or Linux, and Linux causes the same problems mentioned above.

FUBAR, man, FUBAR. The guy or gal that can fix this should be covered with garlands and bronzed. Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks. A LOT.

Hwo about some platinum? run from windows dos prompt
fdisk /mbr to wipe your mbr so you won't have GRUB/LILO prompt which OS to boot, then put your Mandy install CD1 reboot - make sure you have enabled boot from CDROM in BIOS, boot off Mandy CD, and choose upgrade, it should install LILO/GRUB again and configure it, then when installation complete try booting to Mandy, if it throws an error, then prepare to loose your linux data, I know it is horrible but I can't see any other way to fix it - reinstall Mandy from scratch.But if all your inporatant data is on separate partition, then during install don't format this partition just tell Mandy the mount point.

I appreciate the help.

I lost all my data but at least I can reinstall Mandrake into a previously empty partition. I've spent the last few hours getting the damn thing running again. Does anyone have an idea how this happened and what's wrong with IMWheel?