hi, i recently just installed mandrake 9.1 on a seperate hardrive than my winxp drive. i needed to take the hardrive out that had mandrake on it, so i did and now when i start up my computer before it goes to the windows loading screen i get about half a screen full of "99 99 99 99" is there anyway to solve this?

i recently ran into the same problem.
being the linux newbie as i am...i didn't want to go throught the trouble of fixing any config files or what not.

so i did the unthinkable...
a fresh re-install of linux.

its not much help...but thats how i got mines running.
btw...you can try the rescue function on the bootdisk...didn't work for me...but worth a try.

The reason for the "99 99 99" is because your lilo header (on your MBR) cannot find the remainder of the boot code (because the hdd is no longer there).
I don't know if this will be of any help as I'm not familiar with the XP MBR and I believe it's different from prior versions of Win. The following works with versions up to 2000:
check to see if there is a "fdisk" utility with XP, boot to a command prompt and try "fdisk /MBR". Make sure you have a rescue disk, etc as I cannot guarantee that this won't make matters worse - Microsoft has a tendency to include punishment for stray sheep in every new version of Win.

The utility in XP is called fixmbr. Boot the XP install CD and run repair mode to use command.

If you have a win98 CD or emergency boot floppy disk boot to dos mode and run
fdisk /mbr