I have Linux SuSE on drive H I believe, and windows Xp pro on drive C. Windows doesn't work so I want to reformat it. Can I just reformat that partition and reinstall windows, with no harm done to linux? thanks

~rEE

Using your XP installation disk follow prompts to where you are asked to select partition to install to, select C: then when prompted select whether you want NTFS or FAT32 and whether you want full or quick format.

The only partition to be formatted will be the one you selected.

HTH

Mathew

Thanks, i figured as much, but will Linux still be able to boot dual with windows?

Yes, when you install XP it will replace the MBR so you will need to have a boot floppy, or some other medium from which you can boot your Linux install. Once booted, reinstall the boot manager for your Linux OS.

Mathew

Ok thanks, i installed Xp, and if i want SuSE to boot up with it, is there a way to just install grub from the SuSE installation cd? Without screwing up windows?

Oh and i have a Linux boot disk, it was made during the installation, but when i boot off that a command prompt comes up that says:

grub>

and i can put whatever command in, is there something i can do with that?

Have no Idea what the problem is with the boot floppy, if you have a copy of MEPIS, or Knoppix, some other live distro,you can do this;

Boot into the live distro, EG: MEPIS in MEPIS open Mepis Installation Center, Install Grub Bootloader, then open boot, grub, menu.lst (Mepis temp drive) and see if Suse has been added if not add it manualy and save. Also Note what the partition definition is for Suse.

The other way is once you have booted the live distro, open the Suse / partition navigate to /boot/grub/menu.lst and ensure that the partition designation is correct. EG: hdb5 or hdb7. For grub settings, (hd0,0) this being the MBR of hda, C: drive in win speak. You will need to know this for manual config.

I do not know if Suse has a facillity for reinstalling Grub on the disk without doing a full reinstall and be aware that Knoppix uses Lilo boot loader, although it will probably add your Suse install to the menu without a problem.

To do the manual config and or install the bootloader from the live distro you will need to be root.

It is probably possible to install and use the Suse Grub Loader via command line once you have booted from live distro however this is beyond my scope at the moment.

For further assistance with Grub see here: http://www.wbglinks.net/pages/reads/linux/grub.html

Mathew

There is no problem with the boot floppy, it is just a grub recovery disk.

From there you should be able to set the root hard drive and reinstall grub to the master boot record.

before you reformat, read

how do i reinstall grub with this bot floppy an when i do so will it co-operate with Xp?

'nuff said

ok I dont know what you are talking about, I am not reformatting, and what does 'man grub' mean?

Go to a command prompt while you still ahve a working Linux system
and type
at a prompt.
It will give you the instructions for reinstalling grub from your floppy.

see thats the problem, i cant get INTO Linux, because when i reinstalled Xp it had overwritten the MBR, now i need to get the Linux which is still there, to boot.

Oh, I see. Download Knoppix and reinstall lilo if you don't have a boot CD.

I have the SuSE cd, i just want to know if i can use this to reinstall grub (where to install it) and what to do to make it so both windows and Linux will boot. (i am willing to reinstall Linux if that will work better.